Producer: Richard Shepherd
Memory Required: 48K
Retail Price: £6.50
Language: Basic + machine code
Author: P. Cooke

Scarthorpe is the sort of town where even the dogs carry flick knives, where there's only one road in, and it's a one way street... So says the introduction to this adventure game set in today's urban sprawl of unemployment. The object here isn't to get into a place, but how on earth to get out of it. No one in their right mind would want to stay in Scarthorpe, that's for sure.

The screen is split into a third horizontal section at the top which carries the graphics, and a lower two-thirds which carries the text. This is all nicely presented with descriptions in black and commands in red. The locations are varied, the game starting off in a bedroom of what appears to be an 'alright ' house, (although there is a store room with rubbish on the floor) and includes a number of streets like Grime Street and Cut Throat Alley, charming areas like the local football ground and the rubbish tips beside it, the local Nick and an appalling antiseptic hospital. The latter acts as a sort of Limbo between hell and hell!

As our reviewers found, half the charm (if that's quite the right word) of this game lies in its modern, urban setting.

COMMENTS

Keyboard play: medium responsive, there's quite a lot of BASIC in the program, protected by an autodestruct.
Use of colour: mixed opinions - poor and good
Graphics: varied, quite detailed, generally good
Sound: poor to average

The title screen sets the scene nastily enough, with its tumble down, graffiti-strewn walls, and background of smoky industrial mess. It is rather a good adventure game, and does make a change having police in Cut Throat Alley to having evil wizards in dungeons. The graphical representations of the locations are quite good and the game as a whole is well thought out. For example - when you start out, don't assume you are clothed, and don't drink the lager which has some obvious effects. The program also accepts, or at least understands, some very 'modern' language. I entered a few unprintable phrases of familiar frustration and amid siren wails, I was arrested and flung into prison on a charge of obscenity! I enjoyed playing it.

The only time to escape from Scarthorpe is in the middle of the night when it's all quiet - well, fairly quiet apart from the flick of knives. Everything's against you of course, including the police. The graphics are good in detail, although slowish to build up, and the response times aren't bad either. The vocabulary seems large and the computer does have a sense of humour (it would have to, living in Scarthorpe)!

The police station cell seems to be a regularly visited location in this game, and I must admit, that to date I haven't managed to get past the wretched desk sergeant, but perhaps he's only doing his job. Hospital is another favourite place. Either you get drunk or attacked by the irritable football fan, but whatever, Scarthorpe's overworked ambulance service is ready to whisk you off. Swearing is severely dealt with by a police car which swerves round the corner and arrests you (even inside the police station - which I thought was a bit steep), but I can't help feeling that if you're trapped in nowheresv!lle, there's not much pleasure left in life apart from a good swear! I think this is the best game so far from Shepherd, despite the usual lengthy loading time.

A truly graphic adventure, with a picture for each location you wish to visit. You are wandering around Scarborough and. like everyone else, your main aim in life is to escape!

Corrie: The graphics are quite exceptional in this program, and there's no fuzziness where the colours meet. Definitely a good adventure, and one that I highly recommend.

Stewart: Graphic representation of each location can be found in this program, and these vary from simple line drawings to some quite detailed scenes. Generally I prefer to see adventures use up memory for ideas rather than pictures, but at least the program does it competently.

Peter: The response time is not as fast as it could be, but the use of colour and graphics are very good. An extremely entertaining game.

Producer: Richard Shepherd, 48K
£6.50 (3)

Scarthorpe is the sort of town where even the dogs carry flick-knives, where there's only one road in, and it's a one way street... This text and graphics adventure is set in today's urban sprawl with unemployment opportunities, uncaring septic hospitals and sceptic police stations where arrest for obscenity is common. Football hooligans haunt the dirty streets and rats aren't all you'll find in Cut Throat Alley. The responses are reasonable, not super fast, and the graphics which add little to the content of the adventure but a lot to the pervading atmosphere, are rather slow to build up. General rating, above average, overall CRASH rating 64%.

ESCAPE FROM THE MODERN WORLD

Richard Price look at some contemporary adventures.

When you are on the hunt for a new adventure what is it you are looking for?

You will naturally expect the game to have playability - that combination of technical factors most of us take for granted when we buy commercial programs. You have a right to demand a decent vocabulary, good response time and a flexible interpreter which comes across with some sort of personality during play. You will assume the writers have devised carefully designed puzzles set into a coherent structure.

Those are the requirements of any good game but it is fair to say that an adventure's success and the satisfaction it gives you will be decided mainly by the quality of its plot and the atmosphere it generates.

