Producer: Level 9/Mosaic Publishing
Retail Price: £9.95
Language: Machine code
Author: Richard Kelly, Caroline Holden

Just about everyone except perhaps those trappist monks in the Welsh heartlands who have locked themselves away in solitary confinement never to see the light of day again has surely heard of Adrian Mole. There are his two diaries, he's just had a telly program based around his exploits, he's also been on numerous chat shows and now he's on a computer game. What next?

Although the writers of this program are Level 9, Adrian Mole cannot really be classed as a traditional adventure it's more of a decision game. At regular intervals during play you are asked to step into Adrian's (sanitised) shoes and make the decisions for him. For example, Adrian gets a spot. Do you squeeze it, bung on some cream or just ignore it? Each decision either awards or takes away points from your total percentage depending on how successful the move was. Each percentage has a rating starting from average schoolboy to goodness knows what - we haven't completed it yet.

There are graphics constantly on screen which regularly update during the course of the game. Most of the pictures are based on the illustrative themes found in the original book. The text also, is based very much on the original work by Sue Townsend. Most of the time, the text scrolls through in the form of a computerised book, before options are presented to the player.

The game at least matches the traditional Level 9 format in terms of appearance. The screen is split into a graphics window in the top half and text window in the bottom half. Because of the lack of text input and the rather channelled nature of the game, it isn't possible to skip through certain areas of the plot, the way you could in standard Level 9 fare. Finding a route through this game is likely to cause some real headaches.

COMMENTS

Control keys: 1-3 decisions, CAPS to continue
Joystick: N/A
Keyboard play: good
Use of colour: fair
Graphics: average
Sound: N/A
Skill levels: N/A
Screens: N/A

It seems that Level 9 have come up with the solution to the problem of making multiple choice questions interesting. Some of the options and their conclusions are very funny indeed. Making a game out of the idea is, however, not so much of a good thing. Most of the time you are reading the same stuff that appears in the book (and that's a lot cheaper). Level 9 have come out with some excellent games - and I'm not criticising the quality of the programming - but I don't feel that this really works as a game, too well.

I had my doubts when asked to play Adrian Mole, but I can assure you they have gone now. Level 9 have got to have a hit with this one. There are millions of Mole fans who will be very pleased to see that they have done justice to the guy. It's full of funny situations with witty solutions and the enjoyment of taking part in Adrian's decision making is something that just does not pall. I can see the lack of real action putting some people off, but otherwise this is a game you should get - right now.

The main problem with this game is the relatively large amount of reading necessary between 'moves.' This means that if the humour doesn't make you laugh, you'll soon be fed up with it. But the strength of the game lies in its humour as well. You should give your joystick muscles a rest, once in a while anyway. This will probably be the funniest way to compromise. The humour is poignant and clever. I can't imagine this being an easy game for Level 9, or anyone else. It loads in segments as it is quite large. It's quite out of the ordinary as well. It'll probably sell on the name alone, but it deserves to anyway. If you're open minded about games and are bored with the norm, get this one - yesterday.

Producer: Mosaic
Retail Price: £9.95
Language: Machine code
Author: Level 9

Adrian Mole the computer game is a super implementation of the highly successful and very funny diary books written by Sue Townsend. Playing the game takes you through a year in the fascinating life of Adrian Mole, a worried spotty adolescent, frustrated intellectual and poet. He has to contend with the rocky marriage of his parents, the insensitivity of his school mates and teachers, and bits of him that won't keep still.

The problems of human existence take up much of his time but diversions lie in his relationships with a fourteen-year-old feminist named Pandora who sits next to him in geography, and an eighty nine-year-old man whom he visits with the good samaritan group from his school. He is dogged by ill-health and ill-healthed by his dog.

The aim of the game is to make our adopted hero as popular as possible with everyone - family, friends and dog. Every so often during the game your score appears on the screen with the likes of 38% indicating a middling thicko and 26% a spotty creep. The results of some actions may not be immediately obvious, for example, being too neat and tidy may arouse his mother's guilt feelings. A number of random elements alter your course through the troubled path of adolescence and so play may vary each time you load up.

To any person who has read the Adrian Mole books, the program can still offer some challenges as some familiar scenes have a new twist. The game consists of a number of separate programs with the first two programs on Side One and the remaining two on Side Two. Each program covers a few months of Adrian's life.

