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Domark, having won an envious reputation for quality software with Eureka! and then having lost it even more quickly in the eyes of many observers (myself included) with Friday the 13th (in which the paucity of the game itself was surpassed only by the vile way Domark chose to promote it) may kick themselves one day for not having exploited instead the works of rather classier exponents of horror, such as the Brothers Grimm.

St Bride's Software seem to be the first to recognise the treasure house of games ideas locked in the literature of the past century, and have in The Snow Queen adapted Hans Christian Andersen's classic children's tale with integrity and care.

Here is to be found the jovial but malevolent hobgoblin, Kay and Gerda, that oddly articulate crow, the prince and the palace, and all the other familiar and fabulous elements of the master storyteller's magical art. The game makes the most of its origins in The Quill, and the authors have, it seems, learnt from their experience of writing The Secret Of St. Brides the importance of unambiguous screen responses and crisp layout. The Snow Queen looks well and plays well; it will soon have you taking to the flowers and chatting to the raven - but watch your step at the inn, and that palace sentry doesn't need a blood-spattered hockey mask to make you know he means business.