All of us want an escape into other worlds at times to savour the pleasure of being someone or somewhere else. That fantasy is the core of the appeal of computer adventure. Fantasy, though, is fragile and, whether you prefer herioc, modern or futuristic scenarios, the setting you make your journey in must hold your belief right to the end.

Quite often people will say that fantasy works by suspending your disbelief. Tolkein himself did not think that was a convincing explanation of the way the mind handles fantasy. In Tree and Leaf, his short work about fairy stories, he put forward the idea that the writer - or games designer in our case - creates a 'secondary' world which your mind can enter. Once inside it you believe the general setting, the characters and action are true - meaning that they all obey the proper laws of their own world. The spell held over you may well be broken by some jarring intrusion from the real world or simply because the characters behave in a way that is out of kilter with the logic of their surroundings.

Far too many programs feature plots which, for instance, ask you to rescue a princess, find the scattered bits of some talisman or simply slash your way through a monster-infested cave riddled with rising damp and littered with treasures which no sorcerer in his right mind would leave lying around.

You may not be too happy to be regularly cast as a Conan-clone whose fist is bigger than his brain. That must be desperately aggravating for female adventurers who are expected to undergo a mental sex-change before powering up their Spectrums. If software companies are going to survive then they had better start looking for games which will appeal to a much wider public than is currently the case.

To be fair, there is a growing variety of styles and plots in the adventure genre but games that use real story lines are still pretty thin on the ground. The concept of bookware, though, seems to be taking off. Creating computer implementations of successful stories has some obvious advantages as the books have already proved that their 'secondary' worlds can hold people's attention and imagination. It still does not mean that the program will necessarily match up to the excitement or invention of the original but if the programmers are sensitive about the adaptation there is a chance of a good fit. Of course, the memory size of home micros also imposes rigid boundaries and limitations.

If you are an amateur programmer searching for a theme there is nothing to stop you turning your favourite pulp fiction into an adventure for home consumption.

If you are bored with magic and monsters history can provide equally exciting themes. Your heroine or hero could attempt to infiltrate the lair of the Old Man of the Mountains, the original master of the feared Assassins at the time of the Crusades. Deserts, strange nomads, wild mountains and grim fortresses guarded by fanatical killers all have their place in this adventure.

There are some programs which meet all or most of the criteria for successful secondary worlds and yet mirror the preoccupations and paranoias of our own times. They reflect different angles of life and often carry some sharp social comment.

Urban Upstart from Richard Shepherd Software depicts the grim emptiness of inner-city life. Imagine any decaying ex-industrial town in Britain and you will have an idea of what it is like to live in Scarthorpe. No jobs, no money, nothing to do. No one will wander the streets. Thuggish skinheads and paranoid police rule here.

You must comb the town and find the means to escape. Your own character is pretty suspect and not above theft and fraud to raise much-needed cash. The mean streets are depicted in location graphics but the format is traditional text adventure and tricky at that.

The game may not seem like escapism and it is not difficult to recognise parallels with Cut Throat Alley or Grime Street. Definitely a slice of social realism with a gritty, dangerous, feel to it, though not without flashes of humour.

If you are one of those gamesters who thinks adventures written on the Quill cannot match the real thing then Hampstead could provide a cure for your scepticism. The technical presentation may be defined by the utility but the subject matter and approach is new and genuinely funny.

There you are, stuck in your nasty smelly flat somewhere in the wilderness of north-west London, parked in front of 3-2-1 on the telly. The only way is up - so you think - and you nip out in search of the dole office to get your giro. Outside the back yard, gleaming in the sunlight, is a sign pointing to Hampstead. Nothing can stop you now, so you cross your personal Jordan and pedal towards the Promised Land only to find you cannot attain Hampstead simply by going there. You will have to change your style and your gear, read the right books and do the right things with the right people.

Not being totally stupid you will lie, cheat, even steal to get to this Nirvana of NW10 but you must avoid violence at all costs. The game is not merely about finding the right objects - it is also about attitudes as you must work out ways of making the correct deals. The answers are devious.

This is good situation comedy from Melbourne House and the game is attractively presented with a hilarious handbook. It is arguably one of the best Quilled adventures to date.

From this comfortable tweedy fantasy we descend into a shifting, threatening underworld of conspiracy, espionage and fear. A series of audio messages are recorded on your answering machine. Their growing urgency and the sound of a final shot leave you in no doubt - Valkyrie 17 is active again, a cell of neo-Nazis whose deadly tentacles stretch around the world.

