This looks like some sort of educational cross between Hangman, anagrams and crosswords. The game begins with a line of dashes that show where the letters go, with the letters appearing - jumbled up - on the right-hand side of the screen.

Tony: There's minimal use of colour, but that's not surprising in a text-only game. But more use of it might just have encouraged the very young to play the game a little longer. 6/10

John: This is a user-friendly program with a well laid-out screen that's easy to see and a useful Help option. An enjoyable game to play. 7/10

Mark: This is a fairly interesting program to play - especially so if you like your word games even more difficult, with the clues being given as a jumbled-up mess! Overall, absorbing and good to while away a few hours. 7/10

MACHINE: Spectrum 16/48K
JOYSTICK: No
SUPPLIER: Postern
PRICE: £6.95

This is simply a sophisticated version of Hangman, except that instead of getting hung you lose points.

The computer makes up a simple crossword of up to five different words. You're shown the shape of the crossword, and the letters which need to be fitted into it. You start at any position on the crossword and guess the letter.

If you're wrong you lose points. but when you get it right it helps you to make a better guess at the next letter.

The program comes with 5000 words (which on the 16K version can only be loaded 600 at a time). You can choose how many words you want in your crossword and one of three different skill levels according to how difficult you want the words to be.

But the game would've been a lot more interesting if the crosswords were a little more intricate. It's hard to see Xanagrams being played a lot.