Producer: Abbex, 16K
£5.95

Faust's Folly is buried somewhere in this congenial game with fast response times and some graphic additions. Once you have sorted out the vocab and found the entrance to the underground complex, it's a matter of the correct implements being picked up. The computer tells you that it isn't very intelligent (whatever Sinclair may tell you) and it may not know which way is which without a compass to help. In almost any location you can go in eight directions, so don't get lost. Very good for 16K.

Producer: Abbex, 16K
£5.95

Faust's Folly is buried somewhere in this congenial game with fast response times and some graphic additions. Once you have sorted out the vocab and found the entrance to the underground complex, it's a matter of the correct implements being picked up. The computer tells you that it isn't very intelligent (whatever Sinclair may tell you) and it may not know which way is which without a compass to help. In almost any location you can go in eight directions, so don't get lost. Very good for 16K.

Producer: Abbex, 16K
£5.95

Faust's Folly is buried somewhere in this congenial game with fast response times and some graphic additions. Once you have sorted out the vocab and found the entrance to the underground complex, it's a matter of the correct implements being picked up. The computer tells you that it isn't very intelligent (whatever Sinclair may tell you) and it may not know which way is which without a compass to help. In almost any location you can go in eight directions, so don't get lost. Very good for 16K.

FAUST HEADS FOR A FALL

MICRO: Spectrum 48K
PRICE: £3.50
FORMAT: Cassette
SUPPLIER: Abbex Electronics, Tavistock House, 34-36 Bromham Rd, Bedford

If you buy an adventure which is tailored to fit a 16K Spectrum, you cannot really expect a very good game to be squeezed into the available memory, even using advanced techniques of machine code and text compression. When the programmer avoids such sophistication altogether and attempts to write the adventure in 7K of Basic, then the result is likely to be very poor indeed.

Such is the case with Faust's Folly, which cannot be recommended even to adventure-starved 16K Spectrum owners, despite its attractively low price. The cassette packaging is simple and unattractive and features incorrect instructions for loading the game always a bad sign.

To save precious memory, and extra printing on the sleeve, the game is preceded by an introduction, which sketches a scenario: you have to find and explore Faust's Folly. This is a secluded hideaway populated by a number of mutants from the dawn of time and full of lots of treasures which, unusually for an adventure, you can just carry, all at the same time. Your mission is to collect all the treasures and escape with your life.

The adventure accepts the usual verb-noun two word input, although its vocabulary is highly impoverished and there are some graphics.

Faust was a German who sold his soul to the devil, and hid many treasures.

The player is led near to the treasures and must then find them. The creatures encountered in the quest are mutants from long ago.

That is the setting of this game, which although mainly text, is accompanied by mini-pictures of the objects as they are mentioned.

The screen during play has varied colours. which combined with some simple sound effects make for a quite pleasing Adventure from Abbex of London for the 16K Spectrum at £4.95.