Crazy Painter

Your Sinclair

Overall 8/10

Graham Rydout 8/10

THE COMPLETE QL SOFTWARE BUYERS GUIDE At under £200, the QL has started to look a real bargain. If you've splashed out on one already or you're considering taking the plunge this Christmas, you'll want to know just how much software is available for the machine. The answer is still not much but things are starting to look up. Graham Rydout surveys the field. THE LANGUAGE BARRIER Very soon after its launch eighteen months ago, the QL was blessed with a wide range of languages and a couple of 68000 assemblers from Metacomco and Computer One. Now that range has been further complemented. Title: Assembler Development Kit Publisher: Metacomco Price: £39.95 Rating: 6/10 Title: QL Pascal Publisher: Metacomco Price: £89.95 Rating: 9/10 Title: BCPL Development Kit Publisher: Metacomco Price: £59.95 Rating: 8/10 Title: Lisp Development Kit Publisher: Metacomco Price: £59.95 Rating: 8/10 Title: QL C Publisher: Metacomco Price: £99.95 Rating: 9/10 All of these come supplied with the Metacomco full screen editor that has now become the QL standard. So much so, in fact, that Metacomco have licensed it out to other companies for inclusion in their packages. Title: Assembler Publisher: Computer One Price: £29.95 Rating: 7/10 Title: Forth Publisher: Computer One Price: £39.95 Rating: 8/10 Title: Pascal Publisher: Computer One Price: £39.95 Rating: 6/10 Title: Assembler Publisher: GST (via Sinclair) Price: £39.95 Rating: 9/10 Title: Editor Assembler Publisher: Adder Price: £34.95 Rating: 8/10 Title: Publisher: Hisoft Coming Soon This list will give you an idea of the range of Assemblers and language packages available from companies other than Metacomco Title: Mon QL (Microdrive) Publisher: HiSoft Price: £14.95 Rating: 8/10 Title: Mon QL (EPROM) Publisher: HiSoft Price: £39.95 Rating: 10/10 Title: QL Monitor Publisher: Computer One Price: £24.95 Rating: 9/10 Title: QL Monitor Publisher: QJump Price: £24.95 Rating: 7/10 With only three disassemblers/debuggers on the market, HiSoft comes out tops with MonQL on EPROM but the others are expected to follow suit shortly. Title: QL Monitor Publisher: Digital Precision Price: £18.05 Rating: 2/10 This is a very simple package and suffers greatly from a sever lack of features - not one I'd recommend. Title: C Compiler Publisher: GST Price: £59.95 Rating: 7/10 This isn't a complete implementation of the language but it's well suited to the beginner. Title: Supercharge (compiler) Publisher: Digital Precision Price: £59.95 I haven't yet seen the finished version or this compiler out it promises to be a product that everyone can make use of. It's written by Simon Goodwin oi Zip compiler fame (take a look at Your Spectrum 3) and it claims to convert almost every SuperBasic program into fully multi-tasking 68008 code. Title: SuperBasic extension Publisher: QJump (via Sinclair) Price: £24.95 Rating: 9/10 Title: SEE (EPROM) Publisher: Hisoft Price: £39.95 Rating: 9/10 Of these two SuperBasic extensions, QJump's leads the way but HiSoft's SEE has some very useful facilities. It gives the QL true windowing capabilities and as it's on ROM you don't have to keep loading it in. Title: Microdrive Toolkit Publisher: Compware Price: £9.99 Rating: 5/10 Title: Microdrive Toolkit (with source code) Publisher: Compware Price: £34.99 Rating: 5/10 The toolkits change the QL#s microdrive commands into functions so that values can be returned and errors such as 'drive full' trapped. Title: Keydefine Publisher: Psientific Software Price: £9.95 Rating: 10/10 This is a complete key redefinition package that'll let you use the redefined keys in almost every QL package. You could, for example, define the P key so that when you press it with the Caps Lock held down, the current document from within Quill could be saved and then printed. Freebie programs provided are a fast copier (a multi-tasking directory lister that lists directories from within other programs) and a printer spooler. Title: ICE (EPROM) Publisher: Eidersoft Price: £49.95 Rating: 9/10 ICE (Icon Controlled Environment) gives the QL a full Icon based Desktop Manager and Frton End to QDOS. It removes most mundane file handling tasks and I can thoroughly recommend it. Title: WD Utilities Publisher: WD Software Price: Microdrive £7.50, 5.25" £10.00, 3.5" £12.00 Rating: 6/10 WD Utilities are a complete set of SuperBasic procedures providing a menu driven system to manoeuvre files. Title: Cartridge Doctor Publisher: Talent Price: £14.95 Rating: 9/10 If you're frequently visited by the 'Bad or Changed Medium' error message, you'll welcome this program. It's a fully automatic set of routines to recover corrupted and deleted files. Title: Q Doctor Publisher: Talent Price: £14.95 Rating: 5/10 If you prefer doing things the hard way, Q Doctor only allows you to load and edit sectors from the microdrive. Unfortunately, there