Producer: Statesoft
Memory Required: 48K
Retail Price: £6.95
Language: Machine code
Author: R Parratt

Boulder Dash was one of those games with unpromising graphics but a highly addictive scenario. Icicle Works is similar. Whereas in the former game you guided Rockford through a series of rooms collecting gems from under threatening boulders and dodging the variously released meanies, in this game your man has to collect the various parts of toys buried in the earth and surrounded by snow balls.

There are 13 very different rooms to burrow through, and as each square of 'earth' is removed, any snowballs above it will fall down, adjusting themselves to the new level. Snowballs will crush your man if they fall on him, but he can hold them on his head. In some rooms the toy parts are immediately visible, but in others there are green boxes with 7 marks on them. Snowballs must be made to pass through these before those hiding toy parts will release them. As the toy is built up, its component parts appear in the status panel on the left. All this is done against a very tight clock. Once all the parts have been collected, it is time to rush for the nearest of several exits which have been locked up until the toy is completed, which lets you into another room and another task.

If the clock doesn't seem a severe enough task master, there are some nasties about; Polar Bears eat you, but can be squashed with a snowball or drowned in melting ice water; Penguins also kill on contact, but more usefully turn into toy parts if they are squashed under a snowball. Melting ice water is fatally chilly, and expands throughout a screen rapidly if it is accidentally freed from its confinement.

Once a room has been completed, the room may be used as a fast, safe route through to other rooms. The time limit varies from room to room, depending on the complexity of the task in hand.

COMMENTS

Control keys: user definable, but preset E/X up/down, S/D left/right, CAPS plus direction to push
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor type, Sinclair 2
Keyboard play: good cluster option for those that like, responsive
Use of colour: average
Graphics: large, rather jerky and very simple
Sound: poor to non-existent
Skill levels: 1, but progressive difficulty
Lives: 4, but extra lives given at certain scores
Screens: 13

Icicle Works owes a lot to Boulder Dash, although there are quite a few changes to the game idea, but the principle remains much the same. Looking at the loading screen I thought this was going to be a Pengo type game and indeed there is an element of that - the boulders have turned into snowballs. First off, I thought this game was not much good in comparison to Boulder Dash, because the graphics handling is much slower and jerkier. The game itself is much more difficult and I found it daunting at first because there are so many parts to collect to complete an object and so little time to do it in, and once you get going you can't stop because the time constantly ticks on through each screen as you progress through the game - it's a nightmare! An interesting game but I don't know whether it will appeal to everyone. I liked it up to a certain point, but not quite as much as Boulder Dash.

Icicle Works plays very much like Boulder Dash in as much as the snowballs behave just like the boulders, and the nasties move around in little circles if you annoy them. The two things that really annoy me are the sound (or lack of it) and the scrolling screen which moves around too much and makes the graphics look jerky. I enjoyed playing Icicle Works but sound would have made it a lot better.

After looking at the beginning of Icicle Works a yawn had to be suppressed - rough movement of graphics and fairly simple ones at that - it's just not on! But it was, for this game is cleverly designed. Okay, the piccies aren't over brill, but the game itself is great. Getting all the bits can prove a difficult and addictive task, especially when you run the risk of completely trapping the man. A highly playable game which is the most uncommercial goodie I've seen recently.

Roger: Have we been here before or what? Turning down the temperature on stuff like Boulderdash doesn't improve a tired scenario.

All that's demanded of the undemanding is to scuttle about collecting stuff, tunnelling through poorly defined and barely visible snow-like substances and avoiding the dislodged balls that might fall on one's little frosty head. Jerky scrolling moves the action across the screen and the clock runs out even faster than my short-fuse patience. The thirteen ice-cold rooms offer as much fun as a fortnight in a fridge-freezer though the fauna is more fearsome - polar bears and killer penguins.

Having seen this type of software product climb up into precision platform pleasure, all I can dumbly consider is that Icicle Works has stepped through a time warp, missing all the clever programming trickery of the last year or so. Icicle Works? No it doesn't. 1/5 MISS

Dave: I've been waiting for a good Digdug/ Mr Do game to come out on the Speccy and after seeing this. I reckon I'll just have to wait a bit longer. It's a good idea but the implementation lets it down. When was the last time you saw sprites moving two cursor blocks at a time? 2/5 MISS

Ross: There's nothing original here and, yes the graphics are jerky and sometimes obscure but it still got me hooked. If you haven't seen its predecessors take a look. 3.5/5 MISS

Publisher: Statesoft
Price: £6.95
Memory: 48K
Joystick: Sinclair, Kempston, Protek

Originality is not a word which springs unbidden to the mind in Icicle Works - a game that is based on that old arcade favourite, Pengy.

As you dash around the icefield with its precariously balanced snowballs, you have to pick up sections of a jigsaw which make up a picture of a toy.

You will almost certainly be squashed by snowballs, or mauled by cuddly, man-eating polar bears and penguins. There are 13 levels and in each it becomes harder to release the pictures.

The harder levels pose more problems in that you have to kill penguins or polar bears before picking up sections of picture.

Block graphics make up the game and the screen scrolls up, down, left and right in probably the most jerky fashion we have seen for a long time.

Icicle Works is mere kindergarden stuff. Ageing Pengy fans and the rest - stay clear.

MACHINE: Spectrum
SUPPLIER: Statesoft
PRICE: £6.95

Not only has this game pinched the name from one of my favourite' bands but also nicked its theme from one of my favourite games! Icicle Works is basically a reworked version of Boulder Dash - but without much of the dash.

The idea is to guide your character through various rooms constructing various toys from the parts you find buried in piles of snowballs - which roll around Boulder Dash fashion as you burrow through them.

The scrolling is slow and jerky and the graphics are pretty naff.

I was quite disappointed when I first saw Icicle Works, I expected a lot more from the company that brought us Boulder Dash and Frak.

Wait for Boulder Dash 1 and 2 appear on the Spectrum - coming soon from Beyond.

Spectrum 48K
Boulderdash Clone
Statesoft
£6.95

Did the Electro-Wimp band name themselves after the game or vice versa? We may never know. Nevertheless, Icicle Works is a taxing and exciting game which bears many hereditary traits of Statesoft's earlier big hit, Boulderdash, for the Commodore 64.

The similarity lies in the snowballs. You dash around the screen, clearing paths and collecting pans of objects. If a bunch of snowballs falls on your head, you lose a life.

There are four main screens apart from the entry screen. This last is quite simple. You just saunter down from the top of the screen, grab a two-part key and decide which set of stairs you are going to go down.

In the first set you assemble a jet fighter and release a stream of water. On the second set you build a railway engine while moving around a maze; in the third you attempt to destroy volatile puffins by dropping snowballs on them; on the fourth you assemble a ghetto blaster.

The modus operandi on the last screen is the most ingenious of all. The screen displays a central line of mystery boxes. You knock snowballs down on to them. When you clear a path underneath segments of the ghetto blaster fall from the boxes. You then sweep back and collect the parts. As with the engine and the jet what you are building is gradually displayed on the right-hand side of the screen. Once you have built the radio you start collecting bonus points - but only if you collect the individual letters B-O-N-U-S in the correct order.

Each of the four main screens has exit doors which you use to pass through into ever more mind-boggling levels. You have to get through each part of the game in a certain time - too little time! - this one should appeal to the Chinese puzzle mentality.