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The Very Big Cave Adventure claims to be the original Original Adventure which was subsequently cleaned up to become the Crowther and Wood Original Adventure - Colossal Cave. Your guided tour through this unexpected labyrinth, is conducted by no less an authority on dark alcoves and tight squeezes, than Trixie Trinian, prefect at St. Bride's School.

So you thought the little brick house in the forest was a well house, source of the stream along whose banks lay hidden a locked grating? You got it wrong! Had you looked closely at the door while playing one of the many derivatives of Colossal Cave, you would have noticed a little brass coin-operated mechanism, bearing the legend VACANT.

The brick wit-house contains familiar objects, and a few surprises, including a dry spring, and a pair of wellies. Off down the stream, underground, and along a well-known crawl westwards - did you remember the lamp? It is dark, and without it you might fall down a sploosh hole. Here, the walls are made of frozen orange sorbet, and the resident recognition-seeking songbird will be awaiting you. A canny bird, he will easily recognise an old hand, by the lack of a black rod in his inventory. After all, an adventurer is an inveterate hoarder, and will greedily pick up everything in sight, until he can carry no more.

Along this stretch of cave, beware a ginger-headed spindly creature weaing a beard and glasses - he may well throw something deadly at you! Further along the serpent has become a python - but how will you persuade it to join that great flying circus in the sky?

The puzzles all have a new and satirical twist, cleverly built into the very reasonable framework of Colossal Cave. To appreciate the humour to the full, you'll have to have previously played Colossal in one form or another. If you haven't I'd say that it's worth buying it to play, before attempting this. However, you'll still get plenty of laughs even if you haven't played Colossal Cave. There is the Twee Room and Habitat Room, for example, that are amusing in their own right. There is a Rude Room, too, with a very rude word written on the wall.

Very Big is Quilled, Patched and Illustrated, but it doesn't play like it. It has some screen and sound effect surprises, is very fast to display, and reads well. It comes in two parts, and although a RAM save option is provided, to pass from one part to the next requires a tape save.

Here you will find old problems with a new twist, and new problems with an old twist. This is my choice as the best spoof adventure yet!