Producer: Quicksilva
Memory Required: 48K
Retail Price: £6.95
Language: BAS IC with some m-c
Author: Preston, Hunt, Rose and Moore

This graphical adventure-style game takes you deep into the maze of rooms that make up Earthstone Castle, where you must battle with vampires, zombies, skeletons, gryphons and sphinx, among other legendary beasts. All this to rescue the Princess Paula from the Dragons Lord. There are 172 rooms laid out in a roughly radial manner, so that progressing backwards or forwards a number won't actually mean ending up in the room next door.

There are 20 duplicated monsters to encounter, some friendly, most not, and you will need to eat food regularly to keep up strength, although over-eating will give you indigestion and halve your strength! Of course, there are also all sorts of useful objects lying about to be picked up when they are needed - if you can work out when that is.

The screen is divided up into a main viewing area in which very simple 3D-style images appear of each room, plus a colour representation of any objects or monsters, and a status area, which gives an indication of the direction in which you are facing, the weapon you are using, the room number you are in and a key to the coloured bar codes beneath, which indicate the amount of strength you have, endurance, skill, and your proximity to both the princess and the Dragons Lord. A display panel above the view screen prompts you with messages like, 'Do you want to speak with the beast?' The view will also clear on pressing key H to show you your options, which are: pick up or drop an object; change a ready-to-hand weapon; eat some food; call up inventory; Look; free princess; and quit game.

The view area will also clear to give a verbal description of any battles taking place.

COMMENTS

Control keys: cursors, plus prompt keys
Keyboard play: reasonably responsive
Use of colour: reasonable
Graphics: detailed creatures although slowish to appear
Sound: poor
Skill levels: 1
Lives: 1
Screens: 172 rooms

Movement from room to room is done by pressing the cursor keys, which is quite a good idea, although if you press too long you may move through several rooms at once without realising. The computer doesn't say much throughout the game, making the adventure quite boring after a short while.

This isn't a proper adventure because the player has little control over the game and there really aren't any puzzles to solve other than the geographical one - where are you? Most moves are made as a result of an option menu. The hi-res graphics make a fine tracery of white detail to tie everything together in a vaguely Gothic-looking way, but it doesn't make up for the atmosphere lost by not having proper text descriptions, and the 3D effect of the rooms is extremely simplistic. Not my favourite type of game.

A graphic adventure through 172 rooms; avoid 40 monsters while trying to rescue the helpless and hapless Princess Paula. The usual assortment of monsters, both friendly and otherwise - and you can also use joysticks.

Gerralt: Slow, with lots of 'Y/N' single key answers. Good use of colours, but it doesn't look too good if all you've got is a monochrome TV. 6/10

Ieuan: The game can be crashed quite easily - which is a bit disappointing. It also takes a lot of playing before you get to understand the characteristics of the monsters. 5/10

Dilwyn: Good clear graphics. It uses all the 48K of available memory, and is jolly good fun. 8/10

I must confess to being generally nonplussed by the recent spate of hybrid arcade adventures. The likes of the chart-bustin' Atic Atac fall between too many stools for my taste. However, Dragonsbane (which runs on a 48K Spectrum from Quicksilva) is enormously impressive. It's a 'true' graphical adventure that thankfully doesn't involve zapping everything that moves, although I must confess that the plot is a little ho-hum. Trapped within Castle Earthstone you must outwit the dread Dragon Lords and rescue the beautiful Princess Paula. Still the hoary old story is more than compensated for by a stylish presentation.

You move through the castle's great halls using the cursor keys, picking up artefacts and battling such hideous adversaries as vampires, ghouls and (shriek) giant pigeons. There are 172 locations to visit and 40 species of well-drawn monster to avoid, not to mention a brace of randomly generated trapdoors. Its a true graphic adventure.

MACHINE: Spectrum 48K
JOYSTICK: No
SUPPLIER: Quicksilva
PRICE: £6.95

This game is best described as Adventure by Multiple Choice. Your best choice is to steer well clear.

The scenario is familiar. You're wandering through the halls of a monster-infested castle in a bid to rescue Princess Paula.

You're shown a picture of each hall (all almost identical), together with a monster if one is present.

There is no movement, no arcade action. And unlike a text adventure you cannot suggest your own course of action. Instead you are presented with a set number of choices, e.g. fight or run.

Fighting will result in a written running commentary appearing which details the fights progress and may end with the monster's death or you feeling very weak. The trouble with this kind of program is that it is completely devoid of atmosphere and variety. The choices forced upon you reduce the adventure to a banal affair more in keeping with a Chemistry O-Level.

Dragonsbane - 48K Spectrum, £6.95 - is one of those awful amalgamations of adventure and strategy game which become disenchanting within a few minutes of loading. The aim is to make your way through the castle, past the deadly monster, to rescue the princess. Only one room is displayed at a time and, even with careful use of a map, it is difficult to do anything other than trust to luck, as fleeing from monsters can transport you magically over some distance.

Dragonsbane should be re-named Userbane and is definitely not recommended. Produced by Quicksilva, 13 Palmerston Road, Southampton SO1 1LL.