Producer: DK'Tronics
Memory Required: 16K
Retail Price: £5.95
Language: Machine code
Author: B. Williams

The Greater Intergalactic Stack & Nibble Co could be the alias of this grid-oriented game which, as it states on the inlay, is a task quite simple to understand but not so easy to manage.

At the centre of the screen is a fiery furnace. You are in control of a bitsearcher. In the corners of the screen are the bits, and as the levels are progressed through, elsewhere on the screens as well. The idea is to collect the bits with your bitsearcher and carry them to the furnace, drop them in and incinerate them. This is done by running across the top of the furnace, but going into it will result in death.

Everything would all be hunky dory and as boring as hell's fire if it weren't for the bytes which bounce around the screen. These are long (centipedal?) shaped things which keep rebounding along the same path from top to bottom and some from side to side. Additionally there are nasty green nibbles on patrol, which run around the edge of the playing area firing poisonous pixels into the screen.

The more bits you incinerate and screens you clear, the more of everything there is, more bytes, bits, nibbles and pixels until your stack is overflowing. Oh, and the walls are electrified!

COMMENTS

Control keys: excellent - redefinable, up/down/left/right needed
Joystick: almost any via user-definable keys
Keyboard play: very responsive
Colour simple but effective
Graphics: small, one character size, amazing fire effect, generally quite smooth
Sound: good
Skill levels: 3
Lives: 7 on easy level, 3 on hard

The joy of this game is that it is almost completely mindless, the sort of game where you stare at the screen and play by feel and reaction. The graphics are essentially simple and quite small, although the fiery furnace is completely realistic. Everything moves with reasonable smoothness and the keys are positive. You can move in four directions to collect the bits and incinerate them. As each level goes by it gets harder and harder. The game doesn't have any developments to expand it, but that doesn't matter either. It's tremendous fun to play, the sort of game to go back to again and again between others, something to hone up the arcades skills.

In between dodging the snake-like bytes, avoiding the electrified walls you're as likely to get killed off by the poisonous pixels. On higher levels they come at you like a flight of arrows and from all compass points. This is a very simple game that manages to be very addictive and great fun to play.

Good sound and lively graphics combined with the idea, make Trom very playable. You have to avoid getting into a rhythm which can be fatal when two bytes coming to a corner from opposite compass points bounce off each other and upset the rhythm you have established. On the later screens it all become enjoyable confusing and extremely fast. Watch out for the three levels - 1 and 3 is slow, not the other way round.

Bits lurk in the corner of the screen and you must steer your bitsearcher towards them to collect them. That done, you take all the bits to the furnace to incinerate them. But watch out for the bytes and the poisonous pixels.

Stephen: The graphics are very good, especially the incinerator which looks quite real. It's not too difficult to play. HIT

Mike: The idea behind the game is unusual but not particularly inspiring. There are three speeds - two are playable, but the other is far too slow. Generally, it's a very average game. MISS

Peter: The colour here is fairly basic and doesn't change from level to level. And the graphics are startlingly dull except the incinerator. It's only compulsive at first. MISS

Memory: 48K
Price: £5.95

If you thought Trom might bear some resemblance to the film of almost the same name, forget it.

The cassette insert has a confusing tale of collecting hits while avoiding pixels and nibbles. There are some bouncing bytes knocking around as well.

It seems dK'Tronics could not think of any remotely credible background for what proves to be a thoroughly uninspiring game.

Briefly, you have to run round the screen picking up red blobs - 'bits' - and carry them to a fiery furnace. The 'bytes' look like purple bars and rebound from the walls. Other features try to track you down and shoot you.

The game is easy to play and there are three levels of difficulty. Successive screens appear to produce only more of the same and the only positive feature is a facility for choosing which keys you use for the controls.

Unbelievably, there appears to be no provision for the use of a joystick.

dK'Tronics has produced many good games in the past. Trom is certainly not one of them.

TOM MEETS MORT

MAKER: DK'Tronics
MACHINE: Spectrum 48K
FORMAT: cassette
PRICE: £5.95

Cripes! This is absolutely bad, man. Imagine Tron without effects. Tom without Jerry and Gridrunner without grids. Imagine being sentenced to life in an arena of relentless peril, illuminated only by the flames from a central inferno and the flash of laser fire. Imagine heavy duty warfare. Imagine there's no people... About the screen sparkle The Bits. With your trusty Bitsearcher (fashioned after the battle cruiser from Tron, hence the awkward title) you must hoover 'em up one by one and deposit them into the central furnace. Sharing the arena are the Bytesheets, great walls of noise that grind up and down the screen, and around the edge skate the deadly Nibbles who pump poisonous pixels stage centre. All must be avoided. As you move through the screens the Bytesheets become more furious and the Pixel shower more intense. Its a visual nightmare that requires fearsome coordination. A simple idea true enough, but the game just won't quit. Like I said: it's bad, man.