Producer: Rabbit
Memory Required: 48K
Retail Price: £5.99
Language: Machine code
Author: J.F. Cain

Potty Painter is an 'Armidar' paint the squares copy with three screens. The screen is divided up into 24 rectangles, six columns of four shapes all defined by dotted tines. Each box contains a score figure, 100, 300 or 500 depending on its area. You must walk your monkey along the dotted lines until a square has been surrounded, when it changes colour and you get the points. As this is going on there are two nasties chasing you. On completing the screen the scene cuts to a bonus screen of grids where you must get a teddy bear, who slides downwards, to slide down the correct pole to his banana.

The third screen is very similar to the first except that you are a paint roller now and the chasers are two teddy bears. Another mean trick is that there is a time limit which eats away the value of the rectangles, so it's important to complete as many as you can in the least possible time. Completing this screen takes you back to the start screen again but with three chasers this time round. In some visual respects this game looks similar to Romik's Colour Clash.

COMMENTS

Control keys: cursors, or user-definable, 4 directions required
Joystick: AGF, Protek
Keyboard play: responsive
Colour: reasonable
Graphics: average to good
Sound: poor
Skill levels: gets harder each round
Lives: 5

This isn't a particularly attractive looking game, although that is more the fault of the game type than the program, which uses a nice mix of colours. Just that the dotted lines tend to make it look like a job centre form to fill out! Overall I found it very playable, but it would have been better if there had been some speed selections, which might have given It a longer life; and some sound would have helped.

The game is a fair copy of the original, with reasonable graphics, the nasties especially so. The sound is rather sparse, just a beep when you're caught. The game is mildly addictive, it's not original, but if you like arcade copies, then it is adequate.

For someone who has never played this type of game in the arcades, I think it would have been better to say more about it in the inlay than it actually does. On the whole I thought this was a reasonable copy of what is now a fairly old arcade game - not bad, not wonderful either. The user-definable keys are a great help.

Producer: Rabbit, 48K
£5.99 (2)
Author: J F Cain

This is a pretty classic version of 'Amidar' - a paint the squares game. The screen is divided into 24 rectangles of 3 different areas, each accorded a score of 100, 300 or 500 points. You must walk your monkey around the perimeter of the squares (a grid of dotted lines) until each square has been completed (the walked lines become solid). As each square is completed it's filled in with colour and you get the points. There is a bonus second screen - guide a teddy down various poles to land on a banana, then the third screen is similar to the first except you are a paint roller and there is a time limit which is eating the squares' points away. Of course all this is done to the tune of thudding chasers' footfalls, who are out to get you. It's a fair copy with reasonable graphics, although the game type doesn't lend itself to good looking screens really. Cursors or user-definable keys, joystick: AGF or Protek, poor sound, progressive difficulty, average but reasonably addictive. CRASH overall rating 60% m/c.