This game is not your usual adventure. The flow of text is much more like a book with the player only being asked to alter the course of events via a choice between one of three options. The fourth option, so easy to forget, displays a help menu which includes a service you would be wise to make use of early on: simply typing in the name of a character from the diary will bring up onto the screen a fact-file on that character in true Star Trek computer style. Features such as this, plus options such as RESTART and DEMO, really give this game a classy feel.

The cassette inlay speaks of an illustrated text game and this is very much what it is, as the pictures above the scrolling text do not show every new location, rather an abstract interpretation of the types of things running through our young hero's mind. They are of similar style and frequency as those found in illustrated paperback books. As is often the case with such illustrations decorating a copious and highly absorbing text, you may well play most of the game without recalling one single picture.

If you haven't read the Mole diaries, or seen the recent ITV television series (partly spoiled by the typecast parents) then you are in for a treat. Although the series stars a pubescent fourteen-year-old it is in fact universally funny. It, in a manner of speaking, chronicles the demise of civilisation through the miscomprehending eyes of a young budding intellectual. The idea that the world is running down is not a new one and must be pretty obvious to anyone gullible enough to have been harangued into buying a TV licence by those ridiculous BBC adverts. The fact that the Mole books soothe with laughter our institutionalised paranoia is nothing new. What the books, and this computer program, do bring out afresh through some very subtle writing is an atmosphere where even the most blinkered half cretin can see just what is so patently ludicrous about the lifestyles and mores being forced upon us by the advertising media (television and the Sunday Times etc).

At one point in the program, after doing his own washing, Mole wonders why his mum can't be like those washday housewives on the telly. At another point he thinks of War and Peace as a Russian Dallas. I could go on with many examples but suffice to say that Adrian Mole is a tonic for so much of the nonsense behind our society's decline into an uncaring and ludicrous bureaucracy. He is a likeable and very human person at a time when just about every character depicted in films, books and on television, is so uncaring, unashamedly self-motivated, and inhuman.

We join Mole's diary on the first day of the year where he enters his new year resolutions which include hanging trousers up, a stop to squeezing spots, and, after hearing the disgusting noises from downstairs the previous night, a vow never to drink alcohol. The next few months see Mole observing a Mr Lucas, the next door neighbour, serving up a cup of tea while Mrs Lucas concretes the front of the house, sending a poem entitled 'The Tap' to the BBC, and a rebellious phase were both he and Pandora wear red socks to school. The story is peppered with humorous comments on modern life at the end of a cul-de-sac. At one point he comments on his ill-health and wonders at the amount of boil-in-the-bag food the family has eaten. His red spots could be an allergic reaction to plastic.

The idyllic lazy life of a schoolboy is far from our young hero as he has to come to terms with a mother fresh from assertiveness training who has him cleaning the whole house, and a fusty old codger called Bert Baxter who smokes, drinks brown ale and keeps a ferocious alsatian but who can't have long to live as he is older than Ronald Reagan. But when life's frustrations and inconsistencies become too much there's always that intellectual medium which is the home of all greatwriters - the poem. I'll leave you with this one concerning Adrian's English teacher's transportation. Dock Leaf's got a Fiat, Covered in red rust, Its paint is blue, Its smoke is too, The wing mirrors are bust, Dock Leaf's in his banger, Bouncing down the lane, the engine coughs, Exhaust falls off, And then it stops again.

COMMENTS

Difficulty: easy to play
Graphics: abstract
Presentation: good
Input facility: one of four options
Response: very fast

The game in Spain falls mainly as a pain and we knock spots off Adrian Mole... Teresa Maughan lived to tell the tale...

The Secret Diary of Teresa Maughan Aged 23 1/4.

Oct 11th 1985: I received a copy of Mosaic's new game. The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4 today. The Ed insisted that I write a review - he said he'd give me £10 but then he's always been a bit tight.

Oct 12th 1985: I took my first look at the game today. It's Adrian's diary on the screen with a few graphics thrown in.. It's Max's (the errand boy) birthday today.

Oct 13 1985: The game doesn't seem very intellectual to me - all you've got to do is press keys 1, 2, 3, 4 or Caps/ Shift to play it. Even I can do that, well nearly. Troubleshootin' Pete thinks it's dead brilliant and plays it all day long.

Oct 14th 1985: Censored.

Oct 15th 1985: Being somewhat of a megabrain I've already read Adrian Mole's Secret Diary so the game seems a bit repetitive - not for intellectuals! The Ed said I was fat. I told him it was probably because he forced me to sit and play computer games all day.

