Spellbound

Sinclair User

Gilbert Factor 7/10

Richard Price 7/10

PYRAMID FUN Memory: 48K Price: £5.95 Joystick: Not specified Turned into a toad by the spells of Griselda the Necromancer, you must race down a pyramid of steps to escape from the fortress. Every step must be covered before escape is possible. Devils, skulls and ghosts chase you round the pyramid threatening instant death. This is the Q-bert style arcade format of Spellbound from Beyond Software. You have three lives on each of the twelve levels. The skins of previous lives hang in a spider's web above the playing area and lightning bolts shoot from the cauldron where Griselda sits stirring. Timer and current score are shown beneath the pyramid. The attacking creatures multiply from level to level and your chances get slimmer. The insert does not specify any joystick simply suggesting that a 'relevant' one be used. Certainly there is no great advantage in a stick as the toad hops rather than glides. And with a stick it is tempting to hold on too long and vanish in a puff of smoke over the edge. A fine game which will keep pyramid addicts on the edge of their sarcophagi.

Read it at Sinclair User Magazine Online

Personal Computer Games

Graphics 8/10

Sound 6/10

Originality 6/10

Lasting Interest 8/10

Overall 7/10

Peter Connor 7/10

MACHINE: Spectrum 48K CONTROL: Keys, Sinc, Kemp, AGF, Downsway FROM: Beyond, £5.95 It's no joke being transformed into a slimy toad, so there's a lot of incentive to succeed in this Q*Bert spin-off. The wicked old witch who's been messing around with your body chemistry is Griselda the Necromancer. She appears on screen, in hideous detail, to the left of the castle steps which are your escape route. She has a luminous green face, a nasty pointed chin and an evil grin as well as a bubbling cauldron containing the spells she casts onto the steps. To the right of this 3D pyramid is the web of Manfred, Griselda's pet spider, where you are imprisoned if caught. The whole business makes escaping from Colditz seem child's play. The game has 12 levels. On the first you begin at the top and have to colour all the steps, as in Q*Bert. Chasing after you are horned, yellow devils who move far too quickly for comfort. Practice and a few prayers should see you through this - it's the next level that'll have you tearing your hair out. Here the devils are supported by a gangling skeleton whose skull still seems to contain a number of brain cells. He (or she - it's difficult to sex a skeleton) will chase you into a corner if you're not very careful. And now I have a confession to make; I couldn't get any further. Believe me, I tried. I suppose I'll just have to learn to love life as a toad. Spellbound is a wonderfully innovative development of the Q*Bert theme with excellent graphics. It boggles the mind to think what Griselda's got cooking in her pot for the higher levels.

Crash

Use of Computer 54%

Graphics 62%

Playability 43%

Getting Started 71%

Addictive Qualities 40%

Originality 45%

Value For Money 48%

Overall 52%

Unknown

Unknown

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Producer: Beyond Memory Required: 48K Retail Price: £5.95 Language: Machine code Released at the same time as Psytron, Spellbound is in a different class, sadly, a somewhat lower one. Dressed in the guise of dungeons and dragons. Spellbound is actually a 'Q-bert' game of leaping from square to square to change the colours of a 28 step pyramid. The scenario is that you (a frog in the disguise of a prince - or is it the other way round?) must escape the clutches of the witch Griselda. She (or is it a he?) stands to the left of the pyramid, stirring her/his cauldron. To do this you must hop about on the pyramid and change the colours of the steps without hopping over any edge, or occupying a square occupied by one of Griselda's spell creatures. These appear on the top square at intervals as she throws them out of the cauldron with a flash of lightning. There are 12 levels of increasing difficulty, with more and more spells chasing after you. COMMENTS Control keys: O/P left/right upwards, Z/M left/right downwards Joystick: ZX 2, Kempston, Protek, AGF, Downsway (has key programming option) Keyboard play: poor Use of colour: colours used are varied and good, but not always very well used Graphics: reasonable, but playing characters are poorer Sound: good Skill levels: 12 Lives: 3 Originality: based on arcade game, now several versions available

Griselda stirring her (or his) cauldron would send shivers down any princeling frog's back.

