Four Minutes to Midnight

Your Sinclair

Graphics 8/10

Text 8/10

Value For Money 8/10

Personal Rating 8/10

Overall 8/10

Mike Gerrard 8/10

FAX BOX Game: Four Minutes To Midnight Publisher: 8th Day, [redacted] Price: £2.99 Reviewer: Mike Gerrard Good to see 8th Day emerging again, with its recent HRH and now this re-release of one of its original titles - if my memory serves me well, and it usually doesn't, wasn't this the first software house to put out budget-priced Quill'd adventures? Two versions of the game are on this enhanced tape, with graphics on side one and without graphics but with expanded text on side two. Many new features have been added as well in this tale where you have to recruit a gang of helpers to save the world from the usual mayhem and destruction. Type in HISTORY (NAME) and you'll be given a potted history of the character named, while STATISTICS (NAME) gives you details of their skills and strengths. PARTY will let you know which characters you have with you at the moment, and you get people to join or leave you by using RECRUIT (NAME) and LEAVE (NAME). The world's on the verge of destruction, as the title implies, and it's not a pleasant place to be. The lengthy descriptive passages include lots of gory prose along the lines of "the air is full with the stench of putrefaction" and "the strong sickening smell of death rises from all around." As with many of the 8th Day titles, the problems are sometimes cleverly worked out - and this one starts with you having just two moves to stop a car plunging into a petrol station and exploding in a ball of flame. Can you save the driver and make him your first recruit? Then you make your way to the nearby city with its looted shops and rat-infested tunnels - and make sure you read your location text closely, as you'll need to examine some of the objects mentioned. Graphics are very good, as far as I've seen, and beautifully detailed: flashing neon signs and lorries with indicator lights going. The text is livened up with the occasional UDG too, and all in all the program's nicely presented.

Read it at Your Sinclair Rock'n'Roll Years

ZX ComputingZX Computing Glob Minor

Overall Grim

Peter Sweasy Grim

8th Day £2.99 8th Day were one of the first companies to see the potential of The Quill for budget software. In 1984 they released six adventures, most of them very good for the time; adventures which I regard with particular affection, since they were among the first I ever reviewed (for the late Home Computing Weekly). Yet - despite the controversial and excellent, full priced HRH last year - 8th Day have never received the success they deserved. Now the company is back with new versions of those original games. Graphics have been added, and text compressed to allow longer description. Players are offered a choice of graphics or an expanded text version. New features like RAMSAVE/LOAD are included and presentation has been polished. The updated games are being released at a rate of one per month. Unfortunately, 8th Day have chosen one of the weakest games to start with. The plot: bacteriological warfare has wiped out most of the world's population. You and a few others were immune Find such people and together begin a safe new world, de-arm the local nuclear weapons to help this aim. This scenario was not very well executed to start with, and the game has not been sufficiently revamped. The vocabulary is too tight, and you are far too limited as to what you can do. The graphics are poor, the description uninspiring and the other characters have virtually no life or independence. Thumbs down for this one but I look forward to coming games, especially Quaan Tulla and Faerie. I just hope they are updated with more thought.

