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All is peaceful in the land of Abkars but this tranquil mask hides the desperate crisis that now faces the humble people. The rebel god Ramor imprisoned within a conch will break free in nine days to bring his own particular brand of destruction, devastation and dark rule to the still beautiful country.

Only the Witch Princess Mara has the magical know-how to stop Ramor and she needs the conch and the mystical Time Bird to complete her ritual, so, while she relaxes in a nice hot herbal bath, it's up to her beautiful daughter Roxanna and the valiant knight Bargon to begin the quest for the Time Bird.

Based on a French comic book, Quest For The Time Bird is one of the new wave of icon-driven adventures and all the action takes place over a picture of your current location on the game map. In most of these locations your gallant team of heroes is represented by a red circle that can be moved around the picture with the mouse. On arrival, with any luck, a window will pop up showing the scene along with any characters present.

Interaction with characters couldn't be simpler, just click on your right mouse button and a window appears showing all the members of your party. These can be up to four but the second two have to be found and recruited during the quest. Select the hero you wish to use and a set of action icons appears. Click on one of these and either you are presented with an appropriate menu, the food items inventory in the case of eat, or the mouse pointer changes to represent the action. Now move the pointer to the location window and click on the character you wish to interact with.

Talk first and only fight if you have to is a good rule of thumb with this game and it is in this way that you will recruit the two other player characters Bulrog and The Unknown Knight. Each character differs in their abilities; for example Bargon is a hardy and valiant fighter but when it comes to charm the blatantly top heavy Roxanna (well she is a fantasy character) steals the show. Even in conversation your fingers are spared the strain of typing as each question or response is chosen from a menu window that appears whenever needed. Though this limits the need for much thought it does cut out all those tedious "I don't understand the word 'hello'"s that are the bane of every computer adventurer.

Movement from location to location around the land of Abkars takes place on a full screen map with the familiar red dot showing your current location. The same system of movement is used here as at a specific location except instead of the mouse pointer you control an old man, complete with pointing stick.

The digitised music (a single of which accompanies the game) and the odd digitised effect give this adventure a very polished feel but where the Quest really scores is in the graphics department. All the still screens and even the animated sequences are extremely colourful with the great attention to detail we have come to expect from the French. Every effort has obviously been made to make the computer version as close to a graphic novel as possible.

This type of icon-driven adventure is improving all the time and Quest For The Time Bird is one of the best yet. If you are an adventurer whose fingers are weary of endless tapping or even if you normally stay away from adventuring Quest's interaction system and great graphics make it well worth a trip to your local software shop, even if only to marvel at the artwork.