Thanks to the dying gasps of your agent you know their ruthless leader is holed up in an exclusive Austrian skiing resort at the Glitz Hotel. Your job is to seek him out and neutralise him. Take care; one foolish move and you will find yourself face down in the snow rapidly becoming a member of the great majority.

The level of paranoia is pumped up by ringing phones which, if answered, threaten you and make it clear that your cover is already broken. Everything a good thriller needs is here - locked safes, half-overheard conversations, blood on the crisp snow of the piste.

Valkyrie 17 is produced by the Ram Jam Corporation, a new outfit, and features detailed atmospheric descriptions. The location graphics are interactive and will change to show the results of significant actions. No help is given and you are absolutely on your own in a race against danger.

Isolation and danger are also the major themes of System 15000 from AVS. This is no standard text adventure but it is definitely one of the most gripping and compulsive Spectrum games so far. A brief note informs you that Comdata Company has been ripped off for a cool million or more bucks in a computerised bank fraud. Lurking behind the heist are the mob, ominous and menacing. Your single lead is one phone number.

On loading you will find only the user screen of the 15000 network and the basic instructions on how to operate it. From that beginning you must penetrate the files of the other computers which use the net to uncover the twisting threads of the plot. The giant mainframes of the international banks are well protected against intruders and police data protection squads will shut the system down temporarily once they get a sniff of what you are up to. Stay cool and keep dialling - piece by piece you will edge your way towards the truth and attempt to restore the Comdata lost millions.

Your only input routines are phone numbers and an occasional cryptic note on the message board. There is no need to take on any role - this is you against the network in the here and now, deep in the loneliness of the long-distance hacker.

After hours of tracing leads you will find yourself cheering in triumph as you enter the files of the Reserve Manhattan Bank with its glittering stars and stipes logo or you will curse in frustration as yet another faceless machine informs you that your data is bad. You will begin to sense the network as very real, a vast jigsaw of numers, names and details. System 15000 is utterly absorbing and compelling and recalls the atmosphere of the BBC series Bird of Prey. Absolutely recommended.

Memory: 48K
Price: £6.50

Deprivation, desolation and danger are the order in the squalid urban wasteland of Scarthorpe, setting for the Richard Shepherd Software Urban Upstart. The scenario is a typical inner city area with all its attendant problems of crime and poverty. Anyone with sense or money has already left town, which is what you are trying to do. Do not think it will be easy - vicious football fans, keen-eyed coppers, even the dreadful weather, all conspire to keep you entombed in your home on Grime Street.

The program is a text adventure with graphics illustrations, responding to all the conventional inputs.

The portrayal of the town is inventive and convincing and the unexpected can occur at any time. Help is not much in evidence but if you are streetwise you could go far.

Urban Upstart is a cut above the average text adventure and should become compulsive entertainment. There are many locations, full load and save facilities and a pile of surprises.

URBAN BORE

Another game for the Spectrum I would not borrow, let alone buy, is Urban Upstart from Richard Shepherd Software.

The idea is good enough - quite original in fact. You must escape the environs of Scarthorpe, a town so depressed that the unemployed queue up to queue up for a job.

The trouble is that the implementation ruins the idea. The top of the screen displays a picture of each location, starting off in your house, and progressing eventually out and around this neglected town.

When you are outside a fish and chip shop, neither CHIPPY nor SHOP are recognised, and a bank, pictured and described, goes unrecognised likewise. I didn't bother with Arthur's bookshop.

There are plenty of locations and pictures, and if you are hypnotised by watching your Spectrum slowly fill in your screen with blocks of colour, then you'll be in a trance in no time, for there is no 'graphics-off' switch, and to move around takes upwards of ten seconds a go.

To cap it all, should you catch pneumonia out on the cold damp streets, an ambulance will take you to a hospital which turns out to be a perspective maze.

All this frustration caused me to type nasty words at the game, whereupon I was whisked off to gaol on an obscenity charge. Non-moving commands are answered fairly promptly, so I tried my hardest to get out, all to no avail. Unfortunately by then, I had lost faith in the game and decided to pursue it no further.

Urban Upstart, is from Richard Shepherd Software for 48k Spectrum, priced £6.50.

MACHINE: Spectrum 48K
JOYSTICK: No
CATEGORY: Adventure
SUPPLIER: Richard Shepherd Software
PRICE: £6.50

Urban Upstart is the latest creation programmer Peter Cooke, who was responsible for some of the earlier Richard Shepherd offerings.

