Nightmare + Potholer

Crash

Rosetta McLeod

CRASH COURSE By Rosetta McLeod PROGRAMMED BY TEACHERS It is interesting to see that my favourite programs this month were designed, written and produced by practising teachers. Andy Watson in Aberdeen and Bill Elliot in Plymouth, have both become aware that much of the educational software on the market is not really what teachers in schools are looking for, and so have come up with their own products. If you expect these to be amateurish, you'd be wrong - Expose and Nightmare/Potholer are both extremely professional packages which have been thoroughly tested in the classroom. Andy Watson has been interested for many years in the potential of the computer in the classroom, and as a teacher of English, and more recently, working with remedial children, he has built up tremendous expertise in his field. Bill Elliot also, has reaped the benefits of his computing knowledge. Seventeen out of his class of twenty-eight children at Southway Junior School own Spectrums, and indeed, are avid readers of Crash. Over to them for their comments on Potholer and Nightmare: "I like Nightmare because of all the different monsters in it like the Number Gunmber who knocks you for six." Ben Davey "Every time you got killed by monsters you just couldn't wait until your next go to find out what would happen next." Simon Rash "Nightmare has a lot of riddles and lots of different monsters. This game is very interesting for people with an imagination." Carl Bates "Pothol is a game for all the family. It is well put together and is a long game." Sarah Green "It is good how you have to work out plans to get over a river and try rescue your friends." Steven Morris "I like it when the computer gives you funny remarks, then when you get clues, that is when your brain has to work." Jason Rowe NIGHTMARE AND POTHOLER Producer: Southway Software Retail Price: £6.00 Age Range: 7 Both of the programs on this cassette were written by WH Elliot, a teacher at Southway Junior School in Plymouth. To solve the problem of lack of funds for software purchase, most of the profits from the sale of Nightmare and Potholer go straight to into school funds. The programs are specially structured for classroom use with groups of children, and the screen text directs the children towards a variety of activities. Nightmare is an adventure game in which the children have to rescue Princess Pru who is being held captive by Naughty Nora. After visiting a few locations, the players are given a task to complete. Tasks include creative writing - descriptions of the castle suing words such as battlements, sinister, portcullis and drawbridge, art work, solving codes, number activities, and even research to find out the capital cities of France, Turkey and Portugal. The idea is that each group of children will work at its own pace. and will spend a relatively short time at the computer before going off to complete an assignment. The game is extremely enjoyable, and the colourful graphics hold the players' attention. In both of the games, note-taking skills play an important role. In Potholer for instance, the adventurers have to rescue their friends who are long overdue from a caving expedition, using the following equipment: a rucksack containing food, batteries, clothes and a first-aid kit, a knife with many blades, an electric lamp, a 20m rope, a life jacket, and a small spade. One of the first tasks in this game is to work out how to cross over a stream without getting the rucksacks wet, and a later problem has you working out how to get through a long passage which is too narrow to crawl through wearing them. Problems such as these are superb for getting children to think and to discuss their ideas with each other. This adventure offers a wide scope for artwork, as the groups have to produce, for example, cave paintings of strange animals. If the players complete their mission successfully, they are invited to appear on television to tell their story. I thought that both Nightmare and Potholer were marvellous programs for use both in the classroom and at home. The only reservation I have is that after completing each task away from the computer the players have to start at the beginning of the game again and work quickly through until they reach the point where they left off. This could have been avoided by the inclusion of a code obtainable from the teacher on successful completion of an assignment, which would allow the children immediate access to the appropriate point in the game. COMMENTS Control keys: kept simple for young children to operate Keyboard play: good Graphics: excellent Use of colour: eye-catching

Time to choose: to go left or to go right, that is the question in Potholer.

"I like Nightmare because of all the different monsters in it like the Number Gumber who knocks you for six." Ben Davey "Every time you got killed by monsters you just couldn't wait until your next go to find out what would happen next." Simon Rash "Nightmare has a lot of riddles and lots of different monsters, This game is very interesting for people with an imagination." Carl Bates "Pothole is a game for all the family. It is well put together and is a long game." Sarah Green "It is good how you have to work out plans to get over a river and try to rescue your friends." Steven Morris "I like it when the computer gives you funny remarks, then when you get clues, that is when your brain has to work." Jason Rowe