Producer: Piranha
Retail Price: £9.95
Author: Delta 4

Bear with me one moment... I'm just looking for a photograph that's been lying around my floor for about eight weeks and it seems such a shame not to mention it after someone went to all the trouble to shoot it and everything. It shows a Mike, a Fergus and a Stephanie with the label, 'Level 9 sign contract with Delta 4', which sounds the wrong way round, but all seem happy in the photo.

Well, the upshot of it is that this Fergus McNeil chappie is popping up just about everywhere, and it's all that his sidekick, Judith Child, can do to stop him. I mean to say, I'm sure amongst the folder of info proffered by Piranha to go with this game there was one bit that indicated a slight lack of enthusiasm for the Colour project on her behalf. Really, Judith, having read about two-thirds of the book to date I can say I think it's an excellent book, one of a kind (whatever that means).

I'll be quite honest here - I had never heard of the book by Terry Pratchett called The Colour of Magic but a friend who reads WHITE DWARF had, but there again, he's heard about and read just about everything in the science fiction and fantasy fields. Now, if you're reading this review, and you've read the book, and, what, you've played the game as well... then what the heck are you reading this for - a second opinion? No, seriously, you've got no idea what the book's about and you want to know what the game can offer. Well, the answer is the game has much to offer and the book is all about the magical number eight thence the crummy joke at the beginning about eight weeks - oh, you get it now do you(??)?

The chief character in the book, and the one you whisk around the environs of Ankh Morpork and beyond in the game, is a hapless wizard named Rincewind who winces his way through all manner of mishaps and unbelievably bad runs of luck. Take his training as a wizard, where, sneaking a peek at a powerful grimoire he ended up with one of the spells leaping from the pages and lodging in his mind. This curtailed any further studies, meaning he couldn't cast spells like other wizards. It wouldn't be so bad if he had any control over the one spell he does possess, but this isn't so; the spell leaps out of its own accord.

But the magical dabbler isn't a total loss as he is an excellent translator and it is this skill which brings him crashing into the storyline. The big picture has four gargantuan elephants supporting a disc atop the meteor-pocked shell of a turtle by the name of Great A'Tuin. Because the Discworld is supported by this turtle tracking its way across the skies, this gives licence for a joke concerning its Steady Gait crawling or its Big Bang rendezvous (this involving some mating on a cosmological scale, get it).

Now if you're not so sharp with the old memory, forget all the curious creatures in the sky and just consider the Discworld for one moment. There is a long waterfall wisping away at its circumference but more relevant to the game is its makeup which does away with the normal east, west, south movements and replaces them with Hubward, Rimward, Turnwise and Widdershins.

The Hub of the DiscworId is never closely warmed by the sun and the islands there are locked in permafrost. The Rim is a region of sunny islands and balmy days. Turnwise and Widdershins are less obvious, but relate to the direction of spin on the Discworld where Widdershins opposes the 800 day spin direction. There are 8 days in a disc week and 8 colours in its light spectrum with the eighth colour being octane which is a sort of greenish-yellow..., purple. Eight is a number of some occult significance and in some places (like the temple of Bel-Shamharoth) shouldn't even be mentioned. Needless to say, Rincewind's room in the Unseen University's Halls of Residence was the unfortunately contrived 7a!

The next piece of geography brings us back to the twin cities of Ankh-Morpork and the plot of the adventure. Ankh-Morpork are the foremost of all the cities bounding the circle Sea, but even so, few people from the counterweight continent on the other side of the Discworld have ever wanted to visit them. None before have been as reckless as the tourist, Twoflower, who in this story lands at the harbour in Morpork and proceeds to throw his considerable money around. These gold pieces, or Rhinu, are no more than a humble clerk's savings from the Counter Continent but in Ankh-Morpork, whose currency is devalued with copper and silver, these monies represent vast wealth. Were this not enough Twoflower's luggage is made of sapient pearwood, and Rincewind is fully aware that even an Archmage, by dint of great effort over many years, would struggle to fashion a mere staff, never mind a trunk. What is a little un-nerving, however, are the tourist's four eyes and some peculiarities concerning his luggage - like the fact it sprouts many tiny legs to go about its business and can munch a man's arm with its rows of sharp teeth.

