PICTURE PUZZLE FOR SLEUTHS

Devotees of murder mysteries might like to try their deductive skills on Murder at the Manor, a graphics adventure for the 48K Spectrum. The local squire has been murdered by a thief in search of the squire's hoard of gold coins. Making good his escape, the murderer has scattered about the countryside pieces of a page containing the combination number of the squire's safe which still contains a vital clue. It is your job to find the combination, the clue and the identity of the murderer.

The search starts at the town cross, from which paths lead to various shops, the police station, the car park, the church or the open countryside - beware of the sheep. As you reach each location, a picture of it unfolds and a compass in the corner of the screen shows which way you can go.

Walking about or fighting with any of the characters you encounter will sap your strength and eating any food you are lucky enough to find will restore it. If you run out of strength before you have solved the mystery, you lose the game.

At any stage you can check your score, the clues you hold and your strength level.

The computer understands a comprehensive range of commands in this ingenious adventure and the graphics are attractive but a major fault is that the relationship between the various locations is not always consistent, so that however carefully you keep track of your movements, you may find yourself returning to the same spot repeatedly. The time at takes for each picture to appear also slows the game.

Murder at the Manor is available from Gemtime, 16 Ben Ledi Road, Kirkcaldy, Fife, and costs £6.95.

FOUL PLAY IN COUNTRY MANOR

MICRO: Spectrum 48K
PRICE: £6.95
FORMAT: Cassette
SUPPLIER: Gemtime, 16 Ben Ledi Rd, Kirkcaldy, Scotland

THE phone rang late one night. The only way I could find who was calling was to lift the receiver.

"Hello, Sir," I heard, "this is PC Herring from Gemtown. We've 'ad a 'orrible murder down 'ere, Sir, and 'onest, oi can't 'andle it m'sel. Would yer come down and 'elp me out?"

'Ow, I mean, how could I resist such an invitation after all, if I do say so myself, my reputation is known far and wide.

The local squire, whose safe contains a set of valuable gold coins, has been cruelly done in by a burglar. The local policeman is out of his depth, and your job is to solve the five clues that will lead to the apprehension of the culprit.

The title screen portrays a sleepy little village. Pressing a key starts the adventure. It is conducted with a split-screen.

A graphic representation of the current scene takes up the top half of the screen, and text input and information from the computer is shown at the bottom. A compass showing the possible exists is presented at top left.

So far, so ordinary. Murder at the Manor does not differ in the slightest from similar programs from Phipps Associates, Quicksilva and others. The pictures are rather slowly drawn, and, as the program is written in Basic, wrongly typed inputs can result in frustrating waits, until the obligatory PARDON? appears.

Every time a location is visited, the picture is redrawn and this usually takes a long time. It would be better if this process could somehow be skipped. It becomes even more frustrating as many of the locations have exits that seem to loop around to other, already visited locations. Thus, the car park, west of the starting point seems to go on forever if the player continues to head west: Only by veering off at a tangent does the adventurer stumble across further locations.

The village, as far as I have discovered, consists of several shops, a carpark, a police station, a church and a sheep pen.

By SEARCHing you may find several objects. Occasionally you'll stumble across a rabid rat, or a bloodthirsty sheep, who won't hesitate to sink their fangs into your leg or bowl you over, thus sapping your strength.

Strength is displayed when you type SCORE along with the percentage of locations so far visited and the time of day. There is no time limit but some strange things can happen at night, so beware!

While you are walking around the village, your strength is slowly being depleted and the food parcels, thoughtfully left lying around, may be eaten to provide you with much needed energy. As well as the usual commands, such as TAKE, QUIT and HELP, the program features a SAVE GAME routine. You may also, if you feel the need, FIGHT a character. Additionally, you may type in as many commands at one time as you wish. So you may type: SEARCH GROUND. PICK RIFLE. GO NORTH.

As you move around the village you'll meet local inhabitants and you may ask these to give you clues as to the murderer's whereabouts and identity. The replies are entered into your notebook, and at any time you may READ NOTES. The replies will then be redisplayed on-screen for you to inspect.

The unique thing about Murder at the Manor, is that each time you play, a different character is chosen as the murderer. Thus, as in Cluedo, each game is different. While not as sophisticated as some American Adventures (such as those from Infocom), which include case notes and newspaper cuttings, Murder at the Manor will certainly help you while away many hours trying to unravel the mystery.