Title: Witch Hunter, The
Publisher: Pocket Money Software
Price: £4.95

£4.95! A bit pricey for pocket money software, but then it does include a blank cassette to store your saved games on. My review copy came without an inlay, so I had to settle for the rather gruesome animated loading screen to give me some idea of what to expect. More animation and a burst of music when the game had finished loading, and side B of the tape includes a program containing a map of Dral, the land where the adventure takes place. The Quill'd and Illustrator'd game includes the now usual RAMSAVE and load features, as well as graphics off, though the pictures aren't too bad at all.

You start off in the Valley of Dral, with the Mountains of the Moon far away in the distance. To the east is a cave and by your feet is a spell. In the cave is a statue, and you can make out the word VOLTAC, while if you go to the west your quest is revealed to you, as indeed is a charred body on the floor. You, apparently, are Thallus, and Ashmeard is dead. Maybe that's him on the floor. You must travel to the Mountains of the Moon and kill the witch Ella, who has the scroll of Voltac. All this, incidentally, was imparted to me by an old owl with the name of Wise, though I don't know if his first name was Ernie. (I hope there's no MORE where that COMES from! Ed).

Before heading for the mountains I naturally had a nose around and found several trees to climb, one of which had a noose hanging from it. Elsewhere, in a burnt-out area, there was the smell of flesh. Ugh! The RAMSAVE feature came in useful as there are a few sudden death routines (quicksand and drowning), which regular readers will know always tend to put me off a game. Nevertheless, I liked The Witch Hunter despite that. Plenty to explore early on, problems slowly becoming apparent, although the vocabulary was a little fussy in places. I'd be happier recommending this if it was at a more genuinely pocket money price, £1.99, say, but as a mid-price game it's still okay.