Producer: CCS
Memory Required: 48K
Retail Price: £5.95
Author: B. Bartis

This is another in the 'Games for girls' series. The objective of the game is to help Bobo, a young African girl, to get home safely from school through the jungle.

The game consists of two parts.

The first part is a mastermind style game, set in the school, where you try to guess the four objects concealed in the four jars. You have six guesses in a limited time determined by the level of play, 1-5. You can play with or without sound, which is a nice touch. The prizes Bobo wins help her bribe the creatures to allow her safe passage through the jungle. The graphics and sound are good and the movement of hamburgers, books, eggs and coconuts along the bottom of the screen is very smooth:

You enter the second part of the game carrying forward the objects you guessed correctly from the first part, e.g. two books, a hamburger and an egg. You see a map flashed up on to the screen for about a second (level 1) and what you can remember of the positions of snakes, gorillas, owls and cannibals is used to help navigate your way through the jungle. Bobo starts at the bottom left of the screen and you must guide her to her hut diagonally to the opposite corner.

On your journey across the screen you meet shops and creatures. If you are quick enough you can buy an item (preferably one you couldn't bring from the first part) at the shop since you are never sure which creature you will bump into next. An owl demands a book, a snake an egg, a cannibal a hamburger and a gorilla coconut. If too slow at giving up the object demanded you lose one of your five lives. At higher levels the flash indicating the creatures, positions is shorter and you are given less time to shop or give up the objects.

Jungle Adventures emerged as one of the more addictive games to pass through my tape recorder this month. It is a simple game but has that easy charm of a game well thought out and colourfully implemented. A game for girls, boys and the young at heart.

GAMES FOR GIRLS - SLOW, SIMPLE AND PATRONISING

HICKSTED/MATHSTED
Memory: 48K
Price: £5
Joystick: Kempston

DIAMOND QUEST
Memory: 48K
Price: £5

JUNGLE ADVENTURE
Memory: 48K
Price: £6

The first three in a series of Games for Girls promised by CCS do not augur well for the rest of the line. Apart from a tenuous link with show jumping in one game, and a heroine rather than a hero in another, it is difficult to see where the special appeal for the female half of the cassette-buying public lies, unless simplicity and slowness are intended to be the main selling-point.

The intentions of CCS in producing the series may have been well-meaning but the overall quality of the games and the patronising tone of the inserts could lay the company open to charges of sexism.

Hicksted is designed as a simulation of a show jumping event but neither the graphics nor the laborious question-and-answer process which has to take place before the game can start convey any sense of excitement. The control keys are placed awkwardly and a great deal of practice is needed before the path of the horse loses its resemblance to a bull on the rampage rather than a well-trained steed.

The second side of the Tape offers a mathematical version which is a good deal more entertaining than the original, since the primitive graphics and movement do not matter so much. The object is to take the jumps by answering mathematics questions correctly; you can choose to be tested on multiplication, division, addition and subtraction, with several levels of difficulty for each. A time factor adds a challenge and the game provides an effective form of maths drill.

The insert for Diamond Quest makes the dubious claim that the colourful graphics and absence of monsters make it specially suitable for girls. In fact it is a straightforward graphics adventure, in which the object is to collect four keys and find your way to a Golden Palace where a treasure is to be found. On your way you encounter unpleasant creatures such as a hulk, some bloodthirsty bats, wild lions and swarming mosquitoes, and you can replenish your strength by eating food or booking into a hotel.

The game features simple one-character commands, a variety of locations which have little to distinguish them from each other apart from their names, and a series of battles which take the form of your enemy's energy level and your own ticking away numerically before your eyes.

There are several levels of difficulty and if you have never played an adventure game previously, the ease of movement from one scenario to another might prove an attractive introduction to the genre.

In other respects the game does not have the sophistication or mind-taxing qualities of many other adventures on the market.

Jungle Adventure features Bobo, a young African girl making her way from school to her home in the jungle. The game starts at school, where Bobo must try to win prizes such as an egg, a hamburger, a coconut or a book with which she will later bribe the creatures she meets in the jungle. The prizes are won by a Mastermind-style guessing game which, although scarcely original, is entertaining.

The second stage of the game, in which Bobo must make her way past a variety of creatures which become visible only when she bumps into them, is less successful, especially as the placing of the keys makes it extremely difficult to complete the journey. An unfortunate slip by which Bobo is referred to as he rather than she when she falls into the lake is in this context a serious fault.

GAMES FOR GIRLS

Hold on while I change out of my garter belt to write this review, readers! Two games, Jungle Adventure and Diamond Quest come under the collective title of Games for Girls and were written by M. Sherlock and B. Bartis who could be male or female for all I know.

Keith passed on these games to me to review at a party he held to celebrate the launch of his book. Feeling rather upset at such a slur on my masculinity, I trotted round to my friend Julian Crouch, to have a look at them.

I have to mention Julian because he it is who has a Spectrum, on which they run, but more importantly, because I have recently discovered he is related to the Editor and I want to keep this job!

From reading the cassette inlays, I had an idea that these games might be bad. "We think (Diamond Quest) will particularly appeal to girls because the graphics are bright and colourful, and monsters do not appear!" Ten out of ten for the most patronising blurb and worst looking inlay - who wants to look at a pink inlay with animals in pastel colours?

The first game we tried was Jungle Adventure. You are cast as an African girl who must make her way home from school. Home is in the middle of the jungle.

Words fail me at this point! It is the most boring Spectrum game I have ever played. It isn't an Adventure, it isn't an arcade game - what it is I'll never know!

The second tape was Diamond Quest, which is much better and seems to have been well thought out. Even so, the game has a vocabulary of precisely 14 words! Watch out, Infocom!

The idea behind this game is to try to find the diamond treasure which is hidden in a palace. The graphics are quite good, but again, to call this an Adventure is a gross over-statement. It is merely a maze game. So, I think I'll stick to my knitting!

Games for Girls come from Laser Computer Simulations Ltd, for the 48k Spectrum, and cost £5.95 and £4.95 respectively.

CCS has begun its Games for Girls series with three games for the 48K Spectrum. Hicksted, a simulation of a show jumping event; Diamond Quest, which is a straightforward adventure; and Jungle Maze, in which prizes are won with a Mastermind-style guessing game which is fun, although unoriginal. Apart from a tenuous link with show jumping in one game and a heroine rather than a hero in another, it is difficult to see in what way CCS has changed its strategy to aim it at females rather than males.