Producer: Quicksilva
Retail Price: £7.95
Author: Taskset

Fred Flintstone finds himself at the dawn of history, Before Bedrock. He is a bachelor, and you have to help him create his caveman's paradise so he can woo and win Wilma. At the beginning of the game, the landscape is barren but work is in progress... Bedrock is being built and Fred wants a home.

Fred begins on a plot of land littered with rocks and a sign saying 'home'. All the small rocks are useless and must be taken to the pit where they can stay out of harm's way. Picking up a rocklet at a time, Fred earns fifteen points when his heaves it into the pit marked 'tip'. When his building plot is empty, Fred can collect the larger rocks and drop them there - sections of his house appear as if by magic, and two hundred points are added to the score for each large rock deposited.

There are, of course, several complications. Various prehistoric animals knock Fred over when they encounter him, while others nip his heels and pterodactyls drop rocks on his cranium. Fred's state of health is shown by two slabs of stone at the top of the screen, which are nibbled away by pecking birds. The first scale denotes Fred's energy level - whenever he runs, energy is burnt up. When the scale reaches zero, Fred can't run any more and needs a rest or a meeting with Wilma to revitalise his flagging spirits. The second display shows the number of bites received from pterodactyls, turtles or dinosaurs, and indicates how much of the current life remains. Lives are displayed as tally marks below the two scales, and up to eight lives may be selected from the option screen at the start of the game.

The game is played against a backdrop of mountains. Fred can move left and right across screens which flip from one to the other. Bedrock consists of a number of streets running parallel to the mountains, and pressing up or down while Fred moves off a screen causes him to move one street closer to, or further away from, the mountain range.

Once the walls of his house are built, Fred needs to go to work in the quarry to earn money so he can hire a dinosaur to help with the roofing work. Once he's earned enough loot a dollar sign appears on the screen, and our prehistoric hero can nip to Dino Hire and lease his assistant. With the roof in place, the last task is the addition of a chimney, after which the house is complete and Fred can look for Wilma to try and encourage her to embark on holy matrimony.

Meetings with Wilma during the home-making stage boost Fred's enthusiasm for his work and Wilma's love for him - shown by a beating red heart on the right of the screen. Each time Fred finds Wilma, he gains 1,500 points. The faster the heart is beating when the desirable residence is complete, the better Fred's chances are of persuading Wilma to join him.

While Fred is working away, his neighbours are busily constructing Bedrock a 5,000 point bonus can be collected by finishing before the rest of the town is built. In order to get about, and find those useful large rocks Fred could really do with a car. The good news is - there's a car lurking somewhere in the game for Fred to use.

COMMENTS

Control keys: O/P left/right, bottom row to fire
Joystick: Kempston, Sinclair
Keyboard play: quite responsive
Use of colour: simple, but effective
Graphics: well drawn and amusing
Sound: very nice intro, but otherwise sparse
Skill levels: up to eight lives

Despite the lack of colour, the characters in the game are well drawn and reasonably well animated. The only exception to this is the car which makes Fred shrink every time he gets in. The game is very difficult as avoiding the various hazards requires no mean amount of dexterity. Having said that, I found it quite enjoyable to play once I'd got used to the controls. I wouldn't call Yabba Dabba Do a classic because apart from occasional humour in the way the cartoon has been adapted to the computer, there are too many repetitive provides a challenge and a bit of fun. If you're a keen fan of the cartoon, you probably will find the game worthwhile.

I had my doubts about whether the Flintstones series could be converted successfully to a computer game. I think I can safely say that Yabba Dabba Doo! is a great game: Taskset have kept the spirit of the Stone Age throughout surprisingly well. Within a short time I had really taken to this one, now I can't see myself putting it away for quite a while. The graphics are largish, jolly, detailed and all the characters are recognisable. The sound is fairly run-of-the-mill - a nice tune on the title screen, and a few burps and rasps here and there. The only niggle I have about this game is that it may be a little easy to complete, so it might not have much lasting appeal for good games players.

I found Yabba Dabba Doofa very addictive game - playing it to the early hours of the morning. Although graphically I found it not too astounding (the animation of the creatures is not too hot, but they are very detailed), its shortcomings were made up by its sense of fun and user participation, with lovely features like driving the rock car and going to see a film at the drive-in. Building the house for Wilma before the rest of Bedrock is complete is vary hard to do, as the other people (I never really saw any) don't have to clear their sites. I felt a bit on my own in Bedrock with no other cavemen/women in sight, except Wilma. No Barney I m afraid to say. I was a bit disappointed by the lack of a full length Flintstone theme tune. I'm an avid viewer of the TV series, and will be an addicted player of the computer game for a long time to come.

