Phoenix Software Systems
£13.99
Reviewer: Craig Broadbent

Dyadic. Hmm. Phoenix assure us that the name means 'two units treated as one' but those medical connotations just won't go away. Anyway, what we have here are two games. Snake Mania and Craft, effecting a happy coexistence on a single disk. And do you know what? (What? Jonathan) I'm not going to review them separately.

BUT WHY ON EARTH NOT?

Well, it's not because they were both written by a Mr Maciej Kasatkin of the ESI coding group, who shows off his demo writing talents as usual with bouncing scrollies and flying logos with built-in inertia all over the shop. It's not because they both have a variety of rather good tunes (written by Anorzej Mielcarek), but are lacking in good juicy sound effects for when you get killed or something. Neither is it because they both have high score tables with a rather slow left/right control for entering your name rather than just quickly and easily typing it in (although Snake does have, as an added bonus, a rather novel scrolly saying words to the effect of "well done, you got x points, and you rank nth". That sort of thing).

No, the reason why I won't be reviewing them separately is because they're both puzzle games and as such, deserve to be treated with at least a heaped tablespoonful of contempt. For heaven's sake, don't you think we've got enough darned puzzle games? Do we really need another two to add to the thousands already available, as opposed to the two or three mediocre shoot-'em-ups, arcade adventures and beat-'em-ups? Now there's an idea - how about a Target: Renegade thumper or something? There is not a single SAM beat-'em-up game available. is is really that impossible to program something other than a puzzle game? I'm sorry, but I've really had it up to here with puzzle games!

THERE THERE, CALM DOWN. DRINK THIS CUP OF OVALTINE

(Slurp). Ah, that's better. Right, I'm fully relaxed, and my mind is perfectly composed. The fact is, here we have two puzzle games, and no amount of screaming and kicking and pulling one's hair out is going to alter that. What I shall now attempt to do is to briefly run through the context of each game, weigh up the pros and cons, and then give them a ridiculously low mark solely because they're both puzzle games! (Snarl, dribble). Sorry. Right. Snake Mania first.

This game sees you in control of a snake which you have to manoeuvre around a maze eating the obligatory dots. As you eat them, the length of your snake increases proportionally, and you have to plan your route a considerable time ahead so as to avoid running into your own tail, which presumably kind of gridlocks you so that you eventually die of starvation or something (you lose a life, in any case). The idea, very simply, is to eat all the dots before the counter runs down to zero.

Craft is is another incredibly simple concept which is fun to play, but it's hardly new ground. Here you have to shuffle and rotate tiles to form closed pipes before, again, the timer runs out. Pretty novel - not.

ONE FROM THE HEART

I know what you're expecting. You're thinking, he's not really going to give Dyadic a bad mark just because it's only a couple of puzzle games. I mean, they're probably quite playable and quite original compared to other puzzle games, right? Wrong. In a flooded market like this, Dyadic would have to be pretty spectacular to worth buying over any other game, and I'm afraid that it isn't. Just another couple of average puzzle games. So, for the sake of my sanity and the continued well-being of Coupe owners everywhere, here's a plea from the heart to all SAM programmers. For heaven's sake, write something else!