Like Invincible island, Urban Upstart features split-screen graphics, over 70 locations, and some very dry humour. It's not an easy adventure to solve and is good for a few evenings' light entertainment.

At the start of the game you find of yourself in a small house in Scarthorpe, the sort of town where the inhabitants dream of taking their summer holidays in Sutton Coldfield.

During the entire game you encounter only five people, none of whom are very friendly. Success depends on perseverance and a magpie's talent for collecting everything in sight.

There is a graphic representation of every location, although a number of the screens are identical, and the program responds to multi-statement commands provided they are joined together with 'and'.

Scarthorpe is indeed a depressing place to look at and the idea of escaping gets more and more attractive the further you go. After a few bouts in jail and some fruitless attempts to order fish and chips I found myself contemplating suicide on Grime Street. However, this is one of those rare adventure games where even death offers no release - you just end up in hospital.

BACKING DOWN A ONE-WAY STREET

MICRO: Spectrum 48K
PRICE: £6.50
FORMAT: Cassette
SUPPLIER: Richard Shepherd Software, Elm House, 23-25 Elmshott Lane, Chippenham

Scarthorpe is the sort of town where there is only one road in, and it's a one way street.

Ignoring this perfect tourist trap you have stumbled into the unpleasant town of Scarthorpe, from which you now find it difficult to leave. So at 3 am, when the streets are deserted you decide to make a break and escape.

This third generation adventure (text with pretty pictures) is well constructed and written. Obviously a lot of thought has gone into the planning stage. The streets in Scarthorpe are given immortal names such as Amputation Road.

The game is easy to map on squared paper once you leave the house, but do not let this fool you into thinking that the adventure is easy. Far from it, I have yet to escape from Scarthorpe although I know how I am going to do it.

The game has several quirks, one of the more interesting of which is that the time given by the program does not appear to follow the standard clock system as three successive dials of the speaking clock (yes, there is a useable phone) returned the times of 3:45, 4:42 and 3:54 respectively. I found this every time I played the game.

One of the more commercial points of the game is the graphic representation of the location you are at. Every location is illustrated (even if some of the drawing are confusingly) and the border changes colour to match the pictures. These remain in the graphic window at the top of the screen for the duration of your stay.

If my presumption that the game was written in machine code is correct then the reaction times are slow and the Look routine is ridiculously so.

The program, however, does allow you to enter up to 30 characters for your command. Commands can he strung by the use of the conjunction and but not &..

Most of the commands can be supplied to one letter and an object often does not have to he specified in the Take command. The vocabulary appears to be limited, even Get is not recognised, Take must be used.

I recommend Urban Upstart with reservation. The humour may not be appreciated by some people and the scenario is not pleasant.

Now I must return to the city streets, put on my Frank Sinatra records (this is a clue) and try to find a way out of the police station without going to the hospital.

CATHY FOOT MADE THE MISTAKE OF LEAVING SUNNY HAMPSTEAD FOR THE WILDS OF SCARTHORPE. WILL SHE EVER ESCAPE?

"Had bovver wiv dog the other day - lost! Said Yeah man, you get out this hole. So I tell me, split this dump, which bug me more than I thought. Decide I leave this mong the town hall stuff for who want to split dis Babylon."

Yah, well that's what I found in the archives when I tried to find out how to get out of here - I mean, well, it's just TOO tacky, not a Habitat in sight, and Julian says the wine bars don't bear thinking about - too, too sick-making. We've taken to drinking lager, but this stripey stuff the previous tenant left in the fridge has the oddest effect on one - Oh, Hampstead! Why did I leave you? Oh God - another can of beer - I can't keep this style going much longer!

If I didn't know that I could escape I might never have made the effort. Living here HAS that effect on folks. But I got this letter, see. It was addressed to me, but the person what wrote it forgot we know our mates by their Christian names and signed S. Jay. Good on yer mate, I hope the schools and fings are better out there than they are in Scarthorpe - don't see how they CAN'T be! But next time give me yer full name, so I'll know who you are!

Still, I'm getting out meself and will look you up. The next grubby tramp that knocks at yer door in Glebelands Road, looking for a handout or a job COULD be yer old mate from Scarthorpe. Fanks, too, to the postie for gettin through. Only one question, postie, old pal, did yer HAVE to use yer submachine gun on my front door? That's part of the reason I'm getting out. I LIKED my old doss, the only thing this one has going for it is a solid front door.

I'm writing this in hospital while I get over my last mixup with the United supporters, then I'm getting out while the going is good. The problem is that the painkillers they are giving me sometimes effects what I write, so please excuse my wandering fingers... you CAN make sense of it if you try.