Quicksilva
£7.95

The trouble with games based on cartoons is that everyone already has a pretty good idea of what the graphics should be like. And, to be honest, the graphics in Yabba Dabba Doo! won't get Hanna Barbera hot under the collar - they're crude, the have attribute problems and as for the colour - dull or what.

But that aside, I liked the game. You have to guide Fred Flintstone around the prehistoric landscape that'll one day become the mighty metropolis of Bedrock. Fred has to pick up all the small rocks on the site of his house and dump them in the local tip. Once done, he has to investigate the surrounding area for large rocks, pick them up and use them to build his own house.

There's no shortage of large rocks... indeed, hang around too long and you'll find out where they come from - a pterodactyl will fly over and drop one right on Fred's head. Other creatures that hinder Fred's progress are ankle-biting turtles, prehistoric kangeroos and 'Dino' dogs. Something else to watch out for are the rolling rocks - easy to manoeuvre around in the early stages of the game, but tricky later on as Fred's neighbours start building their own homes.

Fred can walk up and down, left and right, and moving from street to street involves a combination of two controls. But, with luck, you'll come across the cave-car that allows Fred to zip about speedily in true arcade style.

The size of the game is deceptive - there are a lot more screens to investigate than are apparent from first attempts to get to grips with it. Fred can earn money at the local quarry to hire a dinosaur to build the roof and, when his energy is at an all time low, he can hang out at the drive-in movie or burger bar and get a hug or two from his true-love Wilma. The game ends when Fred manages to pursuade Wilma to follow him home...

Much to my surprise, Yabba Dabba Doo! is a very addictive game once you get the idea of what you're supposed to do. The game is a lot less manic than I would have liked but, apart from the graphics, it has all the qualities needed to reduce your mind to rubble. If you're a Flintstone freak, it's an essential purchase... If not, then check out the TV re-runs and then buy it!

Publisher: Quicksilva
Programmers: Taskset
Price: £7.99
Memory: 48K
Joysticks: Kempston, Sinclair

Yabba Dabba. .. Ooh dear! What are the Flintstones doing in a computer game? And one which makes them look like a right load of brontasaurae?

Yep, Fred, Wilma, Dino and Co have made their debut into the world of high-tech programming and low-tech graphics. Join the happy gang and help Fred build Bedrock, the boulder-strewn habitat of the stone age knuckleheads.

The story line is simple and predictable. Clear the site of pebbles and build Fred's house before the Rubbles and other neighbours can build theirs. Then find Wilma and persuade her to set up home with you.

According to the cassette blurb, Wilma tends to hang around the Drive-in or Burger Bar. She seems to appear at random and is likely to crop up in almost any of the 35 screens. She's a bit like a can of Heineken - give her a kiss and you'll regain your strength. A pulsating heart then appears - the harder it pumps the more likely she is to run home with you.

Anyway, there's no point worrying about Wilma in the early stages because your first priority is the house. Clearing the site of small pebbles is a frustrating and thankless task. Pick up a pebble - two if you can manage it - walk into the next screen and chuck it into the pit. Repeat this seven or eight times until the area is clear.

A pterodactyl flies across regularly, dropping pebbles and boulders on Fred's head and the surrounding area. Just more mess to clear up.

Now collect the boulders and take them back to the homestead. If you place one in the right position a section of the house will appear. You'll have to travel far and wide to collect the rocks - that means over five levels in depth and seven screens in width. If you can find your car, you'll then travel faster. Dodging the various hazards, including the turtle, rolling rock, pterodactyl and the occasional dinosaur, will then be easier.

Eventually Fred reaches the roof building stage and has to hire a dinosaur with a scaled back to allow him to walk up to the roof - rather like a staircase. But before he can enter Dino-hire he must earn some cash down at the quarry - a dollar sign appears when he has earned enough. For a few seconds after collecting the cash Fred is immune to the life-sapping ankle-biting turtle, and the other prehistoric perils.

Before the house is complete Fred must meet up with Wilma as often as possible to get the heart - in the right hand corner of the screen - pumping like the clappers. Only when it looks as if it's about to explode will she return home with him.

Travelling through the screens is innovative, if confusing. To move up to another level, stand in one corner of the screen and push the joystick diagonally upwards. To move to another screen on the same level, stay away from the corner of the screen and stick to the centre.

One sure way of telling which level you're on is to look at the stone wall which runs through each screen. If it's very large, you've moved into the background and near the hills. If the wall is a thin line, you're in the foreground.