Oct 16th 1985: I don't think much of this game. First it says Adrian goes on holiday with Maxwell and the stick insect and then a week later he meets the stick insect for the first time. I think I'll ask Max if he can explain this reasoning to me.

Oct 17th 1985: Being a connoisseur of the arts I am of the opinion that the graphics are pretty naff - if I were Adrian I'd feel positively embarrassed. Adrian seems to lead a very eventful life for a boy of 13 3/4.

Oct 18th 1985: Adrian is now trying to teach his dog a few tricks and I can choose what he should do. I don't know why he bothers as the Ed always says you can't teach an old dog new tricks. I think I'm getting a complex about being fat!

Oct 19th 1985: I keep choosing the wrong options so I've made Adrian only a namby pamby schoolboy. This is making me lose confidence in my gamesplaying ability.

Oct 20th 1985: I didn't play the game today because of my complex over being fat!

Oct 21st 1985: I've just noticed (people tell me I'm very observant for a girl my age) Mosaic has put the CBM 64 instructions on the tape inlay card and covered it up with a Spectrum sticker. I think I'll write a stiff letter to Mosaic about this cheapskate behaviour.

Oct 22nd 1985: I've come to the conclusion that Mole is a game for 13 3/4 year olds and not 23 year olds. All you have to do is read snippets from his diary and make Adrian dead popular with everyone, especially that nymphomaniac Pandora.

Oct 23rd 1985: I finished the game today and Adrian is only a surburban schoolboy. I think this game will be dead popular but it's only a namby pamby computer game as far as I'm concerned.

THE SECRETS OF PANDORA'S BOX

Richard Price gets out his ruler and finds Adrian Mole is somewhat lacking.

For ageing wrinklies who have not quite snuffed it yet, adolescence tends to be a lost dream of guilt and severe emotional torture punctuated by acne vulgaris.

As the years pass I had forgotten the torment of being an "almost 14 year old undiscovered intellectual" and have been trying to adjust to the idea of being almost 35 (surely some mistake? Ed.) and equally undiscovered.

Until recently, computer games helped to soothe those old pains, rather like Clearasil on a particularly noisome spot. The world they portrayed was a Boys Own fantasy of righteous violence, easily recognised and incorrigibly evil enemies, and damn few gels to spoil the fun.

A Mole Esq has put a stop to all that.

THE SECRET DIARY OF ADRIAN MOLE
Publisher: Mosaic
Price: £9.95
Memory: 48K

In the latest spin-off of the original book, The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole has been translated onto tape. Complete with naughty thoughts, squeezed spots, Big and Bouncy magazines and a few extra events for good measure, the daily doings of the existentialist with the breaking voice can now be loaded up on your Spectrum.

Although my admiration for Mole and all his works is pretty well unbounded I ought to say right now that I'm not sure how well the concept works as a computer game. The suite of four programs is published by Mosaic and programmed by Level 9.

The diary format has been retained and you should not expect to see a standard text adventure set in Mole's sweaty world. What happens is that the diary entries scroll up the screen day by day. At points of decision you are given three choices of possible actions. Events will be affected by those decisions and your status - how popular you are - is shown as a percentage. You can choose to work towards a high or low score depending on your psychological outlook at the time you play the game.

So, for instance, Mole is stuck in Scotland with his mother and her unspeakable insurance-salesman fancy man - 'Bimbo' Lucas. The day's entry runs thus...

"Went to see Rob Roy's grave. Saw it. Came back. What shall I do?

1) Phone Pandora, reversed charges.

2) Send a haggis postcard to Pandora.

3) Phone Pandora normally."

The style of the game then is very like the options fantasy books so popular in the last few years. In terms of computer gaming, however, the idea imposes quite severe limitations.

Because the diary follows the book very closely indeed, the odd random decision has little long term effect - except upon the score. At one point you get the chance to either hitch-hike to Sheffield, get the train with a ticket or travel without paying. Whichever you choose you will still end up in Sheffield with the same forthcoming choices.

The book's plot exercises a sort of tyranny over your freedom of action and, regrettably, even the chances to choose are few and far between. I suspect that the publishers didn't want Level 9 to interfere too much with the text and storyline. The result is that you read the diary on screen and occasionally press a key.

After I had played the four programs through a few times - each holds a quarter of the year - I felt I might just as well read the book and cut down on eye strain.

