Producer: Mastertronic
£1.99

Smart Egg Software have a reputation for producing top quality games. Rigel's Revenge, released as a budget game late last year and written without the aid of an adventure utility, surprised everyone with its complexity and style. The same team was behind CRL's Federation, a revamped version of Eighth Day's Quann Tulla, an excellently presented sci-fi adventure embellished by the odd touch of Smart Egg humour. And it's exactly that brand of characteristically cynical fun which distinguishes their latest adventure Quest For The Golden Egg Cup.

If there's anything to be learned in life, it's that you always get exactly what you expect. If you jump into the road straight into the path of a pink C5 speeding down the highway at 90 miles an hour in the capable hands of an even pinker panther, it's guaranteed you'll be knocked down and killed. Next stop (of course) is heaven. Unfortunately, God isn't in the best state of mind to receive new angels - he's lost his golden egg cup and insists that you retrieve it. How could you possibly refuse?

Quite easily probably, except that God doesn't look like the son of chap you'd want to mess with. Puffing at his huge Havana-style cigar, lounging around in a turban and monogrammed (G.O.D.) silk robe, playing melancholy tunes on his baby grand, he behaves like an eccentric, philosophical millionaire - and you've always had a soft spot for richer men (well, perhaps you have, Samara - Ed). In any case, he threatens to turn you into an egg if you don't obey.

Heaven, a small place full of bizarre and seemingly useless objects, is situated at the top of a beanstalk. Some branchlets down this overgrown vegetable, you discover a land of subterranean passages, forest paths, sparkling rivers and dusty train stations. Illustrated by bold, bright pictures, these strange and mystical locations are populated by a host of eccentric individuals. As the program doesn't allow for speech, interaction with all of these is kept to a minimum. It's mostly a matter of giving Wongo the witch, a surly guard or a ferryman what they say (or you decide) they require.

Thoron, a dwarf with a soft spot for gold (no, he doesn't sing), and Dandalf, a wizard without a wand unable to look quite as mysterious as he would like, are mortal enemies and provide plenty of entertainment when they manage to get themselves into a fight.

These two illustrious people are typical of the cross-referencing that pervades the whole of this epic journey. The obligatory constituents of an adventure game are scrupulously identified as they appear (cor, where does she get this from? - Ed); there's the inevitable 'under the bed object', a dead sherlock and a maze of twisting passages which bears more than a passing resemblance to the mindbenders devised by Level 9. Not that the satire stops at adventure games; a few more familiar elements of modern culture get the treatment too.

In the midst of all this totally gratuitous frivolity (eh? - Ed) there lurks a very playable and exciting game. The puzzles are by no means straightforward and there's plenty of opportunity for getting yourself killed. (How you can die when you're dead already I've still to comprehend.) The environment is extensive and has plenty to keep you occupied; it should take quite some time to fathom its many secrets.

The parser isn't quite as advanced as the gameplay. It doesn't accept complex commands and won't register commas or speech marks. (Sounds like Nick Roberts's sort of adventure however, it has been very cleverly designed. In places where complex input is required, the flexibility of the parser has been extended to cover a wider range of possibilities. Consequently you have a functional rather than an elaborately intelligent system but one in which there's very little scrabbling for exactly the right word.

The mainstream software houses haven't exactly been swamping the market with their adventure releases over recent months. At a time when the publishers are concentrating more and more on licences and sequels, it's refreshing to be sent a game of such high calibre. As long as the budget houses keep releasing products as slick and innovative as Quest For The Golden Egg Cup, there's hope for adventurers yet.

FAX BOX
Game: The Quest for the Golden Eggcup
Publisher: Mastertronic
Price: £1.99
Reviewer: Mike Gerrard

Way back in the dawn of time... or at least when I first started writing the YS adventure pages, I gave a fairly glowing review to a home-grown adventure by Harvey Lodder, The Quest For The Gold Eggcup. And lo, it has come to pass that the game has been tarted up by those hard-boiled adventurers at Smart Egg Software and released cheaply by Mastertronic for the delectation of the adventure public.

Eggcup is a very funny tale, and it thoroughly deserves being given the professional treatment on Smart Egg's eggsellent adventure-writing system - you know, the one it used for the mega-selling Rigel's Revenge.

The optional instructions at the start, tell you that the whole story begins in typical British weather: a warm, wet, sunny day. Having been killed by a pink panther driving a pink C5 (older readers will remember what those were), next thing you know you're in a temple being confronted by an old man wearing a turban. "Hello," he says, "I'm God." He promises to reincarnate you if you fulfil the task of bringing back the Golden Eggcup, otherwise He'll probably turn you into an egg yourself and have you for supper, poached "Play on," the game tells you, "Or you could really be in hot water." Ouch, that's worse than one of my jokes.

