Producer: Melbourne House
Retail Price: £7.95
Language: Machine code
Author: Peter Jones & Trevor Lever

Some games are pretty big even before they're released and Terrormolinos certainly falls into this category. The authors of this holiday spoof are the very same as those who composed the Quilled classic Hampstead which was the first Quilled game to do anything in the charts. I was very pleased at Hampstead's success, not just because I liked it, but for the reason that it tried something new, and a company had the sense to back it at a time when just about every other company was (and to a worrying extent still is) trying to produce the exact same game as its rivals.

The question you must want to ask now is, does Terrormolinos keep up the same standards of humour and user-friendliness seen in Hampstead? Well, the answer is, yes it does, and in many ways Terrormolinos is a far superior program to Hampstead - it features some terrific postcard pictures and keeps you in touch with your score, number of turns, and number of pictures successfully developed via a score table at the bottom of the screen. Verily, Terrormolinos is a very worthy successor to Hampstead.

You start your holiday, not in the Spanish Costa Brava, but in a semi in Slough one sunny Saturday morning. The wife Beryl has ordered the taxi and it suddenly strikes you it may be a good idea to get some packing done before the taxi arrives. As with all last minute packing you are almost certain to leave something important behind so it may well take you a few attempts to get over the first hurdle and board the plane. There is an added complication at this stage as you must pack your things and get the family off in the taxi to the airport within a limited number of moves. Hence you soon learn how to conserve moves and watch the number of moves taken tally at the bottom of the screen (the taxi starts honking its horn about move 35).

It is on the plane you first meet your fellow holidaymakers, a Miss Peach and a Mr Snargsby. Mr Snargsby would seem to have a penchant for intoxicating beverages while Miss Peach doesn't object to having her picture taken; however, others may well object once they see the photo which results. Checking into the hotel is simple enough though its name, The Excrucio, is a little unnerving. Up to this point the adventure is very straightforward with simple problems and a very friendly vocabulary. In Spain itself the program offers more of a challenge as some of the disasters that befall any package holiday make themselves felt. But, all the while, you must keep an eye out for the occasions when a good photograph might be taken. Usually it is quite obvious when you should take a photograph and you shouldn't run into the problem of running out of exposures too easily (you are given twelve and so to bring back ten snaps you can only make two mistakes).

One thing you'll notice about Terrormolinos is its attempts to distance itself from The Quill around which it was developed. There are a machine-coded bottom two lines on each screen carrying your score etc, while your input line has no cursor and no beep accompanying input. The input routine is sure-footed, however, and even with no beep or cursor, inputting errors are rare.

There are two features about this game which I think make it a winner. The first is the magnificent sense of humour which runs through the whole program from the 'garishly patterned wallpaper... obscured in places by works of art purchased at Boots and Woolworth' and 'your bedroom, scene of many a dull night' in the semi in Slough, to the nightclub in Terrormolinos 'where tourists attempt to emulate John Travolta to the sound of flamenco guitars'. The second is the impressive postcard pictures which either you take as reminders of your trip (and can be reviewed in order at the end of a game - a bit like a slide show) or are seen after a fatal mishap, eg after being gored by a bull or burnt to a bacon crisp by the ferocious Spanish sun. These pictures are simple and colourful, like seaside postcards, and I enjoyed them immensely.

Terrormolinos is a superb adventure which will appeal to a very broad audience. It has enough problems to keep the avid adventurer happy, enough humour to counter the winter blues, and picture postcards which are bright enough to colour even a black and white TV set. Above all is its user-friendliness and ease of play - even an adventure novice could quite quickly get to grips with this holiday saga. First it was Hampstead, now its the Spanish package holiday which gets the Lever/Jones treatment, and a jolly good job they've done too. Terrormolinos is a nice holiday from zapping little green aliens.

COMMENTS

Difficulty: easy
Graphics: very attractive
Presentation: good
Input facility: verb/noun
Response: quick

Terrormolinos isn't just the kind of place you only visit once it's also one of those games you'll never return to.

You've decided to visit Terrormolinos on the Costa Brava with Beryl, the wife, and Ken and Doreen, the kids. Sounds wonderful eh? Little do you know that Terrormolinos is a real dive and that you'll have to face such perils as being gored by a raging bull, getting heatstroke, suffering severe food poisoning and losing an argument with a Euro-juggernaut.

The aim of the game is not only to survive the worst package tour of your life but to bring back ten snapshots to prove you actually did it!