Crash

Atmosphere 75%

Vocabulary 80%

Logic 74%

Addictive Quality 75%

Overall 76%

Derek Brewster 76%

DEREK BREWSTER'S ADVENTURE TRAIL THE SPICE OF LIFE A real mixed bag this month: one Quilled, one from the GAC, one from yesteryear, one icon-driven, and one or bookware, how's that for variety! The Quilled game is from a small independent named Mystic, who have tried to take the Quill format and put some new life into it. Imagination, the Graphic Adventure Creator game from Peter Torrence, looks a little dry (like all GAC games), but it's playing around four different themes is novel. The blast from the past is 8th Day's Four Minutes to Midnight. Inspired by a Stephen King novel, it has now been re-released and served up with graphics and many new commands. Using icons can be a blessing or a bugbear when it comes to adventuring, and in the case of Anco's The Kingdom of Krell I'm not altogether convinced the icons make the going easier. The game does look good, however, filling 128K of memory, and deserves praise for stepping up to 128 if nothing else. The bookware program is, as you might have guessed, The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole, a Level 9>Mosaic/Virgin affair which I particularly enjoyed playing. The software follows the book (by Sue Townsend) and the TV series very closely, yet in my opinion the program has been constructed in a way which creates sufficient options to justify the addition of the computer game to the Mole phenomenon. There was another arrival this month which was most welcome - a fanzine (The Adventurers Handbook) which had metamorphised into a full-blown, professionally bound and typed adventure booklet. What impressed me about What Now? is its thorough usefulness to people like myself (or anyone else who tends to have a crack at a lot of adventures). I think the authors of the booklet must be congratulated for upping the gloss, and still finding the time to keep up the standard. The contents page, which gives some insight into the multitude of maps, solutions, and articles on offer, is followed by a curt but informative news page. Reader's letters complete what is a very full and worthwhile publication The cost is £1.50, H&D are the publishers and [redacted] is their address, though with standards as high as theirs keep an eye open for What Now?in your local computer shop. FOUR MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT Producer: 8th Day Retail Price: £2.99 Author: Michael White, Martin Rennie 8th Day Software received some pretty fine reviews when they began their Games Without Frontiers series almost two years ago. Now these Quilled games are to be re-released for new computer owners, with many additional features which will make these cheapies even better buys. Obvious updates include the inclusion of graphics on some locations, and RAM save and load. Also, there is a text-only version of the game on the flip-side for ascetics who prefer a wordier approach. 8TH DAY are also considering rereleasing some of the other five games from their Games Without Frontiers label. These will be rated for difficulty (Beginner, Standard and Advanced), so a beginner can find a comfortable level from which to progress. The first of these releases, Four Minutes to Midnight, was inspired by the Stephen King novel, The Stand, and follows you and your fellow survivor's attempts to come to terms with a bacteriological catastrophe which has devastated America, wiping out some 90% of the population. Why the other 10% can shake off the bacteria isn't yet clear, perhaps they're immune to the bug. They form groups to try and re-establish order from the chaos following the outbreak. Journeying across America you must find as many companions as you can, utilising their skills to help you overcome the many problems that litter the road to a more stable society. But there is more on your mind; wouldn't it be a good idea to seize the chance now to rid the menace of nuclear arms, now that the silos lie unguarded. Perhaps with a party of like-minded people, the warheads could be de-activated and a new generation spared another holocaust. Impressive new features have been grafted onto these old adventures to bring them bang up-to-date. Due to the nature of the game, the command RECRUIT (DAVE) has been included, with PARTY giving the make-up of the team you have built up so far. A member is dropped with LEAVE, while FEED is used to direct food at those members most in need of strength. To help you decide who is most worthy the command, HISTORY gives you the low-down on a character's past, while STATISTICS give you a character's profile with all important technical, engineering, social and strength attributes. However, due to a reluctance of members to divulge their respective pasts, a psychic is needed to release these personal facts. You kick off on the forecourt of a small gasoline station which is in a terrible, deserted state. But what's this? A car is careering down the road towards the station and if not stopped, will turn the whole scene into a blazing inferno. You're only given a few moves to resolve this situation, so you can see you have a very tough start to this one and the game's tag of Advanced Difficulty makes itself felt right from the off. Finding the members which make up your team isn't a picnic either, although Dave obligingly pops up from within the first few locations. At just about the time when things are beginning to run smoothly, the time element comes into play with the sun deciding its had enough for one day. SLEEP and WAIT are the obvious correctives, although a quick succession of LOOKS (L) does the trick along with just about anything else. Getting the BMX bicycle speeds you on your way, while entering every building or object will see you recruiting another member before your nerves crack. Four Minutes to Midnight is available by mail-order from 8TH DAY, [redacted]. The games were well received on their first release some time ago and now, in their improved format, they represent good value for money. The difficult nature of the adventure, and its sophisticated commands such as RECRUIT, TIME, and HISTORY, should ensure a following amongst adventure buffs. COMMENTS Difficulty: not to be taken lightly Graphics: below average Presentation: okay Input facility: verb/noun Response: fast

C&VG (Computer & Video Games)

