Tiler

Crash

Use of Computer 72%

Graphics 61%

Playability 50%

Getting Started 63%

Addictive Qualities 39%

Value For Money 54%

Overall 57%

Unknown

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Producer: Interceptor Micros Memory Required: 48K Retail Price: £5.50 Language: Machine code Author: Stephen Curtis You have been contracted by Acme (what else) Construction to go and tile the roof of Rob Rubber's roof. But this task is frustrating because Rob is a bouncer - he bounces all over the place like a manic deep sea diver in an over-pressurised suit. If he should land on you, then you're squashed fiat. The game is played out over three screens, the inside of the house, the garden and the garage. Nothing is quite as straight forward as it first seems - stairs are all one way, a key is needed to get through the garage to the garden, and from there you go up past the tree house onto the garage roof to coiled the tiles. Tiles and key are collected by running over them, and as the tiles are deposited on the roof, they automatically appear in place, ready for you to go and collect another one. There is a panic button to press if you can't avoid being squashed by Rob, but you forfeit any tile carried at the time. COMMENTS Control keys: Q/A up/down, O/P left/right, SPACE to panic Joystick: Sinclair 2, Kempston, Protek Keyboard play: good positions, very responsive Use of colour: good Graphics: good backgrounds, poor animated characters Sound: average Skill levels: 1 Lives: 5 Screens: 3 Special features:

The way up to the garage roof is via the tree house. Good looking backgrounds but poor character in TILER.

Big K

Graphics 2/3

Playability 1/3

Addictiveness 2/3

Overall 2/3

John Conquest 2/3

MAKER: Interceptor FORMAT: cassette PRICE: £5.50 What ho! Has somebody come up with a game where you have to edit a computer mag? This should be pretty gory stuff. But no, all you have to do is tile the roof of a house. Easy? Well, actually no, because the house belongs to Rob Rubbers who can't stop bouncing around and if he bounces into you, you get squashed. There are three high-res screens, the house, the garage and the garden. The tiles are on the garage roof which is reached, for choice, from the garden. Different levels are connected by one-way stairs and you have to collect keys to pass from the house to the garage and the garage to the garden. All in all, filling your hod becomes a pretty fraught enterprise. There are three criticisms I'd make,; neither of the figures, the tiler or Rob Rubbers, is as well defined as the background and the tiler especially can get lost against it; Rob doesn't bounce, as far as I can see, according to the physics that I was taught, so it's impossible to predict his trajectory; and when you move from one screen to the next, you have no way of knowing where Rob will be sop, there's a good chance that you'll walk straight into him, unless you're very quick with the Panic button which will take you to an adjacent screen. Even so, an enjoyable game and interesting to see one with at least one foot in the real world.

Personal Computer Games

Graphics 7/10

Sound 5/10

Originality 7/10

Lasting Interest 5/10

Overall 5/10

Martyn Smith

Peter Walker 5/10

Steve Spittle

MACHINE: Spectrum 48K CONTROL: Keys, Kemp, Sinc, Prot FROM: Interceptor Micros, £5.50 Playing this game made me wonder where on Earth computer game writers get their ideas from. The author of this particular program must either possess an incredibly twisted imagination or spend half his life drugged to the eyeballs. Would you think up a plot like this? As the tiler, you must walk around the house, garage and garden of one Rob Rubber, collecting tiles and taking them to the roof. Meanwhile - and here's the weird bit - Rob bounces around performing incredible leaps and cartwheels. Should you be caught underneath him you are squashed and lose a life. Now try and tell me the author of this is a sane human being. The three scenes are beautifully drawn, from the bathtub and lights of the house, to the car in the garage and the tree house in the garden. You are a pleasant little stick-man who walks quite smoothly while Mr Rubber performs his acrobatics in equally pleasing graphic style. You go from location to location, up and down stairs and, on possession of a key, through doors. The tiles are in the garage and you must take them to the roof of the house, all the while dodging Rob. Unfortunately, you must collect so many of the things - you can only carry one at a time - that the game can become a routine as you repeatedly follow the same path again and again. Thus the lasting appeal of the program is doubtful, even beyond the first few days. Controlling your man is easy enough, either with keys or any of the three popular joysticks. However you do find that getting off stairs is a problem, as you need to be at either the very top or bottom. A pity really, because a nice, if strange, idea and some good graphics have been spoilt by a lack of variety.

Personal Computer News

Overall 6/10

John Lettice 6/10

PRICE: £5.50 PUBLISHER: Interceptor Micros [redacted] The trouble with being in the building trade is the way your customers tend to fuss around you while you're working. Normally this is just annoying, but in Tiler, where your goal is to tile Rob Rubber's roof, it's downright dangerous. Rob, you see, is a man with a problem. It may have just started with a all ht spring in his step, but now his condition is such that he just can't stop bouncing and, as he's also swollen up to Michelin man proportions, if he accidentally bounces on top of you - it's curtains. Unfortunately, the game doesn't seem to have a facility for jumping on his back, grabbing hold of his ears and using him as a spacehopper. The only thing you can do is make your way back and forth between the roof and the stack of tiles, keeping clear of Rob. The game consists of three screens, each one being a cutaway section of part of the Rubber residence. You start off on the ground floor of the main building, and to get to the tiles you must go through the garage into the garden, up to the tree house, then back onto the garage roof to collect a tile. You then have to take your tile back the way you came, then up to the attic where you apparently stick it onto the inside of the roof, and go back for the next one. Along the way, you'll encounter several locked doors which you can only pass by using one of the keys sprinkled around the shop. And things are made more difficult by the stairways being one-way for you. Rob however, cartwheels up and down them with ease. Visually, the game is a hoot, the detailed graphics being set off nicely by Rob's comic figure bouncing around. But the game isn't all that challenging. Also the continuing trudge from attic to garage and back can get pretty tedious. The review copy also had a couple of odd flaws in it. Assuming they are cured Tiler isn't at all a bad little game, but it could really have been a bit more difficult.