The scoring system is suitably neanderthal. There are two stone slabs with birds pecking at them. The top slab represents Fred's energy level which Wilma can increase with a kiss, the bottom slab shows how many times he's been bowled over by a nasty. When the bird eats the stone, Fred loses a life.

Surprisingly - given the relative success achieved by others in re-creating cartoon characters on the Spectrum - the least attractive feature of Yabba Dabba Doo is the graphics. Colour and scenery are flat and unadventurous - blue sky, green hills and yellow foreground. That's it.

For the most part any masking routines are non-existent - Fred, Wilma and the rest of the brainless gang run around, transparent figures which merge in an unholy mess of squiggly lines when they collide or pass one another. When a half-hearted attempt at masking is found - when, for instance, Fred passes in front of the wall - it's so clumsy you wish the programmers hadn't bothered.

The press blurb which accompanied the game brazenly informed us that the graphics on the Commodore 64 version 'have been faithfully translated to the Spectrum and are truly remarkable'. If that's so then Yabba must have set a new low for Commode graphics.

Actually, we have it on good authority that the C64 graphics bear very little resemblance to those on the Spectrum.

Still it is truly remarkable that after Knight Lore, Popeye and Three Weeks in Paradise Quicksilva still thinks it can get away with charging £7.99 for this.

Spectrum
Quicksilva
Arcade Adventure
£7.95

According to Douglas Adams, the secret of evolution is to "Just keep banging the rocks together guys". What he never told you is all the other things between stone age man and his hearts desire.

Fred Flintstone, one of Bedrocks founding fathers has his work cut out. Not only does he have to clear the building site for his dream house, throw a few boulders together and put in a hard day's work at the quarry, he also has to beware of homicidal birds, turtles and pterodactyls.

The object of all this leg work is to build a house fit for Wilma - his hearts desire.

So far, so bad. This might sound like just another rather tacky licensed game. A few pretty trivial tasks to perform, not much plot, five minute wonder. But wait, what's this? Beautifully drawn cartoon style animation. What lifts this game above the run-of-the-mill licensed production is the way the characters are drawn and the way they move. These are not just jelletenous globs moving around the screen; you believe in these people. This makes rejection by Wilma all the harder to take. This stone age flapper is usually to be found hanging around monolithic McDonald's and is only impressed by small talk involving long term endowment mortgages and split level bathroom suites.

The game is presumably aimed at the ancient kid market, since the Flintstones haven't been on the telly for some years now.

Hopefully it will set a new trend in licensed games. It might even set a new, possibly dangerous, trend in computer games. Whoever heard of a computer game where you had to be nice to people!

Quicksilva
£7.95

It's the Flintstones, meet the Flintstones...' victims of yet another TV licensing deal. Fred and Wilma Flintstone have been turned into a not-terribly good game which, I am told, is much better on the C64 version than on the Spectrum. The C64 version has been described as 'diabolical', which gives you some idea of what we're up against here.

Fred is attempting to start a thriving stone-age community, the town of Bedrock, and wants winsome Wilma to set up home with him to get things started. But as Fred doesn't yet have a home for them to get set up in, his first task is to build one.

The game begins on a desolate landscape with mountains in the background and loads of rocks scattered around. This screen is where Fred will build his house. There are two types of rock on the ground around him, small ones which have to be collected and dumped into a quarry to clear the ground, and larger ones which are what Fred uses for building materials. Fred can only carry one rock at a time, so clearing the site of all the small stones means carrying them one after the other to the quarry, a task that isn't at all exciting or challenging (despite the pterodactyls, dinosaurs and turtles that he may bump into and which drain his energy), and which quickly becomes repetitive.

Finding the large rocks isn't much more fun, but since these are scattered over a number of screens you have to do a bit of searching in order to find them. Eventually Fred will have to find a car to help him go looking for rocks, and also to try and find Wilma (who likes to hang out at the Burger Bar, yet still manages to keep that slim figure. How does she do it?).

Controlling Fred's movements is awkward, since he can move onto different pathways either closer to or further from the mountains, but he can only do so when he's right at the edge of the screen. And, as all the screens look very similar it's hard to tell which screen Fred's on until you try and retrace your steps and realise that you're lost.

There is also a 'beat the clock' element in the game, as Fred's neighbours are also building their own homes and there's a large score bonus to be had if he beats them to it. Unfortunately this failed to add any excitement to the game as I found the rest of the action so uninspiring that the possibility of a bonus wasn't enough to get me worked up about it.

The graphics are the best part of the game, smoothly animated and capturing something of a cartoon style, but the game itself has none of the action or fun of the original.

Another licensing deal bites the dust.