Rincewind's first task is to wrest the gullible tourist from the assorted low-lifes around him eager to get their hands on some of those gold-rich Rhinu. Broadman, the owner of the Broken Drum, is already trying to fleece Twoflower of many a Rhinu when Rincewind overhears the commotion from his seat in a dark corner of the tavern. Being a multi-linguist, he eventually identifies the tourist's tongue which leads to the following popping up: 'Rincewind attempted to translate. After trying almost every conceivable tongue (Chimeran, Vanglemesht, Sumtri, even Black Oroogu, a language with no nouns, and only one adjective, which is obscene) he finally, in desperation, mumbled a few words of heathen Trob. The little man's face lit up'.

The Colour of Magic is a super book (a Corgi paperback) and therefore the Quilled and Illustrated computer game was always going to be something worth playing. But the Delta 4 team of Judith Child and Fergus McNeil have done a really competent job of coding the concept. The text, like the plot, is very close to the book. The pictures are quite good and the presentation (I particularly liked the full moon which parts to accept your input) is very neat. The game comes in four parts which makes the asking price seem very reasonable. Any money spare should certainly be directed towards purchasing the paperback as without it the game, I'm sure, could appear a little mysterious.

COMMENTS

Difficulty: could prove puzzling without reading the book
Graphics: okay
Presentation: good
Input facility: a little beyond verb/noun
Response: fast

FAX BOX
Title: Colour of Magic, The
Publisher: Piranha
Price: £9.95

The adventure takes place on Discworld. Sounds like a groovy record shop down the high street, eh? Well, you're wrong. Discworld is a world very similar to our own, except that it's almost completely different. It's actually the shape of a disc for one thing (Flat Earth Society, eh?) and it rotates, though whether at 33 or 45 rpm I don't know. It does mean. though, that directions for travel are rather unusual, being Hubward, Rimward, Turnwise and Widdershins, or H. R. T and W for short. Discworld is supported by four gargantuan elephants who're hitching a ride through the infinite vastness of space on the back of a turtle named Great A'Tuin. The academic theory is that Great A'Tuin has come from nowhere and will spend the rest of infinity going there. An alternative theory is that A'Tuin and all the other stars in the skies (also all on the backs of giant turtles) are crawling from The Birthplace to The Time of Mating, where much passion will occur in creating new turtles to carry new worlds. This is known as the Big Bang Theory!

Rincewind, the hero, is a wizard, and an unlucky one at that. He can't learn any new spells because when he began his training one of the eight spells of The Octavo became hopelessly lodged in his brain, leaving no room for any more. If he lived in another book he would undoubtedly be thought to have a Babel Fish in his ear as well, as he's an excellent translator, and another virtue is his virtual indestructibility. He lives in the city of Ankh Morpork on Discworld.

This four-part adventure begins with Rincewind sitting in a dark corner of the Broken Drum (the pub you can't beat). Rincewind's flat broke and the beer's just flat. Enter Blind Hugh followed by a four-eyed creature, which in turn is followed by a wooden chest trotting in on hundreds of tiny feet. The creature is Twoflower, a tourist, and the chest is his luggage. A certain confusion arises when Twoflower tries to speak, his language being straight out of a phrasebook. Naturally you step in and offer your services, though the landlord tells you the Discworld equivalent of 'Bog off!' Persevere, though, adventure players, as this is where the story really starts.

As this adaptation of Terry Pratchett's fantasy novel has been done for Piranha! Macmillan by Delta 4, you can imagine the results. The combination of Judith Child, Fergus McNeill and Colin Buckett has come up with an adventure that's probably one of the closest I've seen to being truly interactive fiction rather than just problem-solving. I admit to disliking the game the first time I played it, as nothing much seemed to happen, although it did give me a chance to map out Ankh Morpork. On loading it up a second time, however, the story really began to take off. All you know to begin with is that you're acting as a tourist guide to Twoflower - unless you've read the book, of course.

While acting as guide, you get confronted by one of the Ankh Morpork rushes, who kidnaps Twoflower, and it's up to you to get him back. Questioning someone provides you with some information, and after a rescue operation in which the luggage proves that it's not just along for the walk, you go on to discover that the landlord seems to be about to set fire to the Broken Drum.

You can load up the later three parts whenever you like, but you'll need a previously saved game in each case, and if you haven't progressed far enough you might find yourself in fairly unusual and useless circumstances later on. Part Two dumps you in an Ankh Morpork that's seemingly being burnt to the ground looks like there's a lot of arson about.

