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This is a psuedo real-time D&D game where you start off the adventure at the entrance to the Oracle's Cave. There are four levels to the cave, and as well as a graphic drawing of your current position, there is a map of the Cave permanently on-screen. To succeed in the cave, you need to carry out a quest, collect a certain minimum amount of treasure, and finally vanquish the Oracle before leaving the cave system. And you have to achieve all this within a particular timescale - five game "days".

The game starts with a standard sort of message - "Cave Design in Progress" and then displays you, the hero. You are asked what you want to do, the maximum choices which you have at any time are: move, rest, use an article, explore, help abandon game. When you encounter a monster, it is very nicely drawn and your options are to fight or move.

A chart shows you how you are doing - e.g. what your energy level is, how many wounds if any you have sustained, what objects you are carrying et cetera. Examples of some of the objects which you will find scattered around are weaponry, food, magic rings, a cloak and, of course, treasure.

The packaging states that the average playing time is forty minutes with a maximum of one hour, both of which seem reasonable estimates. Unfortunately, they have more to do with waiting time than with entertaining action. The graphics are interesting to begin with, but soon get wearisome as you see the same old things re-drawn all the time. The program is in BASIC which, obviously, does not help matters, and unfortunately there are one or two bugs still present in the program, such as when I wanted to used an article I was carrying and the program asked "What do you want to use? '', or ''".

I typed in a comma (no, I was not actually carrying one) and the program happily carried on...

Having made those criticisms of the game, I still think it will very much appeal to younger players both of the shortness of playing time, its simplicity of use, and the fact that it should be quite easily modified.