The Commodore operating system GEOS (Graphical Environment Operating System) has a new game, which comes in the form of a 'desk accessory'. Created by Sean Huxter, it's called geoGlyph. It plays in the style of the popular PC title Bejeweled or Zoo Keeper for Nintendo's DS, with the option of saving your progress as well as playing against the clock (or not at all if you can't face the added pressure of it being timed). As many of you will have already guessed, the task is to match up the mixed jewels in a well of at least three or more on the horizontal or vertical plane. This is done by selecting one of the gems and swapping it with another next to it. When a correct match has occurred, the grouping is removed from the play field and more will drop onto the screen ad infinitum until either the timer has run out (if selected) or no matches are available. Then it's game over.

It's available as a digital download, coming as a D64 (1541) disk image and will work from either GEOS 64 or 128, as long as it's version 2.0 or better, but only from 40-columns mode. As a desk accessory, it can be loaded whilst using all of the official applications by Berkley SoftWorks (which later went on to become GeoWorks), and many unofficial programs too, as well as from the Windows-alike environment when the OS is booted. The disk image contains other games written by Sean, including geoMimic, Hazard and geoComix. For more information, head on over to the website at www.huxter.org/geoglyph

Moving onto games that don't require GEOS, Arkanix Labs has released a beta of its forthcoming Crimson Twilight. Said to be in the same vein as the popular Ultima games, this seems to be something to look forward to, especially if you like 2D role-playing games and will want a new challenge. Get this digital download directly from www.arkanixlabs.com/downloads

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After the success of his first professional piece of entertainment software Bip-Boi, published by Cronosoft a few weeks ago, Rob Pearman has released an early preview of a very colourful and stylish game Wingman, which is a multi-directional scrolling platform affair with a huge play area. It currently requires a 128K Sinclair ZX Spectrum, but may find its way onto the 48K machine.

The thinking from Rob currently is for a "simple" collect-'em-up, but as we know even 2D games can be far from simple. To get the emulator snapshot image, point your web-browsing or FTP interface at www.ipear.co.uk/peargames/wing01.zip.

Meanwhile, Jonathan Cauldwell has released a fully-updated version of his Arcade Game Designer (AGD) for the Speccy. According to Jon, version 2.2 has "evolved into a serious piece of kit while remaining simpler to use than Sinclair BASIC". Quite a bold claim indeed.

He continued by stating, "AGD is capable of producing a wide variety of different game styles with a little patience and imagination. What's more, games created with the utility run independently."

So, you should get the chance to release a professional-looking game for the rubber-keyed monolith without needing to learn machine language after all. This mighty application can be had from Jon's website at tinyurl.com/j-cauldwell, which incidentally has a Word document aimed at those who do want to learn Z80 assembly as well.