TRADING IN GALAXIES

Quentin Heath assesses a re-issued adventure for the Spectrum which is helping to break new ground in developing graphic stories.

The time has come to load your ship with cargo and take off for the stars, because this month I want to talk about a space adventure called Trader. The game has been around for some time, being distributed quietly by Pixel Productions. Now Quicksilva has re-packaged it and there is a version for the Spectrum available. So I expect we shall be seeing plenty of it in the next few months.

Trader comprises three programs which take you around the known galaxy and, it is to be hoped, back again. Your ship may crash, you may run out of fuel, or it may be stolen - but you stand a good chance of survival. The game includes arcade action but the intellectual abilities of the player are also tested.

The first game lands you on your home base of Epsilon, where you can buy the goods which you hope to trade for profit on other planets. You are told that gold is a useless commodity and has little value, but a certain race of robots find it useful, so you should have some on board.

The game is accompanied by a well-presented information booklet but I would not believe everything it tells you, especially where cargo is concerned. Use your own brain and take nothing for granted.

When you have finished buying goods - and that will demand a good knowledge of the game to do successfully - your ship will transport you to the planet Psi. The creatures there have a very strange business sense, as they want some of your brainwaves in exchange for fuel which you need badly.

To get your vibes they will ask questions and if you answer them all correctly, or almost correctly, you will obtain your fuel. If you do not you will lose your ship.

That part of the game requires a good memory; a calculator is helpful to those who cannot multiply add, subtract, or divide. With a little forethought you can dispense with the calculator and there is no need to find the answers to the mathematical questions. All you need to do is type-in the question. The Psions are not so clever after all.

The encounter with the Psions shows the type of mental activity needed to play the game. You do not have to be a genius but you need to be as cunning as J R Ewing.

The planet Beta is the next port of call for your ship, the Pegasus. This time you can do as the instruction book advises, since the inhabitants are skilful traders and they will not stop at theft. So look after your ship or, like me, you could finish cargoless.

Your encounter with the planet Gamma is one of the animated graphics and arcade sequences where it is important to have a good set of digits rather than a brain full of digits. Once you have sucked the raw fuel from the surface of the planet, and if you do not crash in the process, you can continue to the planet Delta.

That planet is dangerous because almost all the humanoid inhabitants are hooked on Booster Spice. That does not, however, prevent them carrying-out criminal acts and the profit you thought you could make on Booster Spice may disappear.

You could also lose your ship and have to search through a maze for it. That part of the game is for arcade buffs, though. Trader seems to have been influenced at the design stage by the Dune trilogy of books from which, I suspect, the idea of Booster Spice was conceived.

Much seems to have been made of the Booster Spice - an illegal narcotic substance on some planets - in the instruction booklet and in the game. It is not until the game ends, however, that you can sell your spice - if you are unlucky. Your business sense will then have to go into over-drive.

One thing of which I would warn fellow-travellers, especially if they are just starting their apprenticeship, is not to BREAK out of any of the programs. If you do so even by accident, you will find that you cannot re-start Trader without loading the other parts of the game again.

The reason is that some of the variables used in the game are placed above RAMTOP so that they can be retrieved by all three programs.

At the time of going to press the Spectrum version of Trader was still being programmed, although from what I have seen of it there are plenty of extra twists in the game and, of course, the graphics are more colourful. The package will be available for the 48K Spectrum and should provide an extended game for mind games who like to exercise their laser fingers.

The game is different from other adventure games on the market because it is described as a graphics adventure. There are several available, including Pimania and, to some extent, Black Crystal. That seems to be the direction in which adventures should go, as graphics, either in the form of animation or static pictures, certainly add variety.

HELP FILL THE INTERGALACTIC TRADE GAP...

You are Trentor a space merchant and you're trade route lies between the six moons of Meridien.

All but one of the moons is inhabited and you begin the game with 1,000 credits to buy fuel and stock.

The skilled trader will develop a comprehensive knowledge of the values of the commodities in this space sector.

Petrochem is a liquified mineral with lubricating properties and also a raw material for the manufacture of Plasitron on Alpha.

Munch is an organically derived foodstuff available in sweet and savoury varieties. Price fairly stable.

Synthomunch is pretty disgusting to eat but highly nutritious and bought by the less wealthy settlers.

Boosterspice is one of the black market commodities. It's a narcotic - a less refined form of Hi-Lyfe but with unpredictable side effects.

Gold is now of little value and used as an anti-corrosive plating.

Raw fuel is the radioactive ore scattered over the surface of Gamma. Refined and liquified for hopper fuel.

All these prices are randomly generated including your fuel so you must keep a check on what you buy and the price you pay, as you have to sell at a profit.

Trader is a game of fantastic graphics colour, with some nice tunes thrown in as well.

The game is made up of three separate 16K programs which are played one after the other.

It is supplied with a 16-page booklet, which sets the scene for the game and provides instructions.

Trader is now being marketed by Quicksilva and is available for three computers: ZX81 plus 16K, 48 Spectrum, and the Vic 20 with 16K.

