The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen has been around for a very long time but has only recently been translated into a digital form suitable for the Amstrad. That remarkable group at St Bride's School in County Donegal have once again worked their magic to produce a humdinger of an adventure, using this story as the basis for their latest fiendish plot.

Produced using The Quill and Illustrator from Gilsoft, it once again proves that with care and good planning, really first class adventures are possible using these games creator programs.

The instructions not only include all the normal information on playing, saving and loading the game but also a very useful list of some of the words understood by the program and a cut down (but still lengthy on the instructions sheet) version of the original story. Read both very carefully. The game follows the story closely but of course there were many things happening that were not all written down at the time!

For those that do not know the story of The Snow Queen, it starts with the evil goblins of this world making a magic mirror. Everything reflected in it was made to appear worse than it really was. Good things appeared as nothing and evil stood out clearly and looked ten times worse.

The goblins took the mirror and carried it up to heaven to look at the angels' reflections. On the way it shattered into a vast number of fragments which entered the hearts and eyes of men and caused many of the woes of the world. Even now fragments of that evil glass are floating through the air to trap the unwary.

Two of these tiny fragments entered the heart and eye of a little Danish boy, Kay. His devoted friend Gerda could not believe the change that came over him, for she loved him dearly. Kay was now a marked being and was kidnapped by the evil Snow Queen and carried away to her palace at the north pole.

Your task is to help Gerda on her quest to find and rescue Kay. She will often ask you what she should do next, but sometimes she shows a stubborn streak and does not do what you suggest! She is a very righteous young lady and has a strong moral standard that she will not break, no matter what.

Note the word stubborn though. There are occasions when Gerda will have to be told to do something more than once, but these are usually obvious in her responses or attitude following the command. You must be careful to guide her through the days ahead with care and understanding.

I particularly like the adventures from St Bride's for they are always logical but rarely very easy to solve without a number of attempts to unravel the many puzzles. They push the Quill parser to the very limit and several of your commands get a response that requires you to amplify your previous command rather than repeat it.

The program has a ram save facility in addition to the normal tape save. Use these often: Tape saving takes less than a thousand bytes, so it's very fast and will not slow down your progress.

Not every location has a graphic display but those that do are simple and very well thought out pictures. Again, this side of the program shows what can be done with a bit of thought and an off-the-shelf creator program.

The program is divided into two, with a code given to you at the successful completion of part one. There are plenty of locations and particularly in the second part it is vital to draw a map of where you have been. If you really stuck then St. Bride's offer a hint sheet free on receipt of a stamped addressed envelope.