Personal Rating 7/10

Keith Campbell 7/10

MORE GAMES WITHOUT FRONTIERS 8th Day Software is one of the new breed of "cottage" software houses that have grown since the advent of the Quill. What makes the company different from most of the rest is that their games, once priced at £1.75, still cost only £2.50 each. The co-directors of the company are Michael White and Gary Kelbrick, who also write all the games using the Quill. I asked them why their games cost so little compared with other Adventures, and their answer was quite controversial. Gary and Michael both think that 99 percent of Adventure games on the market are overpriced for what they contain and feel, to a certain extent, that many games are written badly, story-wise, with unoriginal problems. Naturally, they also feel that their games are always original and worth every penny. So I thought I'd take a look at this series, to see if it is all that its producers claim. FOUR MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT This game was written by Michael White and is concerned with events after a deadly virus is released into the atmosphere from a high security research station in America. The virus has killed most of the world's population and only a few, seemingly immune, have survived, including you. You must learn the skills of the old technology and recruit five members to form a team to travel across the States to disarm nuclear weapons which have been left unguarded and still threaten the remaining population. This game is well thought out, and quite difficult. At the start, you are standing at a petrol station. A few seconds later a car crashes into it and explodes. From inside the car you hear screams. If you manage to rescue the occupant, he will help you with your mission. The game continues along these lines and is quite fun to play. Personal Rating: 7 QUANN TULLA Without doubt, the best game of the series is Quann Tuna, and I think this should be picked up by a major company. The story is of an evil empire that has fought a long and bloody war with the Just Foundation. The Foundation is losing, and your mission is to destroy some top secret manuals, kill a traitor and destroy a crippled space ship. The game takes place aboard your flagship and progresses through space to a far distant alien world. This may prove too difficult for beginners, but the experienced Adventure nut will love it, especially its weird objects such as the lead ball and lighter-than-air docking badge! Great stuff! Personal Rating: 9 ICE STATION ZERO In this one, you are cast as a secret service agent who must defeat the evil genius Stirling. Stirling, it seems, has planted a nuclear bomb somewhere near the south pole. Setting off, you find yourself standing in the freezing snow, from where you move on to discover ice floes, yetis etc., which must be overcome before killing the maniacal Stirling. Personal Rating: 7 IN SEARCH OF ANGELS This is one of the easiest of the series and is based upon Ian Fleming's early novels. You are cast as a rather poor man's version of James Bond and you find a dead CIA agent floating face-down in the Thames. From there you progress around the world trying to stop an organisation known as "The Company" from taking over. Personal Rating: 5 FAERIE This has to be one of the most spine-chilling games available! It has nothing whatsoever to do with the notorious "Pink Fairy"! The plot is, to say the least, complicated with many sub-divisions. You are sent off into the underworld to find the three treasures of Isi-Tunn, and it's not easy! Personal Rating: 8 CUDDLES Finally, Keith had a look at Cuddles, another of the 8th Day series, and after being cut by a "broach" on his Nanny's dress and finding he had to refer to it as a "broach", and that all subsequent text referred to it as a "broach" he says he could not bear to bring himself to continue with the game, let alone review it! "Games Without Frontiers" are for the 48k Spectrum, priced £2.50, and available from 8th Day Software at [redacted].

Micro Adventurer

John Fraser

23.56 MICRO: Spectrum 48K PRICE: £1.75 FORMAT: Cassette SUPPLIER: Eighth Day Software, [redacted] A new strain of bacteria has been accidentally released into the atmosphere from a top secret research laboratory and the consequences are tragic. Ninety percent of the population is dead, but you are one of the lucky ones. Your task is to lead a party of five survivors across a devastated America in search of sanctuary. This is the chilling scenario of Four Minutes to Midnight, an adventure-strategy game based on Stephen King's best-selling novel The Stand. While loading, the screen shows a mushroom cloud overlaid with the hands of a clock pointing at exactly four minutes to midnight. Indeed, time is a crucial factor in this game, as you will probably discover as soon as you begin to play. Standing outside a gas station, you see a car careering towards you. If you make one false move you're instantly killed in the ensuing explosion. Once you've managed to free Dave from the blazing car you set off on a long trek to the city in search of survivors. You can talk to Dave in a limited sense, although he doesn't usually say very much. Type 'history Dave' and he'll tell you a bit about himself but type 'Ask Dave' and generally the message is 'You are told nothing of interest.' Soon day turns to night and surprisingly for a Quill-designed game, graphics are used to depict the setting sun. Another mistake I made was to forget to read the several pages of instructions on side Two which describe the strategic nature of the game and explain some vital commands. Previously Dave kept moaning about being hungry and despite my numerous attempts to give him food he suddenly dropped dead in the street. You get points for completing various tasks and these are awarded in four categories: Technical, Engineering, Social and Strength. When the rating is high enough you can achieve certain things; a high Engineering score enables you to mend machinery. However, you can only find out a person's statistics at night when a capable psychic is present. This is an ingenious and addictive game which makes the most of The Quill. It might not have the sophisticated character interaction or real time of more expensive adventures but for £1.75 you won't be disappointed.

