Madhatter

Crash

Use of Computer 57%

Graphics 48%

Playability 52%

Getting Started 58%

Addictive Qualities 42%

Value For Money 48%

Overall 51%

Unknown

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Producer: Gamma Software Memory Required: 48K Retail Price: £5.50 Language: Machine code Author: Simon Johnson Madhatter is a game which has lithe if anything to do with Alice in Wonderland. The title is very much an excuse for a simple idea. The scenario seems mad enough; it's the Madhatter's Un-Birthday and some friends are supposed to be coming for tea. Unfortunately the place is in a dreadful mess and must be tidied up. The mess seems to be made from sweets and chocolate rolls, the very things he needs for the tea. The object of the game is go around picking up ten sweets for each roll and hitting the top of the screen. Each time you do this a roll appears in the score line and after five have appeared you go onto the next screen. The unpleasant side of life here are the mice, which steal sweets (and don't forget you need ten sweets for every roll), the vacuum cleaner on the right of the screen which kills on contact, and other objects which fly across at random, also killing. And that's about it. COMMENTS Control keys: Q/A up/down, N/M left/right Joystick: Kempston Keyboard play: average responsiveness, sensible keys Use of colour: average Graphics: jerky, on the small side Sound: not bad Skill levels: 1 Lives: 3 Screens: 1 Special features:

Delectable looking sweeties and oozing chocky rolls dart across the screen of MADHATTER.

Your Spectrum

David Lester 1/5 MISS

Roger Willis 1/5 MISS

Ron Smith 2/5 MISS

JOYSTICK JURY Success in the charts doesn't always mean it's the best game around. Check out the thoughts of our jury this month - Ron Smith, Roger Willis and David Lester - and you'll see what we mean... MADHATTER Gamma Software £5.50 David: In this game, you play the part of the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland who, you surely remember, is having a tea-party to celebrate his un-birthday... but that's where the connection ends, I'm afraid. Your task is to collect sweets and chocolate rolls from around the screen, which itself consists of very unexciting graphics; the vacuum cleaners are very shabbily defined and the mice, etc, are such grim programming specimens as to be almost unrecognisable. Moving your character square around the screen, you move into stationary and moving blobs, whilst avoiding others. The only difficult thing is getting out of the way of the baddies - difficult only because they go from side to side at silly speeds. At first the game seems quite tricky, but soon becomes simplistic. I was looking forward to seeing some screen variations but I was disappointed. With graphics as poor as these, and no sound or variation to speak of, this game will be played once and once only. I remember games like this having trouble on the market when the Spectrum was released two years or so ago!

Read it at Your Spectrum Unofficial Archive

Personal Computer Games

Graphics 4/10

Sound 4/10

Originality 6/10

Lasting Interest 4/10

Overall 5/10

Martyn Smith 5/10

Richard Boniface

Robert Patrick

MACHINE: Spectrum 48K CONTROL: Keys, Kemp FROM: Gamma, £5.50 When a little-known software house brings out a game with a quirky title, thoughts race to the first releases of Bug-Byte and Ultimate; could this be another Pssst! or Manic Miner? Alas, no, there's nut much new or original here. You control the 'mad hatter' who has to collect ten sweets (for his unbirthday tea) from around the screen. He can then go to the bottom of the screen to collect a chocolate roll; this must be done five times to complete the sheet. However, it's not quite that simple. The 'hatter' is pestered by mice who steal his sweets, poison which will lose him a life, and worst of all the dreaded vacuum cleaners positioned at the right of the screen. It he gets too close he is sucked to an unpleasant death. Luckily these can be frozen for a while by the plug which appears at intervals. Your character can move in all four directions, the screen layout is plain and there are no obstacles to manoeuvre around. The graphics can only be described as poor, badly drawn and small, although the animation is fairly lifelike. The sound consists of a droning buzz which soon becomes annoying. The only redeeming factor is the speed it must be played at to stay alive though once the first screen has been mastered subsequent sheets shouldn't pose any problems as they are the same only with more hazards. Alice games have a pretty poor history to date and this one does little to change that. Alice in Wonderland released a while back by Audiogenic had excellent graphics but proved to be a very dull game. This game has appalling graphics but offers some interesting game-play. Clearly what's needed is a merger of the two positive elements. As it stands though I can't see many people turning up for this Mad Hatter's tea party.

C&VG (Computer & Video Games)

Getting Started 9/10

Graphics 7/10

Value 7/10

Playability 5/10

MACHINE: 48k Spectrum SUPPLIER: Gamma Software PRICE: £5.50 The problems involved in organising a tea-party! It's the Mad Hatter's un-birthday and he hasn't prepared any food. Why an un-birthday, though? Don't ask me, it's Lewis Carroll's fault. In this game, you have to help the Hatter collect the food from around the screen and put it on the table ready for his guests. There's a number of sweets on the screen which need rounding up and a chocolate roll at the bottom. You can't get the roll, though, until you have ten sweets. Once you have collected the right number of sweets, you can go for the roll. Then, put it on the table at the top of the screen to claim your extra points. Get five rolls and you've made it the next level. Here, everything gets faster and there are more bouncing objects to avoid. Life is not easy on the first level, though. There's a mouse and some poison, which are both out to get you. And one suck from that hoover and you've had it. This game would be fairly average except for a bug which makes it almost unplayable. The character of the Mad Hatter keeps moving, even if you're not pressing a direction key or holding the joystick. The Hatter will move to the left by about three character squares and will even shoot off course when you're trying to move him in a straight line. Until this is sorted out, I wouldn't buy this game. Mad Hatter runs either from the keyboard or with a Kempston joystick.

Personal Computer News

Mike Gerrard

Price: £5.50 Publisher: Gamma Software [redacted] The best computer games drive you mad as a hatter. In this one you start off that way, playing the part of Lewis Carrol's character who had a penchant for tea parties. Being loopy, he's not too good at pre-party planning so the aim of the game is to collect up treats to feed the impending guests. Using a Kempston joystick or keys you control the animated character of the hatter as he roams the screen to gather up the ten scattered sweets. At the bottom lies a chocolate roll, but the ten sweets come first. Unfortunately, mice run across the screen and swallow them. You're not allowed to phone for Rentokil but must just keep out of their way (a collision is deadly) and wait for replacement sweets to pop up. There is some mouse poison floating around, but as it poisons you and has no effect whatsoever on the mice it's not a lot of use. Two more hazards on the first few screens are a pair of vacuum cleaners. Again, contact is deadly, but grabbing one of the plugs that floats across the screen freezes them. Later a bouncing ball ricochets about the screen. The more chocolate rolls you snaffle, the more the pace hots up. There's also a high-score table. The graphics are far from wonderful, with vacuum cleaners looking more like a pair of moon boots, though the Mad Hatter does at least have a pair of short fat hairless legs that move up and down. With merely average sound, the game is also very repetitive as you'll soon get sick of collecting one sweet after the other. Buyers would be mad as a hatter to prefer this to anything currently in the Spectrum top twenty.