Producer: Firebird
Retail Price: £1.99
Author: Pete Cooke

Brainstorm is a journey into an arcade strategy game, in which the player uses his wits and reflexes to survive the many devious traps and pitfalls of the game. The main objective is to score as many points as possible within a set time limit. This is achieved by trapping a ball within the red point scoring areas scattered around the screen, using manoeuvrable coloured lines.

The player is initially faced with several options: to play the game, view the high scores, redefine control keys, and to choose one of five starting screens and three difficulty levels. Once these decisions have been made, the battle commences. There are 26 screens, lettered from A to Z, each more difficult to complete than the last.

The playing screen is split into coloured squares, with the player in control of three coloured lines and a cursor. The squares are coloured either red, green, magenta, blue or black. Hitting a red square increases the player's score, magenta squares decrease the player's score, green warps the ball to a different part of the screen, and both black and blue squares are neutral, affecting neither the ball nor the scoreline.

The player has to trap the ball, using one or all of the lines (accessed by positioning the cursor over the desired colour box, and hitting the fire button), within reach of a red area of the screen, whilst attempting to avoid either the magenta or green parts. The player is provided with 100 points, and a target score, highlighted in red, of 100 points. As the game progresses the current score rises and falls, according to the ball's path across the screen. The ultimate aim is to end the time limit with the current score matching or exceeding the target. If the score drops below the target, however, the colour of the target score changes from red to magenta. If more points aren't scored pretty damn pronto, the game ends.

Once the appropriate amount of points are scored, the player is then whisked onto the next screen and his previous score is transformed into the start-of-level score and target. This carries on throughout the game, and if the player's score reaches zero, or the current score falls below the target, then the game ends.

COMMENTS

Joystick: Cursor, Kempston, Sinclair
Graphics: colour is an integral part of the game, and is well used
Sound: simple spot effects
Options: three levels of difficulty, choice of four starting screens

A game with a brain, innovative, and just for once not a clone, is a rare and exceptional occurrence. Deviously difficult patterns arranged in bold contrasting colours are designed to get the sleepiest brain cells tingling; you can never re-position a line to the exact pixel so no two games can be precisely the same. Presentation is slick but purely functional - puzzleability is all and three stages of difficulty including a myriad of tesselated patterns should keep you hooked for ages. Simple ideas are often the best; in this case originality wins over technical complexity to create an immediately playable and startlingly addictive same.
KATI

If you are into brain teasers that frustrate and blow your mind then Brainstorm is the game for you. The graphics, colour and sound may not be up to much and the idea behind it is ridiculously simple but the game sure makes up for these losses with addictiveness and playability. You just ring the red block with one of the three colours and then wait for your victim to walk into your trap. The only trouble is, the balls have a mind of their own: one second they may be on the red background but the next they're on a purple and losing points! Brainstorm is wickedly addictive; play it and you'll never put your joystick down again!
NICK

We've had Thrust, Harvey Headbanger and Zolyx (only successful on the C64, however) from Firebird, and now there's Brainstorm - the latest in a famed list of simple-but-addictive Firebird games. Pete Cooke (programmer of Tau Ceti, Academy and Micronaut One) shows exactly how successful a Spectrum game can be if you concentrate on the addictiveness and playability - not the graphics and sound. There's not much you can say about Brainstorm - it's very addictive, entertaining and surprisingly simple to get into. Very few games appeal to all games players, but I would venture to say that this is one such product. Another game that every Spectrum owner should have.
PAUL

BUDGET BONANZA

What we got? Loadsacheapies! And we got Tony Worrall to review 'em. Take it away, Wozza!

Firebird
£1.99
Reviewer: Tony Worrall

Brainstorm, in concept and design, is very similar to Zolyx, (also from Firebird Silver,) in that moveable lines must be... er... moved around a multi-coloured checker board in an attempt to drive the bouncing ball onto point scoring squares. A fair old slice of brain power is required to reach anything above the third screen. Something I failed to do (without cheating that is!)

Like Zolyx this game is extremely simple to understand, and the graphics seem to be just as basic, but its still quite fun to play. A test of reactions and quick thinking rather than luck and guesswork, this is perfect budget fare, although I can't help feeling that we deserve something a little more sophisticated, even at this bargain basement price. All the same, Pete Cooke has come up with another little game - and if you go for puzzles, you'll like this.

Label: Firebird
Author: Steve Cooke
Price: £1.99
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Chris Jenkins

Doff by Tau Ceti programmer Pete Cooke on a wet Tuesday afternoon, one assumes, Brainstorm is a combination of quick reactions and forward planning which is well worth a look.

The screen is divided into coloured blocks, and around it bounces a little white bed. At the bottom of the screen are three line-projectors. Select one from the menu on the right of the screen, move your pointer to the playing area, end press fire to project a line on to the screen.

The aim is to pen the bouncing ball within the impenetrable lines. The trick is to pen it in over the red-coloured areas of the screen, where the ball will score you points until the timer runs out, but other colours will lose you points, so a cool hand and a quick eye are demanded.

With 26 screens of increasing to complete, Brainstorm is a lot more fun than it looks and should be on your shopping list.