Producer: Alternative Software
Retail Price: £1.99
Author: Martyn Brown & A Biggs

Henry is a gnome who enjoys a reasonable life, but Henry is not a content gnome and feels he must achieve something. Motivated by greed, he's decided to go off to the Magic Castle to steal the Golden Hoard, a pile of treasure that is, logically enough, golden.

When Henry sets himself a task, it's usually an ambitious one, and this is no exception since the Magic Castle is guarded by lots of nasties with magical powers. Each section of the castle is represented within a screen and are fifty screens for Henry to make his way through.

To complete his quest, the gnome from home needs to visit every room and collect over two hundred magical items on his tourney. The nasties that hinder Henry include dastardly dwarves and not very nice elves; other baddies too foul to name also trot in and out the various caverns and sproing up and down from the ceiling.

The format of the game closely resembles the one originally used in Jet Set Willy: Henry can walk left and right and can jump. The main difference is Henry's gait his way of getting about is rather strange. Instead of the usual platform game type regular stroll, Henry staggers along as if he's been hitting too much of the Gnome Juice. The screens are all platform orientated with a number of baddies patrolling mindlessly along their predefined routes. They pay no attention to your presence on a screen, but they object to Henry very strongly if you are clumsy enough to guide the poor gnome into one of them, and bump him off. You are allowed five lives the Henries remaining jump up and down in a window at the bottom of the screen.

As an added bonus, entering some of the trickier screens returns a fresh complement of six bouncing Henries to the status bar along the lower bit of the screen. So keep the Henries bouncing and the pieces of Hoard flowing in and soon Henry will be a happy gnome.

COMMENTS

Control keys: alternate on second row left/right, bottom row to ump, G toggles tune on and off
Joystick: N/A
Keyboard play: every bit as good as JSW
Use of colour: nothing outstanding
Graphics: tidy, but tiny
Sound: neat tune, usual effects
Skill levels: one
Screens: 50

Not another Wet Set Jelly clone! BUT, it's not all bad. A nice platform game does you good, especially when it only costs £1.99. Henry's Hoard is good fun to play, and colour and graphics have been used quite well in the design of the game screens. There's quite a pleasant continuous tune (thoughtfully provided with an on/off switch in case it gets on your nerves) and when you've finished, it plays a neat rendition of 'When the Saints Go Marching In.' Okay, all you anti-platform game people, you might not like it, but I do, because it's cheap, challenging (a bit!), fun, and generally quite good all round. So there.

Why is it that budget software houses equate reasonable product with Jet Set Willy clones? The last month or so has seen a deluge of cheap games trying to re-evoke the success of their famous forbear. I wouldn't mind so much if they tended to be better, but they 're not: they're all inferior. Henry's Hoard is such a game, and is so typical of what some software manufacturers still think 'the kids'want. It's graphically pleasant enough, and not a really bad game. I'm sick of being fed the same type of game, time after time. I wouldn't buy Henry's Hoard but others may well like it. It's competent enough at what it does, I'm fed up with this sort of game.

Why this new company should choose to call themselves 'Alternative Software' beats me, unless they intend to offer alternative versions of classic games years after they've come and gone. Henry's Hoard is an alternative to Jet Set Willy, or maybe Manic Miner and will no doubt satisfy JSW fans who are desperate for a fix of their favourite platform action. For a couple of pounds this name is a reasonable deal - and it's clear that a fair amount of effort has gone into creating it. I'm just sorry the programmers didn't find something a bit more original to write, but there you go.

Alternative Software
£1.99

You'll be glad to know that Henry's Hoard has nothing to do with where Henry Cooper stores his nuts. Henry is another one of those cuddly knights who's aim in life is to stagger around a castle built with all the homely feel and user-friendly capacity of the Broadwater Farm Estate.

At least I think he's a knight. He's not been dubbed (though he's frequently scratched and my feelings are mixed) and the tacky graphics don't lead to easy identification. Either way he till has to search the imaginatively named Magic Castle in search of the Golden Hoard. Our 'Enery has to face elves and dwarves and curious power points that seem to have been time warped in from Sellafield. All zap you into County Oblivion. But as in all magical dwellings, certain rooms have recuperative powers that'll return any of the six lives you might've lost.

It's easy to scoff at a cheapie and I'm no fan of this type of game - platforms went out with Slade as far as I'm concerned. But with over 50 locations and 200 sword and saucerish items to collect, this is as thorough-going a game as you'll get at the price.

And for all the corners Alternative Software has cut, it's maintained the essence of a good game. Fred may not have the benefit of inertia, he can apparently defy gravity endlessly and his jumping movements suggest a congenital deficiency. However, the castle rooms are cunningly constructed so that you definitely have to look before you leap. Getting out of those room is worse than getting off Spaghetti Junction. And it's no fun, I can tell you. Apparently Henry's Hoard II is on its way - and who can blame 'em.

Alternative Software
£1.99

Alternative Software is the latest company to start producing budget software, and so far their releases for the Spectrum have been passable versions of pretty old arcade games. Henry's Hoard, possibly the best of their first batch of games is a return to that old favourite, the platform game (how long is it since you've played one of those?).

It's a 50 screen game in which you have to send Henry (a small sprite with wiggly legs) off in search of items of treasure scattered around the various rooms. As is the way with these games there are lots of little spikey objects, stairways, moving walkways and deadly monsters to avoid, all by resorting to the fiendish strategy of jumping left and right. As Manic Miner clones go its fairly average - the graphics are a little on the small side but it's clear enough what's going on, and some of the obstacles require a bit of thought to get past.

Henry's Hoard isn't going to set the world alight, but I've always had a weak spot for platform games (they're so much more refined than those nasty shoot 'em ups), so it gets a modest thumbs-up.