Note to software publishers: If you wish your company's product to be included, please send only the very latest releases to Bryan Skinner, Software Editor, PCN, 62 Oxford Street, London W1A 2HG; and please don't forget to include prices and a telephone number.

Unusually, the BBC dominated the new releases this week. We'll be carrying a full review of Xanadu Cottage/Ebony Tower, the new releases from Alligata, soon. The pack is a two-adventure game, good value for £7.95, and both games are text only. In Ebony Tower, you seek and destroy a Dragon, while Xanadu Cottage is more mysterious - so much so, in fact, that you have to puzzle out the objective of the adventure for yourself. Xanadu has better descriptions of the locations, while Ebony Tower has a few, if rather simple, sound effects.

Uncle Claude is Alligata's other new BBC game. Its another "them and us" situation, the workers against the bosses confrontation in an arcade-type game. As Micro Micky, you sneak into Uncle Claude's warehouse to get goods shipped to shops before the profit-hungry Uncle Claude can raise prices and jeopardise your job. To do this you must load goods such as cassettes, BBCs, radios and so on (but no QLs) onto the conveyor, fighting off Uncle Claude all the while. There are 12 levels and an extra life every 12,000 points.

The first releases from Braingames, a new company, are Game Quest and Election Strategy for the Commodore 64. Fame Quest is a sort of adventure resembling Automata's Crusoe on the Spectrum (this issue). As a knight in the days of yore, your quest is to gain as much fame and glory as possible. The screen display shows a small map at top left, a castle in a wood and you can wander about these environs via single key presses. There's no text entry as the game is completely menu-driven. You can elect to attack the various people you encounter, though bashing monks or peasants will lose you fame points. Aimed at the newcomer to adventures, this style of board/strategy/adventure game is becoming increasingly popular.

Braingames' other release is bang-up-to-date. You play against the computer or another player. The scene is the US elections and the battle between the Democrats and the Republicans. You can choose to spend part of your budget on promotional activities such as endorsement by a famous figure. At the end of each session the votes are counted, results being shown on national and regional maps. Neither game is particularly exciting or original, but both are competent and if you like that sort of thing will have you coming back for more. Braingames wrote Railboss and High Flyer for the Commodore, and is working on BBC translations. The company is due to release two more games in September 1984 - Castle Fear and Flame Island, and hopes to complete versions of all its games for the Spectrum soon. Castle Fear and Flame Island will be 100 per cent machine code adventures with graphics and 500-word vocabularies. There is also the possibility that Braingames may employ ex-Red Shift programmers, which should bring more excitement to the range.

Romik's Graphics Editor for the Commodore 64 is due for a September 1984 launch, probably at the PCW show. The package looks reasonable on paper at least, though we haven't had a change to give it a good look. There's a character editor with some 25 commands including mirroring horizontally and vertically, horizontal and vertical scrolling, as well as the more usual functions. The screen editor is designed for use for creating pictures for games and other programs. There is also a sprite editor with up to 16 display window images which can be viewed in sequence and transferred to animation memory.

Computer Concepts continues to produce high-quality ROM-based software for the BBC; its latest releases are Printmaster and Caretaker. Printmaster is a printer handler which caters for a fairly wide range of printers including the Epson MX80, FX80 and RX80. The ROM supports screen dumping, and any part of the screen may be dumped to any position on paper in any of four orientations. *TDUMP sends text in any mode to the printer and *FDUMP can be used to dump disk files. Caretaker adds 17 new commands to Basic including a search and replace facility as well as a renumber routine which allows you to move parts of programs within a program. *INSERT lets you splice routine and other lines of code from tape or disk files into a program in RAM. The range adds up to an impressive programmer's utility.

Business System from Hestacrest shows it is possible to use a Spectrum and Microdrives for serious small business applications. Three modules have been released: purchase and sales ledgers, as well as a cash book. A nominal ledger and accounts program are due to complete the suite later this year. Each module can handle 40 batches and 1,000 translations per month and will cost £32.50 each, with discounts for two or more units.

Astro Art "blends accuracy with fantasy in a continuous kaleidoscope of colour", runs on the Spectrum, but quite who'd buy this beats us. It cycles through images of science-fiction type space scenes, but there again it only costs £2.95 and may be suitable for window displays.

Comp-u-Cater joins the handful of cookery programs for micros and offers a solution to the daily domestic problem of what to cook, and what shopping to do. You can select up to six recipes. The makers claim 12,000 combinations are possible from the 200 recipes and 400 ingredients in the database.

The Miditrack software for the Spectrum and BBC comes with an EMR interface for Midi-compatible instruments (Musical Instrument Digital Interface). The Miditrack Composer System allows you to control Midi-equipped instruments from the micro while the Performer allows you to use your micro to simulate the control of an eight track digital tape recorder.