Big K

Graphics N/A

Playability 3/3

Addictiveness 3/3

Overall 3/3

Fin Fahey 3/3

MAKER: 8th Day Software FORMAT: cassette PRICE: £1.99 each Pure text adventures seem to be becoming a threatened species of late. There seems to be a general feeling that to sell, a program has to contain graphics. Doesn't matter how tacky, how irrelevant to the plot line, how much memory is wasted, we gotta have them pictures. A good counter to what I, for one, see as a pernicious trend is this collection of six pocket-money programs from 8th Day, a new Merseyside outfit. The packaging is understandably minimal, a plain black wrapper in every case, although you do get a natty plastic rack if you purchase all six. There's nothing cut-price about the quality however. as far as I could see, each of these is a well-thought out, properly plotted adventure. Better still, every one is on a different theme. The nearest to the hackneyed old Sword-and-Sorcery schlock is Faerie, but this rests more on Celtic whimsy than conquering barbarians. The vital thing is to keep the fairies happy, one way being to swap a human baby for their changeling, a bit naughty this. Four Minutes to Midnight seems to be the most advanced program, and pits you against a post-catastrophe world. The object is to rebuild civilisation from the ruins by assembling a team of capable and technically-skilled people. To my mind this goes one better than The Hobbit in terms of human interaction, and displays genuine originality. Cuddles is a bit on the cute side - you are a bored toddler and you have to escape from your cot and get past nanny to sample the delights of the outside world. Ice Station Zero owes something to the dreadful Alistair Maclean story - for Zero read Zebra - it's a thriller set on the Arctic Icepack. The obligatory space adventure is represented in the form of Quann Tulla in which you have to get a crippled starship working again. In Search of Angels is a Fleming-style spy story full of the obligatory souped-up sportsters full of gadgetry. A lot of ground has been covered here, all six packages taken together cost the same as two normally-priced Spectrum programs, but represent months of playing time. This is the first time I've encountered software at a reasonable price which sacrifices nothing in the way of quality. Surely this, and not peculiar security devices, is the answer to piracy?

