NASTY HOBBITS

Richard Price sets out on the road to Rivendull while Tolkien turns in his grave.

Not long ago, after a long day at the keyboard, I settled down in front of the TV for a few hours of mindstretching intellectual activity - namely Hawk the Slayer, a film which would make Mary Poppins seem like high art.

At the beginning was a short voiceover which summed up the plots of about 75 percent of all adventure programs: "This is a story of heroic deeds and the bitter struggle for the triumph of good over evil and of a wonderous sword wielded by a mighty hero when the legions of darkness stalked the land."

All but one of this month's software fall into this category. Games designers seem to think that this sort of plot is all that most players need. I doubt it and once again make a plea for real storylines and humour. Grumble, grumble...

Never mind though, Delta 4 Software has taken the archetype of all those solemn hero tales and turned out a classic parody.

THE RETURN OF THE HOLY JOYSTICK
Publisher: Delta 4
Memory: 48K
Price: £4.95 (£6.95 Microdrive)

This month is not the Delta 4 Benefit Month and it is pure coincidence that another of its games has turned up in my in-tray.

Return of the Joystick: is the sequel to The Quest for the Holy Joystick. I have never seen the first game but I presume the aim is the same. Like Bored this adventure is written with the Quill and Illustrator and features the same quirky sense of humour.

The game begins outside Alexandra Palace where one of the many ZX Microfairs is about to open. You are a typical computer punter on the lookout for cheap games and equipment. Little do you know that your simple needs will lead you into the search for the Holy Joystick: which is secreted somewhere within the several reality layers of the game.

From the bus stop at Ally Pally you can wander around London and its suburbs. Various well known computing firms can be visited and, in the offices of a nameless publishing company, you will encounter T*ny Br*dge and other agents of darkness.

Large numbers of computer games can also be found there - such as Chublock and Sabre Wilf - and you can enter those games to find vital objects.

There's an element of satire and large numbers of gratuitous tricks - I stepped off the path at Ally Pally only to be devoured by a Bengal tiger and told: 'Gosh, that was unfair wasn't it? Another feeble attempt?'

Reality shifts between the ordinary world and the strange environments of the games. Occasionally you will step into a new location only to find yourself in the USSR or the mystic territory of Delta Tower.

Every entry counts as a minute in the game world and some things will only happen at particular times - if you're in the wrong place that's tough. Starting time is 9am and you must finish by 10pm. The game gives very little help and it is easy to waste time.

Return of the Joystick: is not as compulsive as Bored but it is equally well put together and does have the virtue of not being an orc-basher game. Some of the humour relies upon in-jokes and you may find that some of the characters are unknown to you - the world of computing companies and magazines may seem big to those in it but to outsiders it may not have the same appeal.

IN SEARCH OF THE HOLY JOYSTICK

Tony Bridge gets caught up in The Quest for the Holy Joystick and The Return of the Holy Joystick, from Delta 4 Software, and finds himself.

What do Portsmouth, Liverpool, High Wycombe, Swanmore and a sewer in Camden Town all have in common? No, it's not a Football League - they're all (except the sewer) the homes of popular software publishers. Although maybe the sewer, too... But they also make an appearance in a Quill'd adventure from Delta 4 (that's the one from Swanmore in case you were wondering).

But this is no 'hunt-the-Dragon' adventure. From the opening title screen, which is full of in-jokes (and a picture of a very interesting-looking person - although modesty forbids me to let on who it might be!), the player is aware that this is to be a rather different affair.

Apart from the usual method of travel GO NORTH and so on - the player can also hop on a coach or bus which will whisk him away to another location. It would have been a nice touch here to have the occasional 'MYSTERY TOUR'.

The first location I visited was Ally Pally, 'on a bleak windswept hill' where the 'Umpteenth ZX Microfair' was in progress (we will meet this again in the follow-up to Joystick). And one of the most popular stands at any Microfair (and deservedly so) is that of Sunshine Books. And it is the main location here. Manning the stand, as usual, is one Tony Bridge, who has some very interesting things to say! Now, the crisp fiver is usually the way to a reviewer's heart - this is the first time that one has appeared in the program he is reviewing!

Nearby, if you can tear yourself away, is a V-E-R-Y famous adventure, in which Bug, Skadi, Thor, Mary and all the others start bashing you about, while the fullstops of the text (or are they bottles of wine?) are pointed out.

Things can only go UP from here although, in this case, you can go DOWN to Camden Town, where you'll meet Poland Prat Simplestar and Wincey the Weathergirl. Then quickly on to Portsmouth, where you'll find a roomful of VIC-20's struggling to contain a one-location adventure (how biting) - or High Wycombe, where you can play Snobol and get your own back on the dreaded Nightingales. Or how about a little program to redefine the monsters in Wet Jet Silly; you'll find that and a few interesting POKES in Scotland.

Even the Goblin's Dungeon makes an appearance here, though be careful, as it's just as difficult to escape from this one as the original, and just as full of silly people wittering at you!

Apart from lots of places in England, you can visit Europe (Spain and 'Schvitzerland'), America (in all of four locations) and Australia (Melbourne, of course).

All in all, an hilarious breathtaking neck-breaking trip through the world of adventures, with some acute observation and wit (none of your nudge-nudge here). A redefined Beeb-like character set makes the thing pleasant to look at too.

If I have any adverse criticism, it would be that the puzzles are not very taxing but then this program is really a kind of Adventure 'Revue', with the locations acting as sketches, so we shouldn't expect the usual 'pick up the key and then find the door it fits' game. The game rests entirely on the satire within, and for this, Quest for the Holy Joystick: gets 10 out of 10 from me. My only other (small) gripe is that there is some 14K of useable memory left, with which Delta 4 could have given us even more of the same.

