Producer: C.C.S.
Memory Required: 48K
Retail Price: £2.99
Language: Machine code
Author: Roy Pool & Terry Murray

Last month we announced in the News Input of CRASH that C.C.S. were launching a range of new low-price games under the sub-heading of Charlie Charlie Sugar software. Rainy Day, is rather aptly named, a collection of puzzle games to while away the dull rainy days. Fate decreed a hot summer - never mind!

There are three different types of game included, each accessible from the front end of the program. The Puzzle unit offers you the choice of ten small pictures which must be sorted out. The complete picture is shown on the left of the screen, whilst on the right it is shown with all its character blocks muddled up. A yellow cursor block acts as a shuffling space so you can move the picture blocks about to rearrange them. The time it takes and the number of moves you make are soon shown on screen along with best times and best moves. The cursor block is moved appropriately enough with the cursor keys or a joystick.

The Codebreaker is an unusually elegant version of Mastercode, the game where you have to guess a combination in a limited number of goes. In this case the combination is a safe locking number in five digits. After each guess you are told how many numbers are correct but in the wrong position and how many numbers are correct in the right position. 15 attempts are allowed and a time limit which runs down to zero.

The third item is a Reaction Tester. A black coloured ball is dropped from the top of the screen into a glass of liquid. The object is to interrupt with a key as fast as possible so that the ball hardly drops at all. Witty comments are attached to the various level markers which judge your performance. The droptime displayed is in 1/100s of a second.

COMMENTS

Control keys: cursors. Q to return to menu, 9 to swap a piece
Joystick: AGF, Protek, ZX 1
Keyboard play: reasonable
Use of colour: well used
Graphics: average
Sound: limited
Skill levels: 1
Originality: all ingredients seen before in various forms

Three games in one, I thought, can't be good. Well two of the three aren't bad at all - this is for puzzle type games. Codebreaker is a non-complicated version of Mastermind types and I found this worked quite well. Finding the correct code will open the safe and play a tune. I found the Puzzle Unit very difficult to complete, perhaps it would have been easier if a group of people tried to solve it - good for families. I thought the Reaction Tester was a bit pointless, but it makes a little break between the others. In this trio of games, colour has been well used but sound is only a frill and doesn't make any difference to the playing of them. Rainy Day is well priced for its contents.

The playing appeal of games like these is pretty limited, although the two main puzzles will probably find families with very young children enjoying them as a group participation. Neither the picture shuffling nor the code breaking is new - Corridors of Genon incorporated the code element and we've seen other compilation games with it, but I thought this version was well presented if graphically unexciting. On the whole reasonable value for money, but not generally recommended unless you particularly enjoy puzzles.

MACHINE: Spectrum 48K
CONTROL: Keys, Curs, Sinc
FROM: CCS, £2.99

If it's pouring with rain outside, and the dog's just chewed up your cassette of Revenge of the Mutant Carrots, then you might be tempted to load up Rainy Day.

Hold it right there! Are you SURE you want to do this? Are you man - or woman - enough to cope with ten different mini-jigsaw puzzles? Or a Mastermind-clone? Or the dreaded 'Reaction Tester'?

That's what you'll be faced with in Rainy Day. The jigsaw puzzles are attractive little pictures that your Spectrum has muddled up and which you must rearrange against the clock. Very enjoyable if you like jigsaw puzzles.

'Code-breaker' is Mastermind with a time limit. You are allowed no more than 15 attempts to guess the code. There are three levels of difficulty that alter the number of digits in the code and the time limit.

One of the problems with 'Code-Breaker' was that if you entered a wrong digit by mistake, you couldn't rub it out and lost one of your 15 goes.

'Reaction Tester' is... well... a reaction tester. Are you 'Sober as a judge' or should you 'Take a bus'? Stop the falling ball, check your reaction time, and find out.

Rainy Day is better presented than most games compendiums, which are usually noticeable for their atrocious graphics and poor programming. What's more, it's reasonably priced. However I don't think it'll have you spending too much time at the keyboard.

Unless it really is pouring outside, and the dog HAS chewed up your cassette of Revenge of the mutant Carrots.

Cheap software cassettes are a mixed blessing. They bring pre-recorded software within the reach of many more computer owners but they also tend not to be good programs, and to offer much less value for money than do expensive cassettes.

C.C.S. have brought out a range of cassettes called Charlie Charlie Sugar, each one of which costs £2.99. They are adequate games but, in most cases, are simply carefully developed versions of programs which most Sinclair Programs readers will have seen before.

Rainy Day includes three different games. Codebreaker is a version of Mastermind which involves discovering the combination which will open the safe before the time limit runs out. Reaction tester, as the name implies, tests your reactions, although keeping your finger on the "S" key all the time allows you to give the impression of super-fast reactions. Puzzle unit challenges the user to unscramble a jumbled picture.

Ray the Ed. has just dropped off a load of cassettes for me to review, sorry wife. I shall have to stop the decorating and press on with these (he he!).

First of these is Rainy Day, nothing to do with rain but a compendium of games to play when it's raining. If you're rich you can use your Currah speech unit and the program is compatible with a number of joystick interfaces.

There are three games which you can play. Game 1 is called 'puzzle unit', where you can choose one of ten pictures which are jumbled up. Then, with the aid of the cursor, you have to put them back into their original form.

Game 2, called 'Codebreaker', is based on the Mastermind game. Instead of colours though, they use numbers which makes it more difficult. You have to break the code within 15 attempts and if you are successful a safe door will open.

Game 3 on the tape is not really a game at all but a reaction test. A ball is dropped from the top of the screen into a glass at the bottom of the screen and you have to hit a key before it reaches there. Comments are made on your ability.

Not a bad tape for £2.99 which I think has been aimed at the 10 to 16 age group. (To tell you the truth I couldn't do the pictures). Spectrum 48K only.