Producer: Visual Dimensions
£1.99

If you knew a bit about cars you'd never have got yourself into this mess. After a comfortable meal out with Jenny you're stranded in the driving rain somewhere in the middle of the Yorkshire Moors. Not a telephone box or AA van in sight. (I know the feeling - Ed.) Through the rising mist you can just see the mysterious outline of a house. While Jenny goes in search of its phone to call the recovery service, you decide to wait in the car. Almost an hour later, she still hasn't come back and, though the car looks warm and dry, you've got to investigate this mysterious house.

A journey up a forbidding path leads to an ominous building. The rooms inside, ranging from study to pantry, from library to remote house-top tower, give occasional glimpses of magic and enchantment and are atmospherically described. A ghostly suit of armour whispers messages, a mysterious symbol on an attic wall gives off a strange, supernatural glow and a notebook in Professor Quinn's study hints at the necessity of human sacrifice. Jenny obviously found more than just a phone.

The graphics which illustrate intermittent locations are boldly drawn, bright and colourful. As an added bonus they contribute to the atmosphere and give the game a polished and professional look.

Initially, the only human inhabitants of this well-presented mansion appear to be the servants: a flustered and thoroughly preoccupied cook, a doddery butler and a gardener whose behaviour is extremely unfriendly. Each one needs to be treated differently to secure the minimal amount of help that they have to impart. Not that the interaction is of a particularly complex variety: fairly simple actions turn out to be far more fruitful than any attempts at speech. The butler, for example, is a mine of historical information - most of which is totally useless.

Inevitably, puzzles centre around the problem of rescuing Jenny and putting a stop to the mystic experiments of the eccentric professor. Essentially this means sussing out how the house's magic forces really work. Seemingly irrelevant magic rings and charms prove very helpful as long as you make use of them in the right place. Perhaps they're connected with the supernatural atmosphere that surrounds the hollow in the study wall... Problems are graded in difficulty (a few extra twists on the 128K version) though there aren't any really mind-bending toughies. A few blushing red herrings give the whole procedure that extra edge.

The typical PAWed parser accepts complex input, recognises ALL and a small selection of adverbs. A RAMSAVE option allows you to save yourself from the occasional sticky moment. Unless you search CAREFULLY you may miss certain clues. Occasionally the program is rather fussy about the precise wording of a particular command (at one point you actually have to look into a chest that you don't know is open) but this hampers rather than halts progress.

A tale set in a strange and mystical house isn't exactly the most original subject for an adventure game. None of the puzzles are exceptionally challenging, but as long as you don't expect too much, they're quite fun to solve and should keep you occupied for quite some time. At £1.99 you can't really lose.

FAX BOX
Title: The Calling
Publisher: Visual Dimensions (cheques payable to FJ. Neary), 59 Nunnery Lane York YO2 1AH
Price: £1.99, mail order only

A PAW'd effort, The Calling comes in two flavours, 48K on one side of the tape and 128K on t'other. The story is that your car breaks down while you're on your way home one night, and being a gentleman and taking into account there's a thunderstorm outside, you send your girl-friend to phone for help from a nearby house. Two hours later you decide you'd better go looking for her. Not only are you illmannered, you're a bit slow on the uptake too!

But better late than never, and into the house you go. You soon find a diary belonging to Professor Quinn, whose house it is, and you read an entry where he refers to the possibility of making contact with the Netherworld. Your own nether regions turn to tapioca pudding, when you read that he needs a suitable female for the transferrence machine.

I started this game, as I often do first time round, without making a map and one hour later I quit with a score of 70 per cent, feeling sure that if I bothered to map and make notes I'd crack the thing next session. Good for beginners then, but not much trouble here for you seasoned adventurers.

The game isn't too bad, it didn't make me switch off in utter boredom, but a bit more care's needed in coping with PAW's parser.

Label: Visual Dimensions 55 Nunnery Lne, York, YO2 1AH
Author: T Taylor, P Neary
Price: £1.99
Memory: 48K/128K enhanced
Reviewer: Gary Rook

Travelling across the lonely Yorkshire Moors one night, you are stranded when your engine mysteriously cuts out. It's dark, and there's the threat of thunder in the air. Your companion, Jenny, volunteers to search for a house where she can phone the recovery services from, while you nobly stay with the car. After an hour, though, you begin to get worried. After all, you've seen the Rocky Horror Picture Show! Steeling yourself against the driving rain, you trudge off in the direction you think she took - up an overgrown driveway to a spooky looking manor house...

Created using The Quill and attendant programs this is a neat effort. It reads well. The location descriptions are neither so long that you fall asleep or so short that you miss them. The text is ably supported by the graphics, which, given the nature of the beast - a quickie, Quilled, cheap adventure - should be applauded. They are tasteful, complementary to the plot, and have obviously had some thought put into them.

It's nice to see that there's a 128K version included on the other side of the tape with more graphics, more objects to fool around with and more text in the description.