The trouble starts before you've even left your cosy semi in the murky depths of Slough. You've got about ten minutes to pack and get the kids out of the house. Sounds easy huh? Well it certainly ain't!

There are numerous catches designed to hinder your departure. But after a while they get to be a dead bore rather than an intellectual challenge. Not only do you have to search for your passport, tickets and suitcase, but you've also got to remember daft thinks like locking the step ladder before you climb it or you'll break your neck!

And if you attempt to board the taxi without dropping the ladder you'll get more than a mouthful from the indignant cabbie.

Having successfully packed and survived the journey to the hotel with Ken throwing up all over the place, the adventure really begins...

Once you reach the sunsoiled shores of Spain you're confronted with seven greasy-haired, tight-buttocked prima donnas who fancy themselves as waiters and a crazy Spanish coach driver offering every excursion under the sun. It's here you've got to be selective as there are only twelve exposures in your camera and you must take ten successful pics.

Everytime you suffer a fatal experience or take a decent piccy, a picture will magically develop on the screen. The graphics in Terrormolinos are supposed to reproduce those saucy seaside postcards. If you ask me, they've got a real cheek to try it!

I got a bit fed up with being arrested for flashing or for taking a really good pic of a wild nightclub and I got even more cheesed off with dying everytime I put a foot wrong.

Terrormolinos is original and quite fast but its predecessor, Hampstead, is much the better game!

Wish you were here playing Terrormolinos... instead of mc.

DON'T DRINK THE WATER

Richard Price dons knotted hanky and samples the low-life of a kwikhol.

Publisher: Melbourne House
Price: £6.95
Memory: 48K

Now your sunburn has begun to fade you've probably started to get your holiday snaps back through the post. The nostalgia wells up as you share the happy memories with immensely bored relatives and friends.

There it all is - the glorious sunsets over the towering concrete hotels, the trendy beaches packed with tassled beach umbrellas, topless bathing belles and stout gentlemen in vests and knotted hankies.

By now you've begun to forget the blistered back and nose, the hours of agony pulling out sea-urchin spines or the two days you spent locked in the loo after indulging yourself in those tempting-looking prawns and several gallons of cheap hooch ("OK! I know it's a bit like turpentine but it's only three pesetas a litre and anyway you don't notice the taste after a bit.")

Never fear, folks - all those memories can now be relived, recalled and resuffered solely with the aid of your trusty micro in Terrormolinos, a fearsome and harrowing saga of the average family on the average package tour. Many of those experiences can be photographed and reviewed during the game, courtesy of the miracle of glorious living Saucivision.

Terrormolinos is the creation of Peter Jones and Trevor Levor, co-authors of Hampstead. Published by Melbourne House, the game is a Quilled text adventure, but this time features the addition of a graphics system.

Like all good holidays your trip begins with the panic-stricken rush to pack and be ready in time for the taxi to the airport. There you are in your semi with Beryl upstairs getting ready, little Ken trailing around after you with his thumb in his mouth and Doreen the daughter immured in the bathroom, as permanent a feature as the avocado toilet suite.

The most essential item to remember is the camera, as winning the game is achieved by taking the correct 10 snaps of the trip. You have only one film and every picture will count.

The taxi hoots outside. Ready or not you had better hurry or the driver will get fed up and leave you stranded. Where are the tickets? Have you got the red hanky? Can you remember the name of your hotel? Those and other things are essential for the journey.

Once you are past the initial time-limited section you can settle down in the plane, ignore little Ken who is using the sick bag as a hat and look forward to Terrormolinos, basking in the lethal Mediterranean sun like some ancient reptile ready to devour unwary innocents.

The Hotel Excrucio is a cool haven from the heat but the excitements of foreign climes beckon seductively. There are the gift shops, the beach with its picturesque little island - what are those black triangles nipping through the waves?

Perhaps, you'd like to take an excursion - very cheap - to the bullfight or the wine-tasting. Do your best to avoid Mr Snargsby, the life and soul of the tour group, and mind Beryl doesn't catch you staring at the wonderful Miss Peach... quick where's the camera?

Of course, there are hazards. Don't let the kids bury you in hot sand. Be careful of what you eat and of what may eat you. Avoid being gored by irate fighting bulls and take care an the sun - heatstroke could ruin your holiday.

Every holiday disaster you can imagine will come true in Terrormolinos and when the worst happens your embarrassment and suffering will be shown on screen in Saucivision. Each 'correct'snap or fatal error has been drawn in the form of a seaside postcard - you know, the sort with large ladies and double entendres galore. During the game you can review them at any time and also check how many exposures you have left. The screens illustrated here are taken from the Commodore versions, but give you an idea of what to expect!