There are some good features. There is a command function which allows you to get some biographical details on the characters, print out the text and so on. The pictures can be switched in or out but are no more than motifs of bits of Mole's life. I used the 'picture off' function on two occasions and managed to slow the game down to a painful snail's pace. That must be a bug.

It's disappointing that Level 9 has not been allowed to produce a real adventure. What carries the game through is the book text itself, irreverent and rude. Without that the game not stand much of a chance. What the program does do is to open up computer games to the real world.

Various
Level 9
Adventure
£9.95

September 30: Adrian Mole computer game arrived today. Looks really great. All the old characters there, Pandora, Rat Fink Lucas, Stick Insect, Barry Kent and the rest of the gang. The idea is to make Adrian popular.

October 1: Still playing Mole. Editor starts making noises about deadlines. I said that with over 20k of text loading in four parts, it really needs a long review to get to the bottom of it. He seemed pretty impressed. Managed to get through the game without getting beaten up and scored 55 per cent which makes me a spotty school boy. It's got a load/save option so it didn't matter when the cleaners threw me out at 9 o'clock.

October 2: The editor came to find out how the Mole review was going. I said I was seriously thinking about getting down to it. The game uses a tree structure you see. You make decisions and these affect your rating, and also what happens next in the game. So in one game you'll probably only see about a third of the text.

October 6: The editor just doesn't understand me. Here am I trying to write a masterpiece that will live for ever and all he can think about is his deadline. He just doesn't appreciate that I am a great writer and not just another hack. Even if you've read all the books and stuff, there are still plenty of new situations you can get in. I have now managed to score 78 per cent which makes me a gifted poet.

If you don't know the books, there's a Help system, which gives you some background.

October 9: Magazine going to the printers but, unfortunately, I feel the review still needs a little polishing.

October 1O: Get the sack. How ungrateful can you get.

Mosaic
£9.95

This is a bit of a disappointment I'm afraid, despite being programmed by Level 9. The trouble is that there's not really much of a game here. The program boasts some 200K of text, but most of it seems to have been lifted straight out of the Adrian Mole diaries and is presented onscreen just as if you were reading the books themselves. There is very little opportunity to become actively involved in the game, and, as far as I can tell, nothing of the sort of problem solving that is the essence of most adventures.

User participation takes the form of making decisions for Adrian in his attempts to become as popular as he can. The trouble is that this decision making process is very limited; you are presented with three options (along the lines of 'Shall I read this poem to Nigel/Pandora/the teacher?') and you simply press keys 1-3 as appropriate. There is no opportunity for any independent actions or direct text entry, and you can only sit there reading great chunks of text while you wait for the program to ask you to press a button.

Admittedly, the text is very amusing in places, but if all you want is to read the diaries, then why not go out and buy the books? Buying both the Adrian Mole books would still cost less than this program, they won't give you a stiff neck from staring at the computer screen and they're funnier as well.

THEY WROTE TO ADRIAN

Back in the July issue, we invited boys whose birthdays fell between 1st October and 31st December 1971 to write to Adrian, c/o the C+VG offices, listing the adventure games they had played and the humorous books they had read.

What we were looking for, of course, were computer gamers aged thirteen and threequarters, to play the role of Adrian Mole in test at the pre-production version of Mosaic Publishings latest release The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole (aged 13 3/4), written by Pete, Mike and Nick - yes, you've got it, those wizards of Adventure at Level 9.

Paul Summerhill of Stourbridge and Stuart Reynolds of Sittingbourne in Kent, were the lucky ones chosen by the C+VG team.

How did we choose them from over a hundred 13.75 year-olds who wrote in? A nice letter, the presence of Adrian Mole on the list of books read, and a respectable list of games played were important. From the shortlist of the best letters, we looked at birthdays for those who were nearest to 13 3/4.

Many had to be disappointed - but thanks for writing to us. Don't be disheartened if you were not amongst the chosen few. Your letters were ALL read with interest.

Obviously many people at other ages would have been more than willing to help Level 9 test a pre-production copy of the game, but the Adventure team thought it was more fitting that someone at Adrian's age should be chosen.

Although even Keith Campbell, a man of advanced age, enjoyed becoming Adrian Mole for the day!

THE DIARY

For a secret diary, Adrian Mole's record of life as a 13 3/4 year-old received a remarkable amount of public exposure. There can be very few people who by now don't know the most intimate details of Adrian's parents' affairs, the medical history of his acne or the dimensions of his 'thing'. It you haven't read the book, seen the play or watched the telly, Mosaic's latest release will be something of a revelation to you.

