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Gardening and video games don't often find themselves in unison. If we look back some 24 years, there was Llamasoft's Hover Bovver, with the next noticeable release being the infamous Advanced Lawnmower Simulator by Gardensoft, appearing in 1988 thanks to a rather good magazine called Your Sinclair. And, although this game was a simple April Fool's joke, there are many ZX Spectrum fans who have fond memories of it and it has become part of the Speccy's much-loved legacy.

And now Cronosoft, thanks to the talents of one Jonathan Cauldwell, have delved into the crazy world of gardening once again with Quantum Gardening. As he did when he introduced the 8-bit world to action-bingo with his game Loco Bingo, or when he gave Bomberman a novel twist being part fruit-machine simulator in The Fantastic Mr. Fruity, Jonathan adds something new to the well-trodden, traditional two-dimensional platform game - and it's not just the warped plot.

The game starts off with the beginning of the Tulip-growing season. After the lucrative sales of his flying pids, a delicacy in some parts of the known universe, Eadwig Addlethorpe has discovered a way to make even more money via the selling of Tulips - y'see, he's discovered a way to control the weather and believes that he can use it to his advantage to provide the best conditions for the growing season. It is down to the discovery of parallel universes, each harbouring an infinite number of possibilities and outcomes from its own.

The only thing random in each is the weather, or so it would seem. Eadwig has found a way to manipulate conditions though with a simple board game. Two dice fall from the top of the screen and will move a marker around the board once collected, which have a direct effect on the day. Land on a square denoting snails, for instance, and you are having to start again as the flower becomes food for the pesky little blighters.

The rain-cloud square will start the rain falling, which is what you want to start your flower blooming. However, in order to grow, you firstly need to direct the rainfall to the tulip which is usually at the bottom of the screen. This is done by rearranging the trellises accordingly so that as much rain as possible falls into the plantpot.

Your task is hampered in many ways. For instance, the roaming brolotti beans from last year's crop have mutated and sprouted legs and are hell-bent on stopping you. And then, of course, there are the giant bumble bees, which will re-arrange your garden randomly, which usually isn't a good thing. And there is another peril introduced from level sixteen onwards: exploding toilets, that fall from the skies above. What is is about Speccy games and toilets?

Add the board-game elements and you have something which requires an extra bit of concentration. You just try counting six squares on, for example, whilst avoiding one or all of the aforementioned hazards at the same time.

Luckily, each dice can be rolled again by taking out the trellis below it until it reaches the bottom of the screen or a solid platform, and it will take out either the bumble bee or the brolotti bean if it lands them. In between certain levels, you get the chance to add to your score by simple bonus games, such as putting the dice into numeric order or stopping on the highest scoring dice, giving a brief break from the often frantic platformer proceedings.

Quantum Gardening is one of those games that really must be seen to be believed. On the face of it, the ideas seem quite simple, melding several elements together in one fun-packed production, but it's not simple to play by any means.

I have to wonder what Jonathan will come up with next? To play a fresh and innovative game today is something, but to play it on 25-year old technology is quite something else.

Yet again, Cronosoft have delivered the goods with this flower power production.