Producer: Procom
Memory Required: 16K
Recommended Retail Price: £5.50
Language: machine code
Author: David Jones

Bonkers has a cheerful inlay card and an even more cheerful title page, cheerfully disguising the fact that this game is a wolf in sheep's clothing. There is an element of the jumping platform game to it - in this case it's all downhill.

You're told that a group of earthlings have been trapped in the upper regions of an alien space station. They must reach five airlocks at the bottom to escape, but the horrible aliens are holding a creepy creatures convention (CCC for short) and they all join into make life difficult. The CCC cast list includes Double gangers, a Pacdroid, Squidge-droid, Stomper, Baby-droid, deadly space ship (in a space station?) and two other mystery guests.

Your trapped earthlings all appear at the top of the screen in the scoring area, each one coming down via the side of the screen when the previous one has been done in. There are five platform levels, the lowest containing the five airlocks. The corridor is defined by dark blue, the thick floor by pale blue. In each floor vertical shafts move left to right and vice versa. Your man doesn't fall through the shafts, but must attempt to leap down through them. When he reaches the bottom he can jump down into a free airlock. One serious problem is that the CCC moves not only along the corridors but also through the thickness of the floors - you can get caught in the lift!

COMMENTS

Keyboard positions: cursor keys or E, S, D, X
Joystick options: Kempston, Fuller and via the cursors, AGF and Protek
Keyboard play: highly responsive and very fast movement
Use of colour: average
Graphics: very good
Sound: good
Skill levels: increasing difficulty by the screen
Lives:
Screens: over 10

Bonkers is an immediately engaging game to play because all the characters are animated. Your trapped men stand at the top, waiting their turn and literally shaking in their boots, if you make an earthling run along a corridor and stop, he automatically turns round after a second and faces you, waiting for the next command. It's also good to have as many control options as are provided, two keyboard positions and two joysticks, although I didn't think the combination of E, S, D & X was all that sensible.

Excellent game presentation and instructions get you well started. The game sounds easy when you read them - well, I'll tell you it isn't! At screen one there is one alien trying to get you, but for every screen you clear one more alien joins in, so by screen 10 there are ten creepies after you. All I can say is that Procom have got a winner - very active, very enjoyable, playable and excellent value. Bonkers shows that a simple idea may be better than a complicated one.

I always liked Imagine's Jumping Jack, a wonderfully maddening game, and Bonkers is very similar in feeling. The animation is much more evident in Bonkers though. The idea is simple and relies on the piling up of odds against you the better - or luckier you are. They've also avoided the dreadful Death March music and contented themselves with an angel flapping up away from your dead earthling until it vanishes off the top of the screen. This is a really good arcade game.

Producer: Procom, 16K,
£5.50 (1)
Author: David James

A bunch of five earthlings are trapped on a space station by loads of aliens. You must get them safely down through the floors to five airlocks at the bottom. At first you have only one monster to contend with, but as you go along, more and more appear. Each floor has a moving 'lift' through which you descend. The animation and detail are very good and the game gets extremely difficult. Our reviewers thought this was a winner. Cursor keys or E,S,D,X (which is a silly arrangement). Joystick Kempston, Fuller, AGF & Protek. 5 lives, well over 10 screens, good sound. CRASH rating: 78% M/C

Producer: Procom, 16K,
£5.50 (1)
Author: David James

A bunch of five earthlings are trapped on a space station by loads of aliens. You must get them safely down through the floors to five airlocks at the bottom. At first you have only one monster to contend with, but as you go along, more and more appear. Each floor has a moving 'lift' through which you descend. The animation and detail are very good and the game gets extremely difficult. Our reviewers thought this was a winner. Cursor keys or E,S,D,X (which is a silly arrangement). Joystick Kempston, Fuller, AGF & Protek. 5 lives, well over 10 screens, good sound. CRASH rating: 78% M/C

MACHINE: Spectrum 16/48K
JOYSTICK: Optional
SUPPLIER: Procom
PRICE: £5.50

Five humans have been trapped in an alien space station and you must guide them one at a time to reach the air-locks so that they can escape.

That's the scenario. What actually happens is that you move a little stick-man from the top to the bottom of the screen by dropping him through a series of sideways-moving boxes. Then you do the same again four more times.

You are of course being chased by a number of randomly-moving monsters: one to start with, and an extra one for each stage you get through.

If you can get all five of your humans down you get a 1000-point bonus which is fun, and every few stages you are kindly awarded a bonus man.

The graphics are fast, but unconvincing. The game is enjoyable for a bit, but there's not enough strategy to make it a sufficiently interesting long-term proposition.