Apple Jam

Crash

Overall 47%

Producer: DK Tronics, 16K £5.59 (2) Author: E Hickman There's a lift to the left, a sauna to the right, an overhead jam dispenser and conveyor belt carrying apples in the middle. The idea is to centre your man to catch dripping jam and falling apples, leaping between each to prevent any falling into the rat run below. With every mouthful your man gets fatter and must eventually be taken to the sauna to sweat off his fat. The more food that falls through to the rats, the more adventurous they become, until they come up and try eating your man. Getting into the lift saves him, but it all becomes thoroughly silly and repetitive. Joystick: Protek, AGF, general rating: poor - 47%.

Read it at Crash - The Online Edition

Your Spectrum

Peter Shaw

Stephen Cathrall

Stewart McPherson

SPECTRUM SOFT Starting this issue Your Spectrum will be touring computer clubs up and down the country in an effort to find dedicated games enthusiasts who will give us their impressions, thoughts and feelings on the current selection of new releases. Little do they know it, but these unsuspecting souls will be contributing a large slice of our regular review section in the future. This month we visited the Stanwell Computer Club (which meets weekly at the Stanwell School, Short Lane, every Friday evening from 7-10pm). Five of the resident 'freaks' were enlisted to tell us (and you) what was good or bad about the programs we gave them to play around with. In some cases comment was justifiably harsh, and in others they could hardly contain their glee at coming across a really well thought-out game. The guinea-pig five whose comments appear below, are all members of the club, and they are (in alphabetical order): Corrie Brown, Stephen Cathrall, Ryan Davis, Stewart McPherson and Peter Shaw. Peter, by the way, is also Secretary of the Stanwell Club. Them we do thank. APPLE JAM DK'Tronics £5.95 An original arcade game in which you have to eat as much jam and apples as you can without getting into trouble with wandering rats and bees.

Read it at Your Spectrum Unofficial Archive

Crash

Use of Computer 65%

Graphics 59%

Playability 35%

Getting Started 40%

Addictive Qualities 40%

Value For Money 50%

Overall 47%

Unknown

Unknown

Unknown

Producer: DK'Tronics Memory Required: 16K Retail Price: £5.95 Language: Machine code Author: E. Hickman DK'Tronics have generally tended in the past to write good introductions as to the objectives of their games, but the recent releases have suffered with little or no explanation. Hard Cheese is a case in point, where a game starts without aims being made clear and where the scenario is obviously too complicated to sort out easily. The danger with this is that players can run out of patience before tapping the game's potential. Apple Jam is another example. In this case there are no explanations at all. It is, in concept, a very simple game, and the broad intentions of the author are immediately clear, or rapidly sorted out, but as at least one reviewer found, points of the game still baffle. Basically, the screen has a lift at the left, a sauna box at the right, a jam dispenser in the middle, overhead, and above that, a conveyor belt which produces apples. In a lower portion is a rat tunnel. The screen also shows the game score and the hi-score, three purple pills and the words RAT BAIT! A little man is made to run back and forth. He opens his mouth when correctly positioned under the dropping point of either jam or apples. Each time he gulps down another mouthful, he grows a bit fatter. To work off the excess weight he must enter the sauna for a few seconds and when he comes out he's all slim and wonderful. If he fails to go to the sauna each mouthful after a certain point, it loses him one of the purple pills. When all three have gone he dies. Below in the rat run, the rats are running. Should the man miss any apples or jam, they fall through and the rats eat the food. Once this has happened they tend to come up a floor and eat the man. He can escape by getting into the lift, but that means missing more food. Should you do really well against these miserable odds, there's a giant hornet to watch out for. COMMENTS Control keys: 5 & 8 left & right Joystick: Protek, AGF Keyboard play: responsive Colour: fair Graphics: reasonable Sound: poor Skill levels: 1 Lives: endless, but three pills

Open wide those pearly gates and let the jam pass in.

Personal Computer Games

Graphics 8/10

Sound 3/10

Ease Of Use 10/10

Originality 10/10

Lasting Interest 7/10

Overall 8/10

Chris Anderson 8/10

MACHINE: Spectrum 16/48K JOYSTICK: No CATEGORY: Arcade SUPPLIER: DK'Tronics PRICE: £5.95 This one is guaranteed to make you sick. Apples are falling off the end of a conveyor belt and jam is dripping from the nozzle of a machine. It's your disgusting duty to stand under each piece of apparatus in turn so that as much food as possible falls into your mouth. With each gulp you grow visibly fatter until - the sick part - you have a fit. This costs you a pill, and since you have only three you need to keep slimming down by running into a sauna. But, oh dear, this means that the sticky yuk you should be scoffing is falling to the ground and being slurped by little rats. Which get bigger the more they consume. And when they're very big they run on to your level to attack you. Your only escape is to tear into a lift which shoots up and down automatically. If you time it right, you come down on top of a rat and crush it (causing a red stain which gets a bit bigger each time - revolting touch!). One final hazard is a nasty-looking hornet with a fatal sting. Apple film is clever in that the game's considerable variety is achieved with the use of just two keys: left and right. This means you can enjoy playing it immediately - but it should still offer prolonged entertainment.