Giant Book of Computer Games

Personal Computer News

Jeremy Fisher

'Tim Hartnell's Giant Book of Computer Games' by Tim Hartnell, published by Fontana at £3.95 (paperback, 386 pages). The author has taken a giant step back in time to compile a book crammed with old standbys such as awari, nim, mastermind, Eliza and lunar lander, and although the book in some ways is bang up to date, with adventure games and simulations, you would never guess from it that graphics, sound or colour had been invented. But that is the point: all the programs will run on any machine with Basic. With so many different machines and PEEK and POKE about, it's time someone showed that most computers are the same beneath their plastic skin. There are 44 programs with games of all types: skill, luck and fantasy. Most fit in 8K, but one adventure game takes 17K! All I tried seemed to work perfectly. The listings are easy to follow and, as intended, easy to alter. Some are explained in detail, some get a few RliMS, but almost all have a very useful sample output. What bugs there are seem to be in the test (the Shogun text says game over when you capture six men - the program only ends on seven captures). Error-trapping is poor in that you can enter illegal moves and get away with it. To improve this would, of course, make the programs unwieldy, but Mr Hartnell could have given a couple of pages to this problem and less to the chess program. This listing gets a lot of prominence, but if you're tempted to buy the book only because of this, don't, it plays an awful. Illegal game and bears no resemblance to how commercial chess programs are written. But if you want a good ideas book - and every programmer should have one - this is the most up-to-date of its type and at the price is a real bargain, it would make a good stocking filler.