Revelation, A scorpion production - later relased by Persona

Pakrik Rak, Milan Matousek

Frantisek Fuka

If puzzle games are your cup of tea then Hexagonia will give your brain a good bashing! There are 70 levels of atomic mayhem to solve. Your task is to move the atoms into the correct position to create a molecule. It sounds easy - but I assure you it isn’t!

Each level has cunningly placed walls dotted around it and you move the atoms using a pointer. When you move one it zooms across the screen until it hits a wall. Depending on the type of wall it will either stop dead in its tracks, bounce back again or cause the wall to slowly crumble away. Just to make things more difficult there are also invisible walls in later levels and time is never on your side!

Your Sinclair review, courtesy of The YS Rock ‘n’ Roll Years.

Crash review, courtesy of worldofspectrum.org

Review by Steven Pick from the Sam Coupé Scrapbook

YIPPEE! This is the game to buy if you want to see my lovely artwork on the front cover of the game! It should be out now, so go out and buy it-because it’s fab! Now onto the review…

In this game, you have to join atoms together to make compounds, which you can see in full by pressing ENTER. You then have to place these pieces to form that structure. If any of you have actually done GCSE Chemistry, and have played around with those plastic models, it’s just like that! You control a hand, which zooms around the screen. You then have to ‘pull’ pieces together. One problem is that they can only move in 4 directions, on that axis! Adding to the problems, there are bouncers which give you your pieces back, blocks which an only be hit a certain number of times before disintegrating, and even invisible dangers! There are also double bonds, so you chemists will love this, and won’t have to revert back to the INFO screen!!

The graphics are pretty good, if a little Spectrumy (though the game is coming out on the Speccy soon!), but the actual music which accompanies the title and info screens is nothing short of fantastic! It’s done by the guys at FUXOFT (Yes, from the SCPDSA demo!!) and it really is a tune to toe tap to!

Revelation, Software Projects, Persona

Matthew Holt

Brian McConnell, Jeff Coppard, Matthew Holt, David Ledbury (Cover art: Darren Blackburn)

Frantisek Fuka

Miner Willy’s Back!!!

Revelation presents everybody’s favourite platform game, the classic MANIC MINER. This brand new version has been programmed by a newcomer to the Sam games scene Matthew Holt and is now three times bigger than the original versions with 40 totally new “caverns” with wierd and wonderful titles such as “Trainspotter’s Paradise”, “The Haunted House” and “The Twilight Zone”. All of the original 20 levels are there as well!

Manic Miner features Sam quality graphics and a super stereo soundtrack courtesy of Czech programming ace Frantisek Fuka.

Your Sinclair review, courtesy of The YS Rock ‘n’ Roll Years.

Crash review, courtesy of worldofspectrum.org

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Fred Publishing

Martin Bell

Neil Holmes

Craig Turberfield

Use logical thinking to connect up the pipes and complete the level, but watch out for any aliens who might like to pay you a visit!

Being a sequel to the original WaterWorks, this game is a lot harder. Below is a list of the additional features which have been implemented in this game. All the other features were in the original, which you were so good at that you bought the follow-up. We have enclosed a copy of the original instructions for your convenience.

I hope you thoroughly enjoy the game, and no, we don’t offer a “how-to-do-a-level” service!

New Features

Jeep: The jeep is similar to the helicopter and submarine except it cannot fly - it can only travel horizontally. Lifts have been provided to allow the jeep to move up or down, although for small drops gravity can also help here. Drops of more than two blocks will destry the jeep.

Lift: The lift can move the jeep vertically, although they do not affect the helicopter or submarine. Lifts are triggered by a switch.

Spike: Immobile, but deadly.

Barrel: Wooden barrels float on water. The jeep can travel across these like a bridge or becauase the barrels float on top of the water, if the jeep is on one, it can use the barrels like a lift.

Player positioned blocks: These act like normal solid blocks, but can be moved around like pipes. Because you cannot move onto a block, simply moving onto an adjacent square and pressing fire will pick up a block. These are extremely useful for building water reservoirs, water barriers and platforms.

Review by Graham Goring from the Sam Coupé Scrapbook

See the review of Waterworks

And now onto the somewhat connected subject of WATERWORK 2, this one is really and truly as above, but it has several new features…

• BLOCKS - These are solid blocks which can be picked up and put down in any empty space. Adds a whole new, and almost unwelcome complexity to the game.
  
• JEEP - A new vehicle to keep you occupied, can be half submerged in water but it feels gravity. Cannot fall too far.
  
• BARRELS - Very nice idea these, float on water, and can be used as a sort of lift by the jeep.
  
• LIFTS - These are switch activated platforms that either rise or fall when the switch is activated.

Theres even more but, by golly, my sieve-like memory has forgotten them. And finally, after that rather brief bit.

Fred Publishing

Martin Bell

Martin Bell

Andy Monk

Waterworks is a game the like of which has never been seen before - let alone on the SAM.