are no similar products available for disk users. Title: GraphiQL Price: £34.95 Rating: 6/10 Title: M-Paint Publisher: Medic Price: £49.95 Rating: 8/10 Title: Paint Master Publisher: Shadow Games Price: £14.95 Rating: 7/10 Title: Tascopy Publisher: Tasman Price: £12.90 Rating: 8/10 Title: Sprite Generator Publisher: Digital Precision Price: £24.95 Rating: 6/10 Graphic printers are a personal choice. GraphiQL suits highly detailed work but is extremely difficult to use. For dedicated artists only! M-Paint is a coloured clone of Apple's MacPaint. Simpler to use but a shade less accurate on detailed work. Least sophisticated at all, PaintMaster is none the less the most appropriate tor your average QL user. Its ability to compile a drawing into a SuperBasic program that then copies it makes it practical if you want simple illustrations within your program. All have simple screen dump programs but Tascopy copies all or part of the screen in a variety of shades. Sprite Generator does just that but it's a complex to use package that isn't worth the asking price. DOWN TO BUSINESS The high reputation of Archive, Abacus, Quill and Easel is based on their quality - it's not just that they come with the QL. Other companies haven't released similar packages because most people are happy with what they've got. Doubtless improvements could be made but I expect these'll come from Psion rather than an independent house. Title: Q-Spell Publisher: Eidersoft Price: £19.95 Rating: 8/10 Pore spillars will welcome Q-Spell - a full-spec spelling checker to Quill. But be warned! Extra mamory's needed to check your document with Quill still in memory. Title: Home Finance Publisher: Buzzz (via Sinclair) Price: £24.95 Rating: 8/10 Title: Self Employed and Cash Trader Publisher: Quest Price: £69.95 Rating: 7/10 Title: Small Business and Accounts Publisher: Sagesoft Price: £89.95 Rating: 8/10 Title: Payroll Publisher: TR Rating: 8/10 Of the accounting packages aimed at home users Smallbusiness is the most professional. It has integrated Purchase, Sales, and Nominal Ledgers. Transferred from the IBM PC it just goes to show that the QL can compete in the business world. Payroll provides a perfect complement and deals with data for up to 75 employees. Title: Decision Maker Publisher: Triptych Price: £39.95 Rating: 8/10 Title: Entrepreneur Publisher: Triptych Price: £39.95 Rating: 8/10 Title: Project Planner Publisher: Triptych Price: £39.95 Rating: 8/10 The Triptych products help solve various problems and educate you in the process. Title: Equate (Microdrive and disk) Publisher: Flite Price: £39.95 Rating: 7/10 For mathematicians, Equate can solve most problems - polynomial, linear, simultaneous equations, differentiation, integration, curve fitting and various graphical problems. Title: QL Gardener Publisher: Gordian Computing Services Price: £24.95 QL Gardener is a database with information on over 1100 plants. Just a shame that the package won't dig or even weed your garden for you! QL ADVENTURES When you consider the QL's large memory and excellent graphics you'd expect plenty of adventures. But only three quality games exist, and they're all text only. Title: Lost Kingdom Of Zkul Publisher: Talent Price: £19.95 Rating: 8/10 Title: West Publisher: Talent Price: £19.95 Rating: 6/10 Title: The Pawn Publisher: Magnetic Scrolls (coming soon) Rating: 10/10 The Talents were released early on in the QL's history and they're still looking good. Zkul is based on the popular Dungeons and Dragons format and plays very well. West is set in the desert wilds - complete with menacing Indians. Few reservations about this one! The Pawn is extremely high quality, similar to that of the Level 9 adventures. It's set in the magical world of Kerovnia during a period at social upheaval and includes a very complex command interpreter that can understand commands as complex as "Get all except the cases but not the violin case then kill the man eating shrew with the contents of the violin case. Remove the shrew's tail and use it to tie the pole and the noose together!" See what I mean? This game's by far the QL's best adventure yet. A WINNING STRATEGY If you compare this list of strategy games for the QL with the selection for the Speccy, it looks pretty paltry. Still, there are some good 'uns here. Title: Chess Publisher: Psion Price: £19.95 Rating: 9/10 Computer chess takes on a new dimension with a full 3D board display that makes impressive use of the QL's graphics. Title: Match Point Publisher: Psion Price: £14.95 Rating: 9/10 Match Point is converted from the Spectrum and improved graphics make the game more playable. Title: Area Radar Controller Publisher: Shadow Games Price: £14.95 Rating: 2/10 This is a very poor aircraft control simulation written in SuperBasic. Title: Bridge Player Publisher: CP Software Price: £14.95 Rating: 5/10 Title: Backgammon Publisher: Digital Precision