The games are available from Quicksilva stockists at £9.95 for the Spectrum and ZX81 versions and £14.95 for the Vic 20.

Quicksilva
13 Palmerston Road, Southampton
16/48K Spectrum
£9.95

FROM DEEP-SPACE ADVENTURES TO WORLDLY BOARD-GAMES IN MEIRION JONES' SURVEY

Less than a year ago the appearance of Scrabble on disc for the Apple caused consternation among micro owners. The program defeated three-quarters of the humans who challenged it to a dual of words. At least Scrabblers could comfort themselves with the knowledge that they had been beaten by a £750 disc-based system. Now Psion has taken even that consolation away by launching an improved version of the game with a bigger dictionary and better graphics which will run on a £150 system - the 48K Spectrum and a cassette recorder.

This illustrates the rate at which Spectrum software is improving. The latest releases include clever implementations of board- games like monopoly and arcade favourites such as Scramble, long and complicated Adventures with names like Knight's Quest and combinations of arcade and Adventure like Pixel's Trader. While serious and educational material software is still thin on the ground, programs like Hewson's Countries of the World show how much useful information can be packed into the Spectrum.

MORE ORIGINALITY

Unfortunately the standard is not uniformly high. Sometimes imagination is lacking. Bridge software still insists on marketing what it calls "an exciting game for two to six players". Yes, you guessed, it is boring old Hangman.

At other times graphics are weak. Micromega sells a version of Roulette which features a roulette wheel which looks more like a flying saucer on an off day. There is still too high a percentage of unloadable tapes and of tapes which you wished had been unloadable. Davic Games Tape 1, for instance, features a game which has Tooth Monsters instead of ghosts, which is probably the dullest-ever version of Pac-Man. The Tooth Monsters themselves are about as threatening as a pair of jelly babies.

If you want real tooth monsters try Imagine's excellent Molar Maul. This is a real nerve-tingler from the moment that an enormous set of gleaming teeth appears on the screen like something out of jaws. Armed only with a toothbrush and toothpaste you have to defend these dentures from swarms of evil bacteria.

These germs go by the name of Dentorium Kamikazium which allows Imagine to talk about "the DK Menace" - a triple pun partly at the expense of Imagine's Ipswich-based rivals DK'tronics.

Imagine's punsters are at work again on the cover of Arcadia where we are told we are fighting against the "deadly menace of the Atarian empire". Perhaps this explains why Sinclair owners have shown such enthusiasm for Arcadia because the game itself is just a lacklustre version of Galaxians. Much better is Imagine's Schizoids.

If, like me, you have always wanted to be a bulldozer, Schizoids is the game for you. You are a bulldozer in outer space and your job is to push tumbling cubes and pyramids into a nearby black hole without falling in yourself. Perhaps this nearby anomaly in the space-time continuum affects the wavelength of light. At any rate the game itself is only in black and white.

Pixel is another company which cannot resist veiled messages. Trader is part space Adventure and part arcade game. The Adventure, trading commodities between different worlds, is more convincing than the crude skill tests such as finding the right orbit when approaching a planet.

Trader may well be bought as much for its attractive packaging - which includes a survival guide for the would-be Trader - as for the game itself. After buying supplies for your first trip you set out for the planet Psi where the inhabitants - yes, Psions - who look like a cross between Clive Sinclair's beard and a muppet ask you tiresome questions such as "What is the formula for carbon monoxide?" or "What is your first name?". Entering "Clive" as an answer elicits the response "What a strange name". So, for that matter, does any other reply.

If disaster should strike, a caption will appear saying "Is this the end...?" The answer is "No" because Trader is a trilogy so there are another two complete parts to load from the tape. There are many more traditional text Adventures of the "Go south, open door, take gold" variety but the narrowness of the replies they will accept is often irritating.

DOWN THE MINES

Mikrogen's Mines of Saturn starts with a cheery "Have fun" and then proceeds to ask questions like "Tunnels lead N, S, E and W - what will you do?" Attempts to answer "N" or "go N" or even "go n" will not wash. It must be "go North" or nothing. At least Phipps' Knight's Quest has a 120-word vocabulary to help you on your damsel-ridden way to a castle in the air.

Everest by Richard Shepherd Software is more of a strategy game than a straight Adventure. You have to take enough food and rope to climb the mountain and cope with every hazard. I enjoyed the climb but I never reached the summit - partly because the Sherpas are not what they used to be.

When Sir Edmund Hillary climbed Everest for the first time he managed to find a Sherpa called Tensing. The time when you visit a Nepalese hill village to recruit porters you are asked to choose between Sherpas with names like Keith, Brian, Ron, Tim and Paul. Presumably they are ex-hippies, lost on the road to Katmandu.

Things obviously still are what they used to be down at Mikrogen. If Andy Capp sends you into fits of laughter Mad Martha might just raise a smile. It is the same old story, boy meets girl, well, hen-pecked husband meets axe-happy wife - all very predictable. Mikrogen also sells arcade games like Cosmic Raiders - a competent impersonation of Defender with a long-range screen and grabbers.