Personal Computer News

Mike Gerrard

It's been quite a day, let me tell you. Fortified by just a bowl of cornflakes I had to start by saving America which had been devastated by a bacteriological disaster. Then, after a short break for coffee, I was wrestling with Stirling, the international terrorist, who was threatening to wipe out New York if he didn't get his billion dollar ransom. As this exceeded my limit at the NatWest Service till I left him to it, only to find that one of Britain's early warning attack satellites had gone missing. Of course I had to step into the breach and deal with that before I felt I'd earned my lunch time pie and pint. The afternoon, if anything, was worse. I had to battle with the might of the evil corrupt Empire on behalf of the Federation, though this was as nothing compared to doing battle with the might of my nanny in order to break out of the playpen and find a new arm for tattered old teddy. Finally, I entered a magical world of fairies and grottoes in the traditional hunt for treasure, without which no adventurer's day is complete. The blame for my day of mayhem and monsters lies fair and square with 8th Day Software, which has just released the first six in its series called 'Games Without Frontiers', all written with The Quill for the 48K Spectrum and all selling at the incredible price of £1.75 (including postage, from 8th Day Software, [redacted]). CHEAP BUT GOOD As with the recent batch of cut-rate arcade software, cheap prices don't necessarily mean inferior quality. It was heartening to load these adventures up and discover that the general standard was very high indeed, catering for a range of preferences and ability levels. Don't expect glossy packaging for that price, though the cassette covers look smart with their uniform black background and silver lettering. Another standard feature is the inclusion on the B-side of each cassette of the storyline for the adventure you've bought, and of the others in the series, with a few pages on the playing of adventure games in general. Each adventure is graded as beginner's, moderate or advanced, and hint sheets or individual clues are available from 8th Day. This thorough and professional approach would be wasted, of course, if the adventures themselves were dismal efforts, but they're far from being that. Even the beginner's game proved pretty tough going in places. FLOE AND THE KIDS This is Ice Station Zero, whose loading screen for some reason shows a pterodactyl flying over an iceberg. I could understand a polar bear, huskies and even a Yeti in the icy wastes, but a pterodactyl? This is the one with mad Stirling and the billion dollar ransom, and you have to cross the Arctic ice-cap to get to him. You begin outside a small snow-covered tent on the western edge of an immense ice-field with a pack of wolves howling across the frozen plains. Though there are a few items in the tent, the means to defend yourself against the wolves (and their newly acquired striker) is carefully hidden away somewhere for you to find. Little graphics touches are possible when using The Quill, such as when you EXAMINE GUN which shows you the number of bullets remaining, while FIRE GUN produces a couple of bullet-holes either side of the screen. Can you escape the polar bear and the Yeti, what happens if you remove your clothing (known as losing your Kagool) and how do you make the air turn blue? The storyline of this one is full of healthy nonsense but the standard of the text is very high, as with most of this series. From Yeti to Nanny and the moderately difficult Cuddles, described as an adventure for big kids. Pack the nappies, examine the potty and plot your route for finding a new arm for teddy, who you thoughtlessly left up a tree. As you move round the nursery you find coloured building blocks, each with a different letter on it - and no, they don't spell out a rude word. But woe betide the player who searches the nappy cupboard without nasal protection. NUCLEAR 'N NAUGHTY From the nursery to nuclear war with Four Minutes to Midnight, which opens in dramatic style. 'You are on the forecourt of a small gas station beside several neglected gasoline pumps. There is a small road waning to the east while the garage fronting is west. You can also see a dusty mini-bus. A car is careering down the road towards the station.' Needless to say you don't have many turns before 'The car hits the pumps! With a massive explosion the station erupts in a ball of flames!' You too, of course. Unfortunately a slight lack of care over the inputs means that it's virtually impossible to get through the first few moves properly. You can step the car exploding but it still burns, and you have to respond to the driver's pleas for help by somehow rescuing him. You're told his name is Dave, but GET DAVE, CARRY DAVE, HELP DAVE and so on all fail to work. Eventually my patience ran out and I cheated to discover I should have typed RECRUIT DAVE. Hmmmm... bit naughty, that. Also naughty is a routine in in Search of Angels, an espionage thriller. You very soon find yourself at an airport where the girl on the desk asks you for your destination. Only by looking at the Hint Sheet can you discover your possible destinations of exotic locations - such as Rio, Casablanca, Berlin, Tokyo and London. Once you know where you can go, however, you can move around the world trying to piece together clues about the lost early warning satellite and the dead CIA agent floating in the River Thames. SPACE 'N FAERIS Naturally there had to be a sci-fi story in this batch. Quann Tulla is vaguely in the Snowball tradition of space ships, robots, security doors, secret manuals and so on. 'The fate of the Universe is in your hands!' My reaction to that was blunt and brief, and I was promptly told: 'Hygiene Clone II appears from nowhere with a bar of soap to clean out your mouth!' Finally Faeri, an advanced difficulty game whose plot twists and turns so much that it's hard to describe. You're in a fantasy world, looking for treasure, with the guardians of the Underworld and Overworld out to prevent you from doing that. There are 30 main treasures and an additional three Sacred Treasures. 8th Day reckons this one will keep you busy for the next six months.

In Ice Station you leave your tent to fight hungry wolves.

Your Spectrum

AND ON THE 8TH DAY... Yet another Liverpudlian software house has just programmed itself into existence. Called 8th Day Software, the company's opening its range with six text adventures, ranging in difficulty from beginner's stuff to 'jolly difficult'. All have a low price of £1.75, but 8th Day is quick to disclaim the "you-get-what-you-pay-for' syndrome. The six new titles, all launched under the 'Games Without Frontiers' banner, are all Quilled adventures and your measly £1.75 even includes postage, packing and VAT. How they can do it at such a low price and still make a profit defeats us. Unwrapping the first six packages, we have Four Minutes to Midnight (an advanced strategy adventure), Cuddles (a moderately difficult adventure for 'big' kids), Quann Tulla (a science fiction adventure), Ice Station Zero (a beginner's crime solving adventure), In Search of Angels (another crime adventure) and Faerie (an advanced fantasy adventure). All the games can be ordered direct from 8th Day Software, so give them a ring on [redacted].

In Search of Angels - one of six packages priced at £1.75!