It's almost mandatory in the cinema and in pulp fiction, that a successful film or book will be followed by a sequel. The successful sequel is, though, a very rare animal - the Rocky and Star Wars trilogies are among the honourable exceptions. Successful comedy is just as difficult to accomplish, particularly in the software medium. Doubly brave, therefore, of Delta 4 to attempt The Return of the Joystick.

The Quest for the Holy Joystick: was a protracted in-joke, poking gentle fun at the world of adventures and the adventure-writing software houses. Great fun though it is, the content is not enough to recommend the game except as a diversion.

CORNUCOPIA

The sequel runs over two sides of the tape - the second side contains the adventure proper, while the first side holds the instructions, and a veritable cornucopia of title screens. The instructions are reeled out, ticker-tape fashion, and consist largely of ream upon ream of dedications and acknowledgments: and it's nice to see The Quill mentioned right here at the start. Three of the names on the Microadventurer masthead are at the top of the list (and two of them, handsome devils, feature on the cassette cover) along with just about all Delta 4's friends, neighbours and family, as well as Mel Croucher and Christian Penfold of Automata, the Thompson Twins, Gandalf and Swanmore Mental Hospital (which doesn't surprise me!).

After the instructions, a series of title screens are loaded separately - each one a brilliant pastiche of famous title-screens from adventures and arcade games. Among the ten you'll find Chublock Homes, Sabre Wilf (from Intimate Play the Gay), Flashman (from Old Generation Hogwash). Allahlav, Dreery Gulch and The Gobbit (complete with cross-eyed Smaug). I don't know which utility has been used to compose these screens, but they are all sensational and a lot of loving care has obviously been expended on each one. The collection alone is worth the price of the cassette.

But on to the adventure itself, which is probably the first commercially available product of The Illustrator, Gilsoft's graphic utility for use with The Quill. Delta 4 have, like many other authors, redesigned the Spectrum's character set, and this makes the text nice and chunky, with occasional messages set in a futuristic computer font. Restraint has been used in the screen design, with plain black text on a white screen, leaving the illustrations to provide the colour - all in all, an attractive-looking adventure.

Starting off halfway up the hill to Alexandra Palace in North London, which by now will be familiar to those thousands who have attended Mike Johnson's ZX Microfair over the years, there is a Long Sword and a Radio. You can GET both, and LISTEN to the Radio, which emits an unholy screech - sorry, a record by the Wham sisters(?!). The Sword emits a pulsing glow, acting as a light source. These are among the few objects you can get in the game (that I have so far come across), although other objects may be manipulated, as we shall see.

The Microfair lies to the North, but you will not be able to go there at first. Why not? Well, it's closed, of course, and won't open until 10 am - each game turn uses up a certain amount of time (although you are told at the end of the game how long you have taken, I keep forgetting to make the calculation), and eventually the Fair will open, allowing you entrance (without paying or queuing, which is a novelty!).

FATAL

Taking one of the other routes is immediately fatal, but this is one of Delta 4's nudge in the adventurer's rib, and at least they have got it out of the way at the very start, unlike some adventures - although at a later stage I was killed off pretty sharpish by a passing penguin. Maybe I'd wandered into a game of Pengo! Other directions are not so unwelcoming, and mapping is easily carried out (although Delta 4's geographical knowledge of London leaves something to be desired - Richmond EAST of Ally Pally?).

While there are not many 'found' objects, there are plenty of other characters wandering about, and these will impart such wisdom as: 'Hi!' and 'Hello there. There is some variation; Christian Penfold and others will sometimes say 'Fascist!'. Most of the characters mentioned in the introduction will be met (although GandaIf can't be followed!), and one or two of them serve a special purpose, though I'd be giving away more than I should if I told you any more.

Much of the player's time can be spent wandering around several software houses, as in The Quest of the Holy Joystick, and in general, it seems a good idea to EXAMINE everything - worth doing in any adventure anyway.

There is rather more to do at Sunshine House; there, among the piles of cassettes, lie a couple of computers, which can be loaded with adventures like the Thompson Twins epic and Lords of Midnight, and games like Sabre Wilf and Jyramania. These diversions are brilliant parodies of the games, most of which are just two or three locations and an illustration or two.

The longest, as befits the object of the fun, is Snobol, in which the player can wander round and round the corridors and into the Pleasure Dome. Nothing of any consequence happens in these little cameos, except in Chublock, where you may find something in a cupboard. This can be taken out of the game-within-a-game into the main adventure, but what function it may perform there, I don't know yet.

Looking back, you'll see that my main criticism of Quest is that there is nothing much to do but chuckle quietly and knowingly at the in-jokes about the adventuring world. It was good, therefore, to see that Return is much deeper - I can't pretend to know, yet, what the final outcome may be (Delta 4 aren't letting on, boohoo), but Fergus McNeill, one of the co-authors, gave me just enough hints at what lay hidden to me to whet my appetite for more. Suffice to say that Tony Bridge has more than a passing hand in the outcome of the adventure!

What more could an adventure addict want? An overwhelming series of title screens, and a tough, absorbing adventure containing brilliant pastiches of other games and a myriad of passing references to typical adventure situations which will strike a chord in everyone's heart. Great value for money (£4.95 for all this?)

Spectrum 48K
£4.95
Delta 4 Software

This quilled text adventure is a zany spoof set around the ZX Microfair. You'll encounter many well known characters and companies who bear more than just a passing resemblance to famous names from the world of computer games and adventures.

There is also a sequel - Return of The Joystick - which has graphics and includes some extremely funny pastiche title screens.

The games are available by mail order (04893 5800) and are sure to provide you with many a belly laugh.