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Adrian Mole is growing up! He's now almost fifteen, and determined to get Grade 'A' passes in his 'O' levels, and to stop worrying about the size of his thing.

Following on from the outstanding success of The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole, comes Growing Pains. Again written by Level 9, it is published by Virgin rather than Mosaic, who produced it. The switch was rather sudden, just prior to release, and to avoid delays whilst Mosaic were in the midst of changing their distributors.

I have classified this piece (I hesitate to call it a game) Graphic Fiction rather than Adventure. So what is it doing appearing in The Valley (our adventure game section)? Adventure games are also known by the term 'interactive fiction' and this, The Growing Pains Of Adrian Mole, certainly is.

The text narrative takes the form of entries into the famous Diary, and every date is in there, complete with typical information such as 'Full Moon' and 'Sexagesima Sunday'. Every so often, the 'player' is presented with a choice of three options for Mole, and the choice affects the further course of the narrative, and the score.

Someone has drawn a moustache and scrawled "3,000,000 unemployed" on the headmaster's photo of Thatcher. He summons the school to an assembly, and announces that everyone's hand writing will be tested. Shall Adrian (1) Take the test; (2) Write with his left hand; (3) Stage a protest?

There are random features in the program, so that each time you play any part through, it will vary. The object is for Adrian to impress people, and become as popular as possible with everyone. Your progress towards this goal is automatically displayed every now and again, together with a judgement on Adrian's current status, such as 'Namby Pamby Schoolboy'.

The graphics are somewhat more meaningful than those of the Secret Diary, which seemed to be more a series of montages of associated objects. Here they are well linked in to the current topic under discussion.

The Growing Pains Of Adrian Mole is so full of text that it comes in four parts, all recorded on both sides of the tape. To play through the game, you simply leave the tape in the player, and when prompted, the next part will start loading.

If you are a Mole fan, you will not want to miss this. I found it much funnier than the original Secret Diary.