Producer: Global
Retail Price: £2.95

Though it may sound like something that you would plaster all over a shish kebab, Myla Di'Kaich is a space age supermarket stocking goods that range from the sublime to the ridiculous. Quite a few of the things for sale would even be most dangerous if it wasn't for the comprehensive security systems. In fact a lot of the things for sale are dangerous since the comprehensive security systems have failed. Not only that, but all the life support systems have gone down, the warehouse robots are dangerously loopy, and the escalators and travelators are none too sane. It doesn't really matter does it, I mean it's not your problem is it? Well it wouldn't be if it weren't for your ship being in a sad state of repair and the only place to get spare parts is from Myla Di'Kaich.

Oh dear. Double unluckily, the spare parts needed are distributed very sparsely throughout the large area that the store covers. Since the life support system has gone AWOL, a space suit is needed to prevent sudden asphyxiation. The major hassle of shopping in Myla Di'Kaich is avoiding having the robots rip open your space suit - you only have four supplied originally and once you've run out the game is over. The oxygen supply is none too infinite either. A bar underneath the main playing section shows how much oxygen is left. Luckily various oxygen dispensers are placed in some of the stores rooms.

Once inside the store and on the hunt for pieces needed to put the ship back into action, you soon find the control method of your little chap very similar to that of Jet Set Willy. For those of you unfamiliar with JSW (have you been unconscious for the last two years?) the main character can run left and right. Holding down the jump key in conjunction with a direction button causes a jump either left or right.

Travelling around Myla Di'Kaich is a bit awkward as seemingly solid platforms are prone to collapsing beneath you and apparently harmless ground often bursts into agitated life. There are often many lifts on the different screens and, though sometimes unpredictable, they are quite easy use. A word of warning, if a lift travels too high with you on top it's possible to be crushed beneath a platform above. It's also quite easy to unwittingly stand underneath a descending lift and get converted to yucky splat.

Building up a knowledge of the map is quite important, it's all too easy to walk through a hole in the floor and fall to your doom. It's a pretty of strange game really, but then with a name like Myla Di'Kaich what do you expect.

COMMENTS

Control keys: alternate on 2nd and 3rd rows for left and right, bottom row to jump
Joystick: Kempston
Keyboard play: responsive, and simple layout
Use of colour: messy
Graphics: well animated, but tiny
Sound: poor tune and effects
Skill levels: 1
Screens: 50

To say the least I wasn't very impressed with this one, it seems to have many of the qualities of early platform games including the lack of playability and addictiveness. I think it would have been greatly improved if the graphics were less colourful and larger, as they are however, it is difficult to play for any length of time as the garish colours and small characters make playing very hard on the eyes. As for the game itself I think we have all had enough JSW look-alikes to last us a lifetime.

Global seem to have got the idea that if you can't think up a title for a game, why not call it something no one will understand: how about Myla Di'Kaich?! Only joking chaps, of course l know what it means -I think!. Anyway, enough of this frivolity. If l hadn't been told about the game, and just shown a screen shot or something, I would have said it was a follow up to Wet Set Jelly. But no, the graphics are miniscule, none more than 2-4 character blocks but they are well animated all the same. The screens don't have names, which makes it difficult to remember routes and things. If you're one of those cut-off-from-society people still playing JSW, then wake up because you might like this. If you threw that game away twelve months ago, stay well clear of this one.

After reading about supermarkets and rubber band motor drives in the inlay, I thought Global Software might at least have come up with something original. How wrong I was. I thought maze games were dead and finished, but apparently some companies can still make money with them. Myla Di'Kaich is no different from any other platform game, and reminds me a lot of Farenheit 3000 from the Firebird range of cheapies. You are a very small jetman surrounded by, amongst other things, baby jetmen and some of the nasties you meet are quite well animated - especially the opening pyramids. Everything is much too small, however, and the lack of size combined with single colours means the graphics don't have an astounding effect. Unfortunately, this is a very plain game on a pretty dead subject where virtually every possibility has been explored - except perhaps for mentioning supermarkets in the inlay.

Global Software
£2.95

Excuse me, I think I'm having a migraine. No, it's just the graphics in this game, which are brighter than even Jeff Minter's most psychedelic nightdress. And what's worse, when you lose a life they flash through every colour combination imaginable.

Myla di 'Kaich turns out to be a space store gone mad, which doesn't help your search for the twelve spare parts that'll let your ship leave (though I'd settle for an aspirin). Each of the fifty screens of this lunar labyrinth is jam-packed with travelators, lifts, shifting floors and floating nasties... very much like my local supermarket, in fact. It really is one of the busiest, most open plan collecting games I've seen. Owing to the eccentric layout and odd graphics it can even be difficult to get from one side of the screen to the another.

It's all more of the same only a bit different this time, if you see what I mean. At the price it may amuse diehard fans of the game-type - but wear your shades while playing!