Lots of the Delta 4 humour comes through, and I'd be interested to see how much is from the original book and how much invention for the adventure. There are the usual screenloads of text that we've come to expect, and the game definitely has a Boggit/Bored feel to it. Graphics are reasonably good when they appear, and you can switch them off as well as use the welcome RAM SAVE option. Most important of all, though, is that you do get drawn into the story and involved with the characters - I really found myself looking at my map of Ankh Morpork and thinking 'Now where can I take Twoflower next?' I was most upset when he got kidnapped, and was determined to get him back.

By the time I'd finished my third session with the game, I'd managed to improve my rating to a reasonably pleasing 'Dire', though that's certainly not my verdict on the adventure. Put it to the top of your shopping list now!

Label: Piranha
Author: Delta 4
Price: £9.95
Memory: 48K/128K
Reviewer: Richard Price

Rincewind isn't much of a magician or, for that matter, much of anything else.

Totally broke, down at heel and shabbily dressed in some faded robes, he broods on the injustices of life as he slowly sips at his mug of cheap ale in the filthy taproom of The Broken Drum.

As wizards go Rincewind is an abject failure. Right at the beginning of his training he managed to get one of the eight major spells stuck in his head and thereafter found himself completely incapable of learning any others. What's worse is that he can't even use the spell that's blocking the rest. His only real skill is with foreign languages and he turns a few coppers now and again by interpreting and translating for the tiny numbers of tourists who come to see the unlovely city of Ankh-Morpork.

Ankh-Morpork, a warren of squalid slums, guild-houses of questionable professions and a few temples to odd gods, is one of the great cities of the Discworld. As the name suggests the Discworld is flat and. more like a celestial LP than anything else - presumably without the hole in the middle. As it spins majestically through space it's supported by four immense elephants who, in turn, are carried along on the back of Great A'Tuin. a cosmic turtle.

There are lots of theories about this weird set-up. Some folk believe A'Tuin just crawls along forever whilst others believe he's heading for the great mating-place in the sky. Here he'll meet the other turtles who carry all the other stars and planets through infinity. This is known as the Big Bang theory.

Rincewind's bizarre world is the setting for Delta 4's new game The Colour of Magic - produced by Piranha, fishy offshoot of the vast Macmillan publishing empire.

"Pretty silly name for a software company" said I to Fergus McNeil, doyen of Delta 4, as we chatted about the history of the game. "Silly?" he raised an eyebrow "It's a damn sight better than Codsoft or Halibut wouldn't you think?" There's no answer to that.

Unlike Delta 4's other productions its new adventure isn't a spoof or a knockabout farce - though it has plenty of wry humour. This time they've done a fairly faithful computerised rendering of Terry Pratchett's fantasy novel Colour of Magic. Fergus worked closely with the author over the months of development. He'd phone Terry when they got stuck, let him have a bath to think about it and then call him back afterwards, letting the words of wisdom drop from him like the bathwater.

The adventure follows the original storyline closely so it could be an advantage to have read the book before you play - this isn't essential though and the novel won't be included in the package. I suspect that plenty of fantasy addicts will be persuaded to go out and buy the book after playing. The setting has lots of similarities to the world of Fritz Leiber's Lankhmar, a place where dumb heroes and ironic wizards battle against magic and evil.

So far Delta 4's hits have been three-parters. This time there are four sections, giving you a big game for your money and giving Delta 4 the chance to use a lot of memory for atmospheric description, making it seem much more like a computerised novel than some previous bookware efforts.

As usual the adventure is written on the Quill and illustrator , though there won't be vast swathes of location graphics. Enough to set the scenes, yes, but not so many that they'll reduce the memory space for the descriptions and responses. That way you'll get the feeling of playing the real, book not some truncated, amputated version that sacrifices flavour for pictures.

So what about the story then? Well, whilst our hero Rincewind is busy downing his thin beer, in comes some character from out of town. Clearly very, very loaded as he can afford to own a travelling chest of sapient pearwood - so sapient, in fact that it can travel on its own on its hundreds of tiny sapient feet. Rincewind, being well aware that the chest is worth more than anything that might be put into it, star opals, gold, what have you. is happy to help the tourist out by a spot of translating.