Melbourne House's variation on the same theme is called Penetrator. The display looks more like the arcade version of Scramble. A training facility to help you build up specific game skills is a good idea. C-Tech's Rocket Raider is yet another competent variant on similar lines.

Artic offers a suicidally fast asteroids game called Cosmic Debris. Still in the arcades, both Elfin Software and Quicksilva produce robot battles which are of the Pac-Man-meets-Tanks variety.

Elfin's Tobor has the more exciting opening titles but loses on points to Quicksilva's QS Frenzy whose exotic science-fiction plot seems to offer a better justification for the game.

Speaking of Tanks, DK'tronics 3D Tanx was one of my favourite programs in the whole batch. You can track you gun barrel from side to side and adjust the elevation as you lob your shells at four lines of moving tanks which can fire back at you. Although the opposing tanks at first appear to be crawling across a structure that looks more like Brighton's West Pier than a battleground, this is one of my four games you might catch me paying to play in an arcade.

JOIN THE PROFESSIONALS

Artic's Combat Zone is another ambitious attempt at a Tank game. Your target and the landscape - a few pyramids on an invisible plane - look like refugees from Psion's Vu-3D program. They are very simple three-dimensional shapes but they change position smoothly and realistically as if you were walking past them in some world inside your Spectrum.

You and your opponents fire fragments of cubist paintings at each other but the abstraction is not so important as the fact that you are playing the first real Spectrum game in three dimensions - Vu-3D itself is a Psion program which allows you to build up three dimensional objects on the screen and then rotate them, or float them towards you and back again. In effect it is a crude version of the mainframe programs which create the effects for films like Tron.

ET makes an appearance too in an Abbex Adventure with voices called ETX. Unfortunately after loading pages of instructions about how I should phone home ending with the advice that I should treat any MI5 man who appeared as an enemy, the tape self-destructed.

This left me with an unnerving impression of "the strength of Britain's security services.

The secret police are certainly important in DK'tronics strategy game called Dictator. The setting is a banana republic. The instructions ominously point out that "your rule is measured in months". You have to balance political factions, army, secret police, peasants, landowners, guerillas and superpowers if you are to survive.

Breaking into embassies would doubtless be all in a day's work for a dictator. So for all prospective saviours of the nation, Sinclair's Embassy Assault will come in useful. It is very much like those maze games which present your view. standing in the maze. Instead of trying to avoid a minotaur, this time you are looking for secret codes and the like.

All this is enough to send you back into the arcades but Jet Pac's creators have moved from the arcades into home computing.

Ultimate Play the Game's Jet Pac puts you into the position of an astronaut who has to build a rocket from the pieces he can find sitting on clouds around the screen. The scenario is not entirely convincing but it makes for a good game. The same cannot be said of the simulations by CCS.

CCS's representations of the oil business, Dallas, running a printers, Print Room, and of international aviation, Airline, may be realistic but they are not very exciting. Although these were originally designed as training for middle management, livelier presentation would not necessarily have made them less useful. Hewson's simulations of air-traffic control, Heathrow, and the Nightflite flight simulator are more convincing.

Board-games seem to transfer particularly well to the Spectrum. Psion's Scrabble has already been recommended. With its four levels of play and 11,000-word dictionary it can offer almost as tough opposition as you could want. There are also two different approaches to that old favourite Monopoly.

Automonopoli offers a continuous display of the part of the board around your current position. This display moves smoothly when the dice are thrown. Do Not Pass Go from Workforce has a less interesting display but at least shows the whole board all the time. Automonopoli allows you to personalise the program with the names of players and both programs give the option of being either a board for humans to play on or of letting the computer join in as a player. In each case the computer becomes a soft opponent once you have reached the stage of building houses and hotels.

If you have ever wandered into a rundown dockland hotel or pub and been confronted by the sort of balding drunk who says he used to sail the seven seas and boasts that he can name the capital of any country you care to choose, I can reveal his secret. At home he has a Spectrum with Hewson's Countries of the World up and running on it.

At the touch of a button it will remind you that N'djamena is the capital of Chad or that Yaounde is the capital of Cameroon. In the corner of the pub someone with probably be playing a video game not unlike Firebirds.

Softek's Firebirds is a Galaxians-type game distinguished by good croaking noises from the birds. Still on the subject of sound effects Workforcé's Jaws Revenge is very noisy and fun. The graphics are great. You are a shark and you are after the divers and- boats which are after you.

Mined Out from Quicksilva is a very strange version of Mines. It is subtitled "Rescue Bill the worm from certain old age" and if you find a way through the first minefield you then have to rescue damsels in distress. Someone at Quicksilva has been playing too many Adventure games and it is beginning to show.

The last words on the cassette packet read "the image fades to soft focus which is replaced by waves falling on a rocky shore, except in Bill's dream there are no waves or soft focus..." It is certainly time that software cassettes carried a government health warning.