Dragon's Breath RRP œ29.99
                 (Fantasy/strategy game)

The secret of immortality is a prize beyond the dreams of most
people. But in the land of Anrea, it is within the grasp of three
characters, Bachim the Alchemist, Oureod the She-Vampire and
Ametrin the Green Beast. They are joint rulers of part of Anrea,
each with his or her own tower in one area of the land. In the
middle of Anrea is Dwarf Mountain; a forbidding place and the
source of the evil which keeps the land around it an area of
permanent war and famine, mostly due to the continual battles
between the three rulers.

On top of Dwarf Mountain is the Great Castle and within the throne
room of the castle is the secret of immortality. There is only way
into the throne room and in order to gain entry, a character must
have three parts of a magic talisman. These are hidden somewhere
amongst the towns and villages surrounding the mountain and
Bachim, Oureod and Ametrin are all searching for them. Only one
will be victorious.....

Up to three players can take part in the game, each controlling
one of the protagonists; the others are controlled by the
computer. Since the aim of the game is to find the three parts of
the talisman, one would imagine that Dragon's Breath would be a
mere treasure hunt whilst one tried to beat one's opponents, but
the game is far more complex than that, as the title of the game
suggests.

The fact is that Bachim and co remain in their towers merely
acting as commanders for a collection of dragons which will
actually seek out and find the bits of talisman. Each player
starts with one dragon each plus a clutch of eggs. The eggs must
be hatched in order to increase the player's fighting force and
thus his chances of winning.

Even this is a simplified explanation of the game, for though
attacking villages with your dragons and taking them under your
control is important, another major factor is involved. As well as
the standard game manual (33 pages) is - the spell book!
Containing 64 pages (luckily some of them are the French and
German translations) this attempts to explain the fine points of
spell-casting, for the use of magic plays a large part in the game
and, boy, is it complicated!!

The fact is that there are 32 ingredients which can be used to
cast a spell. Only some of these will be in your possession at the
start, in limited quantities; the rest will have to be bought from
traders who arrive at your tower periodically ... which means
you'll have to raise cash through your other activities (taxes,
collecting rewards, rescuing hostages etc) to be able to buy them.
Spells can be cast on dragons, villages, characters or eggs to
create different effects eg increase a dragon's intelligence,
increase a village's population.

Each ingredient has an effect on a spell but may also have
negative side-effects so other ingredients may need to be added to
counteract the side-effects. Also the effect of an ingredient is
changed according to whether it is added as normal or whether it
is cut, ground or mixed first - and heating or cooling the

ingredient or using a greater or lesser quantity of it will also
change the result, making your spell more or less effective. All
these factors are summarized in a series of pages at the back of
the booklet and it's up to YOU to work out the best way to combine
all this information to design efficient spells. For, have no
doubt about it, the computer understands the system perfectly and
will have a definite advantage if all you make is pig swill!

I studied the book .... I tried casting spells .... again ... and
again...

I wasn't very good at it!

Three cheers for the clever bods who wrote into the glossy
magazines giving instructions for spells they had worked out. Even
looking at their directions, I found the whole system very hard to
fathom. Oh, for the halcyon days of CAST IZYUK AT ME! Two sample
spells in Dragon's Breath read more like this:

To cure your dragon of disease...
     2 measures of RASGON, grind and heat
     3 measures of MIONACAL, grind and condense
     1 measure of ACRUS, mix and heat
or to increase the population of a village....
     2 measures of TUIS, normal and temperate
     2 measures of CHURL, normal and heat
     1 measure of ACRUS, mix and heat.

See what I mean?

The basic idea of the game is good, the graphics are excellent and
the wealth of detail impressive. On the minus side, the amount of
disk-access and the length of time taken to go from one screen to
another is a pain. Once you get to grips with the spell-casting
side of it, the game takes on a whole new depth and becomes far
more interesting.

                                                  Sue