After allowing Rincewind to sort out his room for the might, Twoflower the tourist decides to hire him as a guide and slips him a handful of gold rhinus as a retainer. If you, in the role of raggedy Rincewind, decide to do a quick flit with the cash, you'll pretty soon find out that Twoflower is very important to the nervy officials of Morpork and that they will expect you to take very good care of him. After all he's a representative of the powerful Agatean Empire whose fleet can squash Morpork like a bug under a boot.

So Rincewind, motivated by greed and by fear of the tortures he'll suffer if he loses the tourist, heads back to the inn to show Twoflower the sweaty sights of the town. Whilst Rincewind tries to fathom the workings of Twoflower's iconograph, a picture-taking machine run by a demon that lives inside the box, dumb Twoflower is kidnapped.

Then the fun begins.

Part 1 of the game is basically a scene-setter where the magician and tourist set up some sort of relationship and Rincewind desperately tries to free his client, ably aided by the ambulant luggage which has the Jaws-like quality of being able to snap people with its formidable lid. Since Rincewind isn't licensed to fight - he's not a member of the Assassins' Guild - the chest's fighting skill is pretty useful.

Basically, Twoflower will keep on being captured, endangered or simply disappearing throughout the adventure and, once the pair leave the city in Part 2, the hazards become tougher and stranger and the magic more and more powerful.

By Part 3 the fabric of the universe is so shot through with it that simply believing in something will allow it to be created!

The travellers will learn that the gods are actually playing some strange chess-game with them, meet a new friend - Hrun the barbarian - and encounter dragons, lethal temples and a mountain: 'huge, grey and upside down, like a stone trumpet stuck in a bucket of moss.'

Movement in the game is slightly different from your average adventure. Because Discworld is flat there's no set of compass directions. You can either head to the centre of the disc - Hubward - or out to its edge - Rimward. Naturally you can also walk around the disc either in the direction of its spin - Turnwise - or against the spin - Widdershins. This takes a bit of getting used to but soon becomes second-nature.

The story is as important as the gameplay and there are some very full descriptions to make you feel at home in Discworld. So, at the inn: "Rincewind absently raised his mug and gulped down the last of his beer. Having lived in Ankh-Morpork all his life the drink's effect on his mouth came as no surprise. He was in no doubt though - it wasn't worth the money. Blind Hugh came down the steps from the courtyard outside. Looking very deliberately ahead of him he walked across to the bar where the landlord Broadman greeted him, then gaped at the stairs..."

This is only part of one chunk of detail and, though you won't get this much in every location, is typical of the general quality of the text. The storytelling gives the adventure a good feeling of reality and lets the action flow naturally from one step to the next.

The game plays as a standard text adventure not, like Level 9's Adrian Mole for instance, as a series of multiple choice questions. This means you'll actually have to solve problems as they arise. If you do it wrong you'll probably end up meeting the bumbling figure of Death, he whose empty eye-sockets are "a dead giveaway" and whose schedules have all been thrown awry by some divine accident.

"Why are you here?", he says to Rincewind at one point. "I'm supposed to get you in Psephopolis."

"But that's 500 miles away," whimpers Rincewind.

"I know, I know. The whole system's got screwed up," answers Death irritably.

This dry and gentle humour occurs throughout the game and, whilst it's not as rumbustuous or rude as in McNeil and Co's previous offerings, gives the proceedings a nice comic lift.

As you progress through Discworld you'll find that almost every other step has to be sideways to escape Death's boney clutches.

He constantly offers the scraggy wizard tempting chances to snuff it - "Go on", he urges as Rincewind hangs by his fingernails above a starving pack of wolves. "Let go, it won't hurt."

Through playing the game and scurrying out to buy the book I've become a firm, if occasionally dazed and bewildered, fan of Rincewind.

When you add Twoflower's crazed enthusiasm for the picturesquely lethal together with the problems - across four game Loads - you'd be hard-pressed to find a current piece of bookware to compare with The Colour of Magic.

Piranha/Delta 4
£9.95

Er, have you read The Colour of Magic? Na me neither. I want to after playing this. Unfortunately, I couldn't get it from any of my numerous local bookshops or libraries. I will order a copy, but the book should have been supplied with the game, or at least an optional, book/game package should have been available. The reason I'm getting so worked up about this is that to fully appreciate this game, I get the impression that to have read the book helps. Doing so might also make the game easier.

