The Doomsday Papers

Sinclair User

Overall 4/5

Gary Rook 4/5

Label: Matland, [redacted] Author: M Holmes Price: £2.95 Memory: 48K/128K Reviewer: Gary Rook This is the second title I've seen from Matland, and, like the first it's pretty impressive for an independent label. The action takes place on the distant planet of Alfa-Ren, mankind's last refuge after the Third Word War has turned old mother earth into a radioactive cinder. Unfortunately, the omnipresent mad professor, here called Deemus, has determined that if he can't rule the planet nobody will. So he's already destroyed half your world with a super bomb. You have only one hope - a time machine built by your boss. Professor Ferric. The snag is he's already used it so you have to travel into the past yourself, stop the evil scientist's plans from taking shape, and incidentally rescue your boss. It's a text and graphics adventure, which looks very much like it was written using the Quill and the illustrator. Graphics are good - quite a lot of care has been taken with them, and there are some pretty good details included in the screens. The text descriptions are adequate: short, but giving you all the information you need to know. There are some grammatical problems, and some clumsy phrasings, but you find those in just about any independent adventure these days. One nice touch is to allow you to choose between two different character sets: unfortunately, both character sets are equally difficult to read. There are quite a few locations, including a spaceship, a city in the desert, adventure, which looks very much like it was written using the Quill and the illustrator. Graphics are good - quite a lot of care has been taken with them, and there are some pretty good details included in the screens. The text descriptions are adequate: short, but giving you all the information you need to know. There are some grammatical problems, and some clumsy phrasings, but you find those in just about any independent adventure these days. One nice touch is to allow you to choose between two different character sets: unfortunately, both character sets are equally difficult to read. There are quite a few locations, including a spaceship, a city in the desert.

ZX ComputingZX Computing Glob Senior

Overall Groan

Peter Sweasy Groan

Natand Software £1.95 Just before the destruction of the earth by the warring superpowers, all the people deemed necessary to the survival of humanity (eg doctors, scientists but not, unfortunately, adventure reviewers) were sent to Alla-Ren, a distant planet. Unfortunately among them was an obligatory megalomaniac who promptly destroyed the new planet when it wouldn't let him rule. But a goodie scientist had invented a time-machine beforehand, and now you, his apprentice, must go back in time and stop the nutter by finding and destroying the plans of the title. This amateur adventure is Quilled and Patched, and so has some split screen graphics which are sometimes rather good. The text unfortunately, isn't; very clumsy considering how little it actually tells you, sometimes badly punctuated, and written entirely in capital letters which looks extremely primitive. Although I liked the plot, it's been wasted really and much of the game is very run of the mill science fiction. The "problems" aren't very inspired, tend to be similar, and are incredibly easy - I solved this in two hours! There are a few bugs too, and a stupid piece of (il)logic at the end. The vocabulary isn't too bad. but limited nevertheless, and lacking EXAMINE which should be standard these days. The shortcomings I've outlined could have been easily avoided; but with them the game is sadly not worth the effort. It is cheap however, so maybe if you're an absolute beginner, you might like it. Mail order only from: [redacted].

Crash

Atmosphere 8/10

Vocabulary 7/10

Logic 6/10

Addictive Quality 7/10

Overall 7/10

Derek Brewster 7/10

DEREK BREWSTER'S ADVENTURE TRAIL IS THE PRICE RIGHT? As has often been said before, the games software world has much in common with the music industry. Leaving aside the connoisseur's direct metal mastered LP discs, and the new technology-priced compact discs, the popular music LP has found its pricing niche in the £4-16 range. Above the six pounds mark the product begins to meet consumer resistance: within the mind of every potential pop purchaser is a set of scales which comes out with a value-for-money readout working on the figures of pocket money/disposable income and the real worth of bass guitars, leads, snares and high-hats syncopated into some sort of harmony. In case, as a young pop consumer, you think the above pretty obvious, it might be worth putting a historical perspective on this by pointing out the LPs dogged persistence for keeping its token value pegged at the £5 mark since 1976, a date from which inflation spring-boarded. This pegging of the price was not done without some modifications and cost-cutting, most noticably a thinning of the plastic and a reduction in quality which meant people like myself buying three records at a time in the sure knowledge that at least one of them would be a bad pressing. Now let's have a look at what's been happening in software in 1985. Figures show that Spectrum software sales are way ahead of those for Commodore, The BBC and C16 markets are much smaller than the two big boys but are significant, while the third biggest, Amstrad, is continuing to improve and catch up. The most successful company in terms of units sold was Mastertronic followed by US Gold and Ocean. Since US Gold and Ocean are in reality the same stable you might take them combined to be the greatest force in software. Mastertronic are famed for their cheap software selling in newsagents and petrol stations, though their £2.99 range has recently appeared in the high street multiple stores and is fast gaining a respectability previously thought beyond the budget game. The US Gold and Ocean group are famed for their top quality games selling at the seven and eight pounds mark. To confuse matters, rumours abound of both groups each planning to release games in the other's domain. A software house makes far less profit, after paying product costs and royalties, on a cheap game when compared to the margin on a full-priced product. A cheap game has to sell eight to nine times more to make the same profit as a full-priced game. But the more expensive game needs advertising and involves a greater risk - kids aren't going to part with eight pounds on a whim. Clearly there are many pros and cons to full- and budget-priced software but what I'd like to suggest is a price for software which will encourage both high consumer sales (with reduced copying), and quality programs. This figure I believe is somewhere around the five pounds mark, much the same as record prices. THE DOOMSDAY PAPERS Producer: Matand Retail Price: £2.95 Author: Matthew Holmes The year is 3050, the planet Alfa-Ren, the inhabitants human. Earth is no more than a dead, desolate rock floating in space. Just before the war between the superpowers a few thousand people were sent to a planet called Alfa-Ren. Among these people were scientists, doctors and all the other professions needed to sustain life on a new planet. The biggest mistake in selecting these people was choosing a Professor Deemus, an evil, insane, but clever man set on ruling Alfa-Ren or destroying it in the process. With a bomb which would destroy half the planet if it exploded and leave the other half slowly dying, the professor represented a grave threat to the inhabitants of Alfa-Ren should he have ever contemplated the unthinkable. Professor Deemus ends up doing the unthinkable, detonate his bomb destroying the southern hemisphere, and now radiation is encroaching on the north. But there is a hope. Professor Ferric is perfecting his time machine. He hopes to travel back in time to before the catastrophe. Intending to search for and find Prof Deemus, he is also intent on finding the Doomsday Papers, the work of some top scientists detailing how to make the bomb, secretly stolen by the madman. Professor Ferric is way overdue returning from a trip back in time and you, his assistant, take it upon yourself to travel back in time before it is too late. The Doomsday Papers is one of the better programs reviewed this month. It has chosen one of my favourite solutions to the memory problem; it has decided upon a few infrequent quality graphics. I like this answer because you can genuinely look forward to each new graphic, as much a highlight to an adventure as is a goal in a football match. The game has a reasonably friendly vocabulary (let down by the ridiculously worded solution to the pile of rubbish problem), some super little sounds, and merrily rolls on, perhaps a little too easily. Some of the ways in which you advance are just a bit too arbitrary for my liking, for example, falling down a hole you climb out of it to find yourself in a totally new location - simply by falling and getting out of a hole. Matand Software will sell by mail order in the first instance. They can be contacted at [redacted]. COMMENTS Difficulty: easy Graphics: quite good Presentation: okay (Spectrum capitals) Input facility: verb/noun Response: Quill