Oops, here comes the nurse again!

Getting out of jail is easy, once you've sussed it. If you xbju mpoh fopvhi (move letters back one), the sergeant jt dbmmfe bxbz and you dbo tofbl pvu.

Boy, that stuff they give you is powerful!

There is not much chance to improve reading skills here, apart from gravestones, posters and signs. There is a useful book in the bookshop, though.

Fellow adventurers might remember to dress before leaving their rooms, the police in this town are GOOD, they have to be, but they can be said to be too keen on arrests - perhaps 'cause we don't believe in staying locked up if we can help it. They seem to spend more time on making arrests for indecent exposure, loitering and littering, when, if they was to arrest the football hooligans this might become quite a decent little town. Still, after the last Football Wars, when we were banned by the F.A. from playing against any club outside the town for the next hundred years - I may have missed a few zeros off that figure, but it don't matter, do it? - the police seem to have lost interest in other thugs and the town has gone right to the dogs.

The worst thing about a charge of indecent exposure is that there is NO WAY to rip off a pair of strides if yore in the nick - the old bill are too attached to theirs and they've learnt to keep their spares at home - if cops HAVE homes.

The worst of the hooligans seem to live off Cut Throat Alley - that used to be such a pretty street once, when it was called Coburn Road. NEVER go down there on yer own, the filth use an armoured car if they get called in. The Ambulance guys are pretty good too; they go everywhere - they can afford to, they got their ambulance from the army experimental center and it spozed to be able to take anything up to an atom bomb. Nobody tried that yet, they closed down the college and moved out a lot of stuff when we got banned - some folks declare U.D.I., we got it forced on us; even Maggie gave up when they stopped her from using a nuke.

The only problem with the hospital is that since the oiks started roaming the corridors the staff don't see no point in letting us out. They say that if they do, it only means getting the ambulance out to pick us up again later. I spoze they right. You CAN get out though, there IS a way through that maze of corridors and if you got a doctor coat, they got so many problems with staff they let you go in case you really ARE the new Doctor.

If you REALLY stuck - god, here comes that *** nurse again, there is one surefire way out of the hospital, you just txfbs. Leave the mbshf lfz in uif jpvtf before mfbwjoh boe after vokpdljoh uit epps.

The weird thing about Scarthorpe is that only the binmen seem to have credit cards - and those of you who listen to the Chip Shop are going to have a nasty surprise .

They tell me the telephone works, but at best all I seem to get is that ***** speaking clock - at the third stroke the time will be seven seventy seven and twenty two seconds - precisely?

At the worst, the place is crawling with fuzzmobiles, all looking for yours truly.

Cathy insists I tell you that they've been real clever with their graphics, and you can get a long way without being able to read a map. And Julian's friend just loved the Fauviste SCREEN$.

There's one thing bout living in Scarthorpe, once I get out the world's gonna wonder what hit it.

48K Spectrum
£6.50
Richard Shepherd Software

From the fridge full of lager to the juvenile delinquents' detention cell, Scarthorpe is the town where no-one goes and that even fewer people get away from. It makes Skelmersdale look like Las Vegas. Kids here think the UK Subs are a middle-of-the-road band, and that Joy Division were too flippant.

This is an adventure game, of course, since this is Richard Shepherd's speciality and is a bit more lively than some of its predecessors with good use of simple graphics. So if you are the sort of person who would like to give Elrond a punch on the nose, and if you think Gandalf needs a haircut, this is the game for you. The goal is to escape from Scarthorpe by night. Since this is the sort of town where you get mugged coming out of the dole office, it is no easy number just trying to bring the milk in, let alone walk down the street.

My first mistake in playing this game was to drink the can of lager in the icebox. I ended up in hospital. I stole a white coat, but ended up in the police station. As you can see, Scarthorpe really is a dead-end town.

The program accepts a wide range of commands and is reasonably user-friendly. It is a pleasant, or rather, unpleasant change from the Dungeons and Dragons world of games like the Hobbit. A computer game with a social conscience! Play it and see.

A true adventure for the eighties, set in the city of Scarthorpe, a dead-end town in a bleak world of inner city decay. Your only object is to leave.

It is the scenario rather than any particular excellence of programming or graphics that qualifies the game as a classic. Scarthorpe is an overwhelmingly depressing place; the park, an apparent haven of peace and greenery, is bordered by the sewage farm and a cemetery. Gangs of police and football hooligans roam the midnight streets. Richard Shepherd deserves credit for a bold and completely different approach to the adventure market.

Position 34/50