Rincewind is a rather useless magician, who knows only one spell, which he cannot produce. He lives on Discworld, which is carried by four gargantuan elephants on the back of a turtle. And he's broke. So he can hardly believe his luck when Twoflower, Discworld's first tourist, offers him a vast sum of money to be his guide. Rincewind is the only person who can speak Twoflower's language, being an excellent translator. But guiding the blundering tourist - who is quickly kidnapped - is not easy. You must also cope with his luggage, which propels itself using hundreds of tiny feet and will viciously protect its master and his iconograph, which is like a camera but contains a miniature imp who paints very quickly.

This marvellously silly - and original - story is just the start. Having unsuccessfully tried to escape the city with Twoflower's advance fee. I, as Rincewind, encountered Death himself ("it had to be Death. The empty sockets were a dead' giveaway and the scythe over one shoulder was another clue"). Death (he has to visit wizards personally for them to die) was expecting me to be somewhere completely different. His system has been screwed up, and he's none too pleased about it. Another problem ...

Because it's based on Terry Pratchett's book, COMB has a different style humour to Delta 4's normal unsubtle farce and spoofery. It's more gentle, and comes largely from the strangeness of Discworld and the Twoflower's naivety.

In some other respects this bears the familiar hallmarks of previous Delta 4 successes. There's loads to be read (though EXAMINE is disappointing), and many amusing little occurrences, like the iconograph complaining he's out of film because we took too many pictures at the Whore Pits. The graphics are much better than in any other Quilled game - Delta 4 don't get the acclaim they deserve in this area - and for the first time ever in Quilled product, they do not scroll up with the text.

However, I fell distressingly out of control during COM. To progress with the game, it would seem you must perform individual actions in the right place which trigger off a whole sequence of events. So you spend time wandering about looking for which action to perform... somehow, whilst I enjoyed the descriptions, I felt I wanted more to do.

Because of this, I don't feel COM is Delta 4's best. However, since there are four parts, there's lots to see and be entertained by: which means good value for money.

CBM64/Spectrum/Amstrad
Piranha Software
Graphic Adventure
£7.95

Sitting on a hard cedar-wood bench in the run-down pub, aptly called The Broken Drum, Rincewind stared down gloomily at the small mug of beer in front of him. It had cost him the last of his money and he was becoming more certain by the moment that it would not be worth it. Drinking it in one swallow served only to prove him correct.

The sound of the pub door opening and closing caught Rincewind's attention. The sight of the newcomer made him sit up even more, going down the stairs was a very strange-looking fellow, dressed in unusual clothes. Did he really have four eyes? Equally bizarre was the large wooden chest which followed like a tame puppy, mainly because it was propelled by what looked like hundreds of tiny feet.

So begins the latest adventure from a new software house, programmed by one of the brightest talents on the adventure scene at the moment. Based on the Terry Pratchett novel of the same name, Fergus McNeil has once again provided an amusing and original game.

All the action takes place on the weird world of Discworld. As its name would suggest, it is a flat disc-shaped domain, supported by four gargantuan elephants standing astride a huge turtle called Great A'Tuin. As time passes, so Great A'Tuin carries the world into the future - ever patient, ever mysterious.

The two central characters are Rincewind and Twoflower. Taking the role of Rincewind, your task is to guide the naive Twoflower around the strange land but as Twoflower is the first tourist to visit Discworld your task is made more difficult by his insistence to see things he should not, which results in his being kidnapped.

Rincewind, coward that he is, deciding that it is an opportune moment to be rid of the little pest, tries to leave the city, only to be caught and dragged before the ruler of Ankh-Morpak, who explains that Twoflower is of great political importance and better be looked after or - well, you can guess that for yourselves.

It is for you not only to protect Twoflower but also to show him all the sights of Discworld - and there are plenty. As in previous Delta 4 games there are plenty of problems which start easy and gradually become more difficult as you proceed. Graphics depict certain key locations and very good they are, too, but if you do not like graphics there is the option to turn them off. RAM save is another feature I like particularly. It prevents the need to mess with tapes and the text descriptions are long and interesting.

Not to everyone's taste. Either you like McNeil's style or you don't but if you want something different, try this - you will not regret it.