CREDIT FOR SIMPLICITY

Memory: 48K
Price: £5.95
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor joysticks

Funny isn't it? Sometimes the games with the most simple of concepts can give just as much pleasure as programs of great complexity.

Tiler Tim by Microwish asks you only to move a grinning face across a grid pattern on the screen, avoid a deadly spider who dogs your tracks and occasionally stop another ghost-like character from undoing your good work of turning each small square into a different colour.

It is a cross between a painting game and Pacman, though there aren't any gobblers or killer ghosts. You move up a level after all the small squares have been changed and the action is progressively more difficult.

The graphics are bright and cheerful in almost fluorescent shades. Tim, the grinning face, zips across the screen at a fair pace making a noise like a geiger counter gone bananas.

No great strategic skills are necessary as the only real qualification to play is a quick eye and an even quicker hand. At first the spider seems sluggish but soon becomes a real hazard. Just as you think you have finished a screen the ghosts appear and you must stop them ruining your job.

Tiler Tim is very much a high-score merchant's game, deceptively easy and quite compelling.