Price: £12.95 Rating: 5/10 Title: Reversi Publisher: Games of Skill Price: £12.95 (Coming Soon) Aimed at novices, Bridge Player and Backgammon are of little value to the experienced. Coming soon is Reversi - a full version of Othello. Title: Comos Publisher: Talent Price: £14.95 Rating: 7/10 Patrick Moores, stand by your QLs. This is an astronomy package that allows you to display star and solar patterns as seen from any place on Earth at any point in time. From the star map you can choose any star with the cursor to find out extra data. ARCADE ACTION This list of arcade games for the QL may produce a snigger from Speccy owners - it doesn't exactly rival the selection on offer to them. Still, it's growing all the time! Title: QL Cavern Publisher: JMF (via Sinclair) Price: £12.95 Rating: 7/10 A massive 50 screen Jet Set Willy clone with 395 gems to collect. Good value, with a good many improvements over the standard platform game. Title: Meteor Storm Publisher: Arrakia (via Sinclair) Price: £12.95 Rating: 4/10 A bog standard version of Asteroids. Title: Booty Publisher: Firebird Price: £9.95 (Coming Soon) A locks and doors classic on the Speccy that sells for £2.50. Microdrive problems push up the price on the QL. Looks impressive! Title: EVA Publisher: Westway Price: £12.95 Rating: 9/10 A Jetpack-style game with very large sprite graphics. The most annoying feature is the almost continuous sound. Title: Star Guard Publisher: Shadow Games Price: £14.95 Rating: 5/10 Title: Galactic Invaders Publisher: Shadow Games Rating: 5/10 Shadow Games range from the reasonable to the pathetic. This pair come on the one cartridge and are just copies of Arcadia/Invaders. Title: Night Nurse Publisher: Shadow Games Price: £12.95 Rating: 3/10 This uses Digital Precision's Sprite Package (see The Language Barrier) and it just goes to show that commercial games cannot be produced with it. Shame. Title: Quazimodo Publisher: Shadow Games Price: £12.95 Rating: 7/10 Reasonable I suppose, very colourful and should satisfy if this is your thing. I'd back it! Title: Space Paranoids Publisher: Shadow Games Price: £12.95 Rating: 4/10 Another Arcadia style game - hardly worth loading up. Title: Zapper Publisher: Eidersoft Price: £10.95 Rating: 6/10 Similar them to Paranoids but slightly better value. Title: Master Blaster Publisher: Compugem Price: £9.95 Rating: 8/10 Excellent shoot 'em up that puts the rest to shame. Very smooth animated graphics and a wide range of aliens. Title: Cuthbert In Space Publisher: Microdeal Price: £14.95 Rating: 7/10 Microdeal has a very varied quality range. Cuthbert's aimed at the younger game's player and the hidden strategic elements make it more than a quick shoot out. Title: Lands of Havoc Publisher: Microdeal Price: £19.95 Rating: 8/10 A well packaged 2,000 screen arcade that players very well but could've made better use of colour. Title: Crazy Painter Publisher: Microdeal Price: £12.95 Rating: 8/10 You can hardly call this an Arcade copy - it's so different. Crazeee! Title: QL FLight Publisher: Microdeal Price: £19.95 (Coming Soon) A flight simulator that's due for release soon. Title: Hyperdrive Publisher: English Software Price: £14.95 Rating: 8/10 The QL's official Pole Position - rather disappointing considering what could've been achieved. It's on a par with the Spectrum version. LET US KNOW... We've tried to make this guide as comprehensive as possible but a list like this can never truly be complete. If you own a piece of software, or if you produce one, that's not included here, tell us about it and we'll pass the info on to Your Sinclair's software hungry QL readers. The address to write to is Your Sinclair, [redacted].

Sinclair UserSinclair User Classic

Overall 2/5

John Gilbert 5/5

PUBLISHER: Microdeal PRICE: £12.99 You are invited, brush in hand, to give this old game a new lick of paint. No prizes for guessing what you have to do, but I'll explain for those who have been in the wilderness for the past three years. Use the brush to paint the screen while being plagued by dogs, Space Invaders, bursting bubbles, snakes and a man who is intent on stopping your work. You can drive some of the crudely animated sprites off by colliding with them but others, such as the snake and paint snatcher, will strip you of your tools. Once you have plastered the whole screen with paint you must stop it dripping. If you are persistent, and lucky, you will move on to another colour paint and earn a bonus. Remember, you must keep the paint gleaming until your pot luck runs out. Although the sprite graphics are not satisfactory and the game repetitive you may find it addictive - I didn't. If you are still willing to pay nearly £13.00 for a game, Crazy Painter should keep you happy for at least three minutes. If, however, the standard of games software throws you into a fit of manic depression then don't buy it, you'll have another attack.