Your Spectrum

BEYOND SOFTWARE Beyond, has just launched three new games for the liddle ol' Speccy, the first of which it reckons will take adventure players by storm. It's called Lords of Midnight and, according to the description, it's not actually an adventure at all, but - rather - an 'Epic'. The idea is that, unlike other adventures, you don't need to restrict yourself to just one character and your routes are no longer dictated by the programmer in advance. This program knows where a given character is on the map, checks the direction he is facing and draws the whole scene, foreground to background, in perspective. Thus, every time you leave a location and return to it from a new direction, it'll be drawn again with a different background: and every time you move forward, distant peaks become mighty mountains and houses grow into great towers, flanked by forests. This is all made possible through (it's claimed) a new programming technique called landscaping which gives the program a possible 32.000 views. The idea of the game is to gather armies from the various people you meet; you have to convince them to join you, but of course there are some who are simply enemies and must be destroyed. As the force splits to defeat the evil Witchking Doomark you can see the dramatic happenings through the eyes of each character. There's an accompanying 32-page booklet which includes a map of the land and the game should retail for around £9.95. The second game from Beyond is called Psytron, and in it you play the part of a computer (Psytron itself) which controls the massive Betula 5 installation - a sort of moonbase type set-up. The computer controls every aspect of the place, from defending the base against evil intruders to assessing everyone's oxygen needs and allocating food and work. The problem is that the base is being constantly attacked and bombed from the skies while saboteurs (of the three-legged canine variety) run loose underneath the floorboards. The aim of the game is to keep the base running, and all human life is expendable in order to maintain the mighty Psytron. There are six levels and, according to the accompanying booklet, they've been carefully designed to take you through the game step-by-step; you mustn't overload your all-too-human mind. You may be interested to know that level six has only one aim - to survive for half an hour! Beyond is challenging players to achieve this great feat and the reward is . .. wait for it... a QL. Obviously, the company's not expecting anyone to manage it for a while yet. Anyway, full details are in the pack. The game, by the way, sells for £7.95. Last in the bunch comes Spellbound, where you take the part of a frog and attempt to race down the steps of the fortress before Griselda the witch catches you with her spells. Straightforward stuff it may be. but there are 12 levels of action to get through. Spellbound costs £5.95 and all Beyond's games should be available in your shops now.

In Spellbound you must use your frogs legs to hop fast down those steps before Griselda puts a spell on you!

Psytron's view of the Betula 5 installation. There's terror in the skies and under the floorboards.

C&VG (Computer & Video Games)

Getting Started 7/10

Graphics 8/10

Playability 5/10

Value 5/10

PIMAN GETS PAC-MAN TREATMENT Q*bert copies are beginning to proliferate on the Spectrum in the same way as rip-offs of Pac-Man did twelve months ago. With no less than three versions to choose from, we thought it was time C&VG told you which one to spend money on. The original was an arcade game by Gottlieb which introduced the cute but foul-mouthed little character who had to hop from tile to tile on a triangular shaped play area to change the colour of every square. Nasties like Coily, the snake, and a big red bouncing ball tried to stop our long-nosed friend from completing his task. Ocean's Pogo is the closest to the arcade original with the snake and bouncing ball - though in this version Coily is operating under the assumed name of Hiss. The slow, looping hop of Q*bert has been faithfully recreated in Pogo and this is also the only version which makes our friend jump off the side of the pyramid when you press the wrong key. Also hopping onto the bandwagon are Automata with their PiMan Q*bert game - Pi-Balled. PiMan and Q*bert could almost be brothers with those unmistakable long snouts - a similarity that has not escaped Automata's attention as they include a bar-room scene in the game where the two share a drink. If you like fast games, then this is the one for you. The PiMan can be made to move very quickly from square to square as he performs his Q*bert impersonation. Like Pogo, this game features the spinning escape plates at the side of the pyramid which you can jump onto when the going gets really tough. Spellbound from Beyond is the most original adaptation of the Q*bert theme introducing witches, spells and devils. Despite the pretty graphics, this is the least playable version of the game. The little yellow devils are difficult to see and the tiles only partially change colour when landed on - making the whole effect less colourful. Spellbound also lacks the escape plates which are an integral part of the original idea. Best buy. For my money Pogo is the best Q*bert-type game available for the Spectrum - and marks another success for Ocean who are really beginning to make their mark on the games business. Pogo £5.90 from Boots, Menzies, Woolworth, Pi-Balled from Automata of Portsmouth at £6 and Spellbound from most software shops at £5.95.