A cross between arcade, strategy and puzzle. WaterWorks provides you with a unique experience - combining speed, addictiveness, the need for forward planning and lateral thinking.

You must take control of the hundreds of water particles which can be moved individually to open doors, flood rooms, kill aliens, and lots more.

You have the full use of various plumbing utensils: pipes, pumps, taps, nozzles, switches, water collectors and drains to name a few. You can either progress steadily through all 20 levels - or you can just have fun flooding rooms and killing aliens!

Any person caught pirating this game will be given concrete boots and free bunjee jumping lessons from the London Tower Bridge (elastic not supplied).

In each of the WaterWorks levels you must escape through the exit - naturally, it is locked so a key must be found. In case you were ready for an easy game, you might be surprised to hear that numerous puzzles must be solved before completing each level - generally involving the use of pipes and the transfer of water!

The water in the game flows pretty much like normal water so common sense is fairly important.

There are numerous ways that you can die in the game: being crushed under a door, drowning or touching an alien or spike. If you get stuck, pressing ESC lets you start the level again.

Whenever you complete a level, you are given the password to the next level so that when you lose all your lives, you don’t have to play through dozens of levels.

Items in the game

Blue pipes: Allows water to flow though them. Cannot be moved.

Red pipes: Same as blue pipes except they can be moved. To pick one (or any other item) up, press fire over it. Fire again will drop it. If you are holding something while picking up/dropping an item, the two will be swapped. You should note that if water flows through a pipe, there is a good chance that there will be water left in the pipe (see Water Level indicator on right of screen). the pipe, with water, can then be moved.

Nozzles: Water will not flow out of a normal pipe into the level area. However, if a Nozzle is attached to a water supply, then the water will flow out. Water in the level area acts like any liquid - falls due to gravity and settles flat on a surface.

Water Collectors: These funnel water from the bottom of a reservoir (possibly supplied by a nozzle) into a pipe network.

Your Sinclair review, courtesy of The YS Rock ‘n’ Roll Years.

Review by Graham Goring from the Sam Coupé Scrapbook

WATERWORKS is a bit of an old chestnut at the time of writing, but, if you’ve got a couple fivers burning a hole in your pocket then you’d be an absolute berk not to snap up Waterworks, for it is one of the most original and corkingly playable games I’ve ever had the pleasure of slotting into my drive (oo-er!).

Now, the problem with original games is that they are a bum and a half to explain. If you’ve seen the demos on Fred you’ll know how it plays, but if you ain’t. Well… Take a splash of FLOOD, a hefty dose of Pipe Mania, a honking great splodge of a jigsaw and big ol’ final dollop of originality.

And you get WATERWORKS.

Basically you have to connect up pipes so that water can flow from one place to another, maybe spilling out of a special outlet attachment or maybe activating a switch that does something, open/close a door, open/close a tap, send sharp spikes hurtling out to kill an enemy or any number of things.

You have to decide what switch activates what device, when the device should be activated and how the hell you’re going to get water over there thankyou-very- much!

Fortunately it’s not all click and guess, the problems are laid out so that lateral thinking will see you alright in the end, and the learning curve is fairly steep, but not to the point of being unfair (except on the last levels). So, if you stick at it, you will reap the rewards of seeing your tightly timed, precision built machine executing perfectly. And when that happens all seems right with the world, it’s really, genuinely, satisfying. Especially if the device culminates in the destruction of one or more of the bad guys.

Domark

Allan Finlay (ICE Software)

Sean Conran

It is the nineties, and there is time for… KLAX.

THE TIC-TAC TILE GAME

It’s here! The newest most addictive craze from California. Already a runaway success in the coin op arcades, Klax is now available for your computer!

It’s simple in concept and easy to play. Catch the coloured tiles with the paddle and flip them into the bins to make the same coloured stacks, diagonals and rows of three. Sounds easy? It is! The hard part is pulling yourself away from the game.

Crash review courtesy of worldofspectrum.org

Review by Steven Pick from the Sam Coupé Scrapbook

My ST owning neighbour is currently flurting to me his copy of KLAX, and shouting out how good it is! When suddenly, the postie arrives with my sack of mail-and what’s this? Why the SAM Coupe version! Yeeesss… Imagine if you would, a long conveyor belt, in some deserted forest(or anywhere else!). Add a widget to put a load of different coloured blocks into lines(or KLAXES!), and you get a recipe for an addictive puzzle game!

You have to place these blocks, so they land on the Dropmeter, in lines of 3 to 5! These disappear, till you get to the desired Klax count, then on to another well drawn ST screen! Actually, this got me in a bit of trouble, as I was meant to be revising! Ah, well! Hmmm, looks like Enigma Variations have done it again! A brillantly original and addictive puzzle game, which moves at a fair whack, and will leave my nights on the computer sleepless! (There go my Friday nights out…!).