If you enjoyed Hampstead I have no doubt at all that Terrormolinos will be equally if not more appealing. It is not numbingly difficult but its endless sick humour will draw you from disaster to disaster. Even people who hate the usual type of computer adventure will want to join in - it will make a welcome change from Dallas and Coronation Street. Immensely silly, immense fun!

Regret having taken that package holiday to Spain? Still nursing an overdose of sun and a gippy tummy? Now that the hols are over, you can relive those happy(?) moments spent with your wife Beryl and kids Ken and Doreen by visiting Terrormolinos - everyone's nightmare holiday resort.

Starting off in the smelly hallway of your exotic abode in Slough, it's not long before the taxi is hooting out front to take you to your holiday flight, and you're just about to miss it.

Chances are you're still packing, and trying to remember where you left the passport. There're other essentials too, such as tickets, camera - the photos, remember? - and the rest of the family. If you can find them!

Once these little problems are sorted out, and some careful planning of moves is needed to succeed, you're up and away, economy class, in a 747.

Your holiday really starts when you arrive, after a horrendous coach journey, in the Plaza of your resort. At last you can begin to relax after the hectic last minute problems back at home. Or can you?

As you enter the lobby of your chosen hotel you are greeted by a friendly Spaniard: "Many nice time is for you! Go wine-tasting, see vinegar pumps into big lorry, go to Ingelese supermarket!"

You can almost see the famous Manuel from Fawlty Towers time and time again as you continue through the game!

At the hotel, two of your fellow passengers, Mr Snargsby and Miss Peach, are having a whale of a time - but can you, and did you remember your swimsuit?

There's plenty to do other than bathing though - a visit to the red-light district maybe, a coach trip or two, or perhaps some souvenir hunting in the tourist quarter.

The restaurant is to be sniffed at. A typical menu might be: Hot Lancashire Pot, Patatas Frites, Spotty Disks and Smoke Salmonella. How could you resist? As you can see, Torrormolinos has a lot of laughs hidden within it, but it has problems too.

I played a pre-production Spectrum version of Terrormolinos, written on the Quill and without graphics.

The final game will feature graphics - some of which you can see on this page. Not to be outdone by "landscaping" and "scrolling 3D graphics", the authors Trevor Leaver and Peter Jones have invented the ultimate graphics system that present technology can support - Saucivision!

This enables snapshots you take during the game to develop on-screen before your very eyes, an innovative and potentially hilarious approach, since not all of the snaps are likely to turn out as you expect.

Terrormolinos is a fun adventure. It's only a game, but... not having taken my holiday at the time of writing, I'm glad it's Italy for me this year!

CBM 64/Spectrum/BBC/Electron/Amstrad
Melbourne House

From the authors of Hampstead comes yet another original and hugely entertaining adventure. Let me warn you now that if you're intending to go to Spain for your holiday next year, this game is likely to make you want to change your plans.

Your objective is not to slay wicked sorcerers, duff up dragons or track down the 200 lost treasures of Trantos. No, no, those are a piece of paella compared with this game. What you are faced with here is one of the most perilous assignments known to English mankind - survive a two-week package holiday with the wife and kids in sunny Terrormolinos. And you must bring back 10 snapshots to prove it.

Before you can even set off for the Hotel Excrucio in Terrormolinos, you must first pack, naturally.Just as in real life, things you want are never where they should be and something always goes wrong at the last minute. The taxi's waiting outside but where the heck has little Doreen got to? Where did you put that camera? And what's that white gunge seeping out of the suitcase you've just packed.

One feature that makes this text adventure even more of a giggle is that every time disaster strikes, a colour snapshot of your misfortune is displayed on screen in glorious Saucivision.

A real hoot of a game, and novel with it. If you like a good guffaw, Terrormolinos will tickle your fancy.

After the intensive debunking given to the upper middle classes in Hampstead, authors Peter Jones and Trevor Levor took on the lower social orders in their venomous parody of the Spanish package holiday.

Terrormolinos is again a Quilled adventure, enlivened this time by graphics reminiscent of the saucy seaside postcards of Donald McGill. As well as surviving the sunburn, wine-tasting, food poisoning and bull-fighting on the Costa Packet, you must remember to record for posterity with your trusty camera the excruciating accidents which befall you. You have only one film and every picture counts.