I played on, beginning the game in the temple with an empty inventory, though funnily enough I was told I'd taken three turns when I typed SCORE as my second input. But I found very few faults in the game, and lots to laugh at as it's very wittily written. In one location you find some beans, and when you examine them you're told: "The beans are magical but you do not know this." Pardon? The way down from heaven is via a beanstalk, at the foot of which you find a sign wedged between two of the toes. The sign tells you the opening hours of God's Temple (Wednesday half-day closing, Sunday closed all day.) At a nearby railway station if you examine the ticket office you're informed that it's "closed due to lack of program memory." The game also seems to contain the only free ferry service I've ever seen in an adventure! just ring the bell and a ferry-boat turns up to take you across a river.

Eggcup isn't just a game full of jokes, though it certainly won't be the hardest adventure you'll ever play. Good for beginners, at least. More experienced adventurers will probably solve it in a matter of days, but should still enjoy, as I did, the various diversions that the game contains, and the many in-jokes like the dead Sherlock you find in the railway carriage (you can even pick him up and put him in your pocket!) Whether you take to the game depends on what you demand from an adventure - a deadly challenge or entertainment value? The graphics are interestingly done, the pictures being built out of blocks, some of which appear in consecutive locations and give an impression of you moving around in locations with a bit of solidity and consistency about them.

Apparently each screen takes up just 80 bytes, with a further 2 1/2K for storing the data. Economic and effective. In fact that's what you can say for the adventure as well, and I'm sure people will be buying it in their droves.

BARGAIN BASEMENT

Ben 'n' Skippy take a seat in the stalls to play their way through this month's cut-price offerings! With a bit of help from the usherette of course!

Mastertronic
£1.99
Reviewer: Ben Stone, Mike Dunn

This is actually more Mike Gerrard's territory than ours 'cos Quest For The Golden Eggcup is actually an adventure. It's been created with GAC so there are plenty of nice illustrations to look at while you're wending your way through numerous locations.

At the start of the game you're run over by a speeding C5 driven by an insane looking Pink Panther. You float up to meet God who asks you to get his Golden Eggcup if you want to be re-incarnated. And so you begin your quest.

Text input is simple enough and the game itself is quite humourously written. If you like adventures we think it's probably a reasonably good buy!

SUPPLIER: Mastertronic/Smart Egg
MACHINES: Spectrum, Commodore 64/128, Amstrad CPC
PRICE: £1.99

Written by Harvey Lodder and Nigel Brooks, Quest For The Golden Eggcup is a zany romp, in which you are given your quest by the highest authority - God!

He appears before you ("Hello, I'm God," he says) and commands you to retrieve his stolen golden eggcup, or be turned into an egg and eaten for breakfast.

"Probably poached." he adds.

After all, I imagine a soft-boiled egg is none too easy to tackle without an eggcup - even if you are omnipotent. Mind you, not that God is over chuffed with his omnipotence - throughout the game he is prone to turn up and whine about it not being all it is cracked up to be.

This adventure has superb graphics, full of detail and colour. Remember the instant graphics on UK conversions of Scott Adams adventures, generally reckoned to be among the best on cassette at the time? These are better, certainly on the Spectrum version which I played. They display instantaneously - there is none of that blinking flicker, from which Adventure International/Adventure Soft games used to suffer. They are the work of ex-Ram Jam graphic artist Simon Dunstan, who Smart Egg enlisted for this, and future, projects.

From Smart Egg, the people who brought you Rigel's Revenge, comes this professionally produced, totally irreverent and comic adventure, that doesn't offend, at a wonderful price!

If you prefer your adventures to be a bit more light-hearted try The Quest For The Golden Eggcup, written by Harvey Ladder and Paul Cook and available for £1.99 from Harvey at 35 Shelley Avenue, Bullbrook, Bracknell, Berks RG72 2RP. Some people try to be funny and fail dismally, but not in this adventure. Though it's got lots of in-jokes and characters like Dandalf and Thoron wandering around, it's all wittily and originally done.

You've been mown down by a Pink Panther driving a pink C5, and you awake in a Golden Temple to be greeted by God, no less. He promises to reincarnate you if you bring him back his Golden Eggcup, which it seems someone has poached. As you move about, God reappears from time to time, and even sits down and starts singing about gold. The game is Quill'd, though you'd never guess it with the pleasant cyan background and neat white black of location description at the tap of the screen.

Make a thorough search of the heavenly areas (don't forget the rubber duck) before you climb down the beanstalk to more mundane places - a sign at the bottom of the beanstalk gives the Opening hours of God's Temple (closed Sundays, half-day Wednesdays) and you're unlikely to be able to get back up again. I like the high-powered beans, which have quite an effect so watch who you give them to, and the swear-word routine is very nicely done.

Just when you think it's safe to swear and you know how to get out of the dungeon, the routine changes. Enough to make you swear again. Worth every penny of its £1.99, this one.