"I keep thinking intellectual thoughts like 'Why is there VAT on computerised books but not on printed ones?" writes Master Mole in his Diary. In so doing, he aptly describes the computerised version of his best seller and probably echoes the thoughts of Pete Austin, who, with the rest of the Level 9 team, devised the program.

If you are expecting the usual Level 9 Adventure, forget it. Mole is something quite different. It is not quite a game and not quite an adventure, but it quite definitely falls into the category "interactive fiction".

It is truly a computerised book, containing a quite amazing amount of text. The diary runs for one complete year, and each day has an individual entry, including the phase of the moon, Bank Holidays and religious festivals.

The game catalogues Adrian's love affair with the adorable Pandora, his parents' not so secret affairs, his desperate longing to become recognised as an intellectual and truly great poet and his relationship with the cantankerous but lovable Bert.

At irregular intervals, three choices are offered to the player. For example, when Adrian is in trouble for wearing red socks at school instead of the regulation black, the player decides whether Adrian will: (1) Continue to wear red socks. (2) Compromise and where one red and one black. (3) Forget it, and wear black socks.

The selection made affects the future narrative for the diary, and may modify Adrian's popularity rating. So that if, for example, option two is chosen, the theme of his problem with life at school will reflect that decision.

"I tell my father that I have been sent home from school for wearing one red sock. He turns into a raving loony. He phones the school, drags Scruton out of a caretakers' strike meeting, and shouts about victimisation. He says in 1966 the England World Cup team did not wear black socks, nor did Sir Edmund Hillary in 1953."

The choice will also affect Adrian's rating, which is given every new and again as a percentage, with a description such as "Adrian is a middling thicko". The objective is to become either very popular or, if you have a perverse mind, very unpopular.

As the Diary unfolds, there are fifty random subplot events which may occur, and thus change the course of events.

Adrian's diary on a tape comes is four parts, each covering a quarter of the year. The characteristics developed in one part are carried over into the next part. So the game must always be started on January 1st. As you work through the year, you create your own personalised diary. There is a printer option, so you can actually print your own individual book.

The themes throughout the year are based on the events in Sue Townsend's original novel. Some are taken directly from the book - whilst others are new having devised by Pete Austin of Level 9, who wrote all the text.

It is to Pete's credit that you would have to be very familiar with the book to distinguish which parts were his and which were Sue Townsend's, although a degree of topicality has been introduced with gems such as: "My father opened a bottle of Austrian white wine for dinner. I don't know much about the vintage, but it must have been good because it had a nice smooth flavour."

I was amazed at the amount of text contained in each part of the program, and suggested to Mike Austin that there was as much as in an Infocom game. "Oh no, more than that!" he exclaimed, and instantly produced a large bundle of A4 sheets, listing all the text in the diary. It was indeed as big as a whole book. "How do you fit it all in, even in four parts?" Mike proudly told me that they had now got text compression down to 42% of the original size.

I couldn't resist digressing here, for a moment, to lament the passing of Level 9's text-only adventures, on which they had built their excellent reputation. I get so many letters expressing just that view.

"Sales of the adventures with graphics are much higher," said Mike. But to anticipate those who complain the memory could be put to better use plot-wise, he went on to point out that Level 9 now pack more text into their graphic adventures than they were able to at the time they wrote their text only adventures.

There are graphics in Adrian Mole, although Paul and Stuart were unable to see them. The program Mike had brought along had not yet had pictures added.

When, a few days later, a combined version came along, it was apparent that they are not pictures as such, more a montage of Mole-like objects.

Between fifteen and twenty different graphics accompany each part of this four parter, and they unfold without any interruption to the scrolling of the text.

Mike Austin reckons there are 100,000 different paths through Mole, and "probably" only one that will get you a score of 100%.

If you buy the Diary, don't expect a problem oriented adventure game in the usual Level 9 tradition. This is a package of a different sort, and is much more like reading a book, accept that it is a book which varies every time you read it.

Even though we chose two thirteen year olds to test it, it's a game that will appeal to every adventurer - regardless of age.

Would Paul and Stuart buy a copy? Both were pretty definite about that. "Yes, if it has the graphics in it!"

Well, news is they won't have to buy one, Vicky Carne of Mosaic Publishing has promised to send them a copy just as soon as it is ready.

From what I have seen of the game it looks as if the computer version of Sue Townsend's best selling novel will prove as successful for Level 9 Software as her two books have already been.

I'm sure you'll agree.