{fh200AA00Quickie PD Game Reviews
{fb1000000
by Mike Williams

{fb1FF5555             POLYSAW
{sgpa
{fb10000FFAuthor{fb1000000 Graham Jones

{fb10000FFPlot{fb1000000 A polymino is a shape made of several squares (a domino is made of two squares). In this puzzle, there are several shapes, into which certain sets of polyminos can be packed.

{fb10000FFPlayability{fb1000000 The puzzles are quite difficult, it always seems that the last piece doesn't quite fit into the final space. The program is very clear and easy to use. There is also a built-in facility to design your own puzzles which is also very easy to use.

{fb10000FFGraphics{fb1000000 Simple.

{fb10000FFFeatures{fb1000000 Save game. Multitasks. Game designer. Solutions to all the supplied puzzles. C source code also supplied.

{fb10000FFTypical Duration{fb1000000 15 minutes.

{fb1FF5555             PONTOON
{sgpb
{fb10000FFAuthor{fb1000000 D. S. McCartney

{fb10000FFPlot{fb1000000 The card game of Pontoon. The computer is always the dealer.

{fb10000FFPlayability{fb1000000 The computer cheats. In the real card game the dealer isn't allowed to look at your cards until he's finished playing his hand. In this program, the computer will always twist on a score of 20 if you have 21, and always stick on 16 if you have 16.

The program also does some nasty reconfiguring of the computer.

{fb10000FFGraphics{fb1000000 OK

{fb10000FFFeatures{fb1000000 None

{fb10000FFTypical Duration{fb1000000 15 minutes.

{fb1FF5555             POWERUP
{sgpc
{fb10000FFAuthor{fb1000000 Liakat & Luqueman Khan

{fb10000FFPlot{fb1000000 Sideways scrolling zap- the-aliens game with power- ups.

{fb10000FFPlayability{fb1000000 Unplayable. It's a pity that someone went to all this trouble to produce such a nice looking game with smooth action and digitized speech samples, but then arranged for the aliens to be able to move about 20 times faster than your ship, and wipe you out before you have any hope of moving out of the way.

I suppose there may be power-ups which increase your speed and give you weapons that give you half a chance, but your chance of surviving for long enough to reach them is virtually nil.

For some reason, this game insists on being in the root directory of a disk labelled "POWER-UP".

{fb10000FFGraphics{fb1000000 Pretty good: fast, smooth and detailed.

{fb10000FFFeatures{fb1000000 High score table.

{fb10000FFTypical Duration{fb1000000 15 seconds.

{fb1FF5555             PUPD
{sgpd
{fb10000FFAuthor{fb1000000 Unknown

{fb10000FFPlot{fb1000000 100 plebs throw themselves off the top of a tall building. You have a trampoline which you can use to bounce them to safety.

{fb10000FFPlayability{fb1000000 There's not a lot to it, but what there is plays reasonably well.

{fb10000FFGraphics{fb1000000 Simple.

{fb10000FFFeatures{fb1000000 High score table (not saved to disc).

{fb10000FFTypical Duration{fb1000000 4 minutes.