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"My turn now!" "No, just give me another go!" "Oh, all right but only one..." The Commodore User office hasn't been doing much work since Supersoft's new Stix game for the Commodore 64 arrived. What can be so good as to divert us all from our Great Pursuit and give us near-permanent paralysis of the joystick hand?

"Stix is a bundle of energy that roams the universe destroying all in its path," says the blurb. For the less imaginative, it's just a case of restricting the movement of this bundle of sticks which gyrates viciously and roams around the screen with unpredictable speed.

The cursor is located at the edge of the screen at the beginning of each game and you move it up, down or sideways to form blocks which the stix can't penetrate. When you've completed a block, it miraculously fills with colour. You carry on making blocks until you've filled 75% or more of the screen. Then you start all over again, having collected 100 bonus points for percents above 75.

Sounds easy? If the Stix (they really look nasty as they roam around) touch a line, you're drawing before you've completed a block, you lose one of the three lives and you carry on from the previous block you made. Then there's the two 'primitive particles' which roam the edges of the screen and the lines you've drawn. Bump into one of these characters and you also lose a life. Try getting away from one too. Don't dawdle either, because your energy is steadily creeping away at the top of the screen. It all gets quicker as you carry on.

Stix is an original yet superficially very simple game that is positively addictive. Its use of the C64's colour is brilliant. The blocks you make alternate between different colours and the screen colour changes for each level of play.

The game lets you play cautiously or boldly - either way the Stix will get you in the end. You'll even start creating pretty and colourful patterns when you get more skilled.

We've not lost interest yet although we could do with a heavy-duty joystick - the fun is wearing it out. Unreservedly recommended.