Producer: CCS
Memory Required: 48K
Recommended Retail Price: £5.00
Language: BASIC
Author: O & S Ben-Ami

Byte is a text adventure. The object is to enter a three dimensional maze to find the ten computer circuits needed to build a computer. The inlay card specifies the ten circuits to be found, and they may be lying about or hidden in boxes or caches. As well as the electronic bits and pieces there are also monsters sent to get you by the great computer BYTE. These can be dispatched either with bribery or by fighting them mentally or physically. Mental battles take the form of a spelling or maths test. If you choose a physical combat, this is shown graphically, for instance, a bow and arrow which you must position to aim at the monster. If you miss the monster has a go.

Before entering this maze of words, you must select a skill level. There are seven with level one having only 27 rooms and level seven having as many as 125. You must also decide just what computer you are going to build ranging up from a Jupiter Ace (they'll have to update that one!) to an IBM PC. The ZX Spectrum comes in at number three, by the way.

COMMENTS

Keyboard play: reasonably responsive
Use of colour: very good
Graphics: clear, neatly drawn when not text
Sound: average
Skill levels: 7

The instructions are rather complicated to follow at first what with the computer you want to build, and a complicated set up called TRAITS. But once into the adventure it is fairly conventional. Instead of the more common scrolling up of text and input commands this game presents you with a description and a 'press any key' cursor, it then tells you what you can see in the room, your traits (strengths) and an enter command in the centre of the screen. Simple abbreviations may be entered which saves all that typing in.

For what is largely a text adventure, this has some very colourful lettering, but the constant use of reverse flashing gets a bit tiring on the eyes alto a while. The game itself is a standard type adventure, but on meeting monsters you do seem to have a fair chance of survival. I suspect that the technical terminology of this game may put off a lot of people although a technical knowledge of computers is hardly essential. A reasonable adventure generally with plenty of skill levels.

I think the story is novel, unfortunately the processing of commands seems unnecessarily long-winded, and after a while it becomes irritating. Good use of colour though.

Producer: CCS, 48K
£5.00 (1)
Author: O&S Ben-Ami

This is a text-with-some-graphics adventure, where the battle field is the depths of a 3D maze in which various computer components must be located to build your own computer. They may be lying about, they may be hidden and generally they are defended by all sorts of electronic monsters you must defeat to remain alive and progress. The seven skill levels are neatly categorised by the sophistication of the computer you want to build, each having its own strength characteristics. Battles with the monsters may take the form of mental bouts like spelling tests or maths questions, or they may be physical where, for instance, you may have to do semi-arcade battles with cross bows or swords. Graphically the text is pretty clear, but the inputting of commands is rather irritating and there's too much reverse flashing going on which tires the eye. Medium fast response times. Overall CRASH rating 58%, average BASIC.

Producer: CCS, 48K
£5.00 (1)
Author: O&S Ben-Ami

This is a text-with-some-graphics adventure, where the battle field is the depths of a 3D maze in which various computer components must be located to build your own computer. They may be lying about, they may be hidden and generally they are defended by all sorts of electronic monsters you must defeat to remain alive and progress. The seven skill levels are neatly categorised by the sophistication of the computer you want to build, each having its own strength characteristics. Battles with the monsters may take the form of mental bouts like spelling tests or maths questions, or they may be physical where, for instance, you may have to do semi-arcade battles with cross bows or swords. Graphically the text is pretty clear, but the inputting of commands is rather irritating and there's too much reverse flashing going on which tires the eye. Medium fast response times. Overall CRASH rating 58%, average BASIC.

Memory: 48K
Price: £6.00

Byte is an adventure game with a difference, according to CCS, which produced this offering. You play the role of a computer and move round a simple grid of rooms hunting for various circuits. There are seven levels of difficulty and you have statistics based on RAM, languages known, speed of operation and the like.

So far, so good, although the heavy-handed jocularity of it all raises more groans than laughs after a time, but there are other reasons why Byte is 'an adventure game with a difference'. For a start, it must rank as one of the slowest adventures written. It seems to be programmed almost entirely in Basic and the response time consequently is poor. Second, the program insists on going through a series of routines every time you type-in a command, including an uninspired jingle, a listing of your character statistics, and a statement of what you can see. That all takes time, slowing the game to a truly awesome crawl.

The descriptions of rooms and their contents have a wonderful simplicity. They go something like this. 'You are in room 3,1 on level 1. You can see: Ark.' You then type in your command, such as 'o' for open or 'w' for west. The computer thinks about your letter, tells you what it means, and finally does something about it.

With all that and no graphics, CCS seems to have taken a perverse step backwards with its game. It lacks even the more basic elements of old-fashioned text-only adventures. The result is unlikely to be of use to anyone, except possibly as a cure for insomnia.