Excuse Me - Have You Got The Time? - by Jean Childs œ3.00
               (Text/graphic adventure for ST)

              Reviewed by James Judge on an STe

Excuse Me is a STACed adventure by the resident SynTax STAC
expert, Jean Childs so when this game popped through my letter box
and after hearing about it from Sue and Jean I was expecting
something out of the ordinary. The question is whether I got it or
not? Read on and see.......

(I'd just like to point out that I did ask Jean some interview
type questions about the game and I will include her answers but
not in a Q.A. style).

This is the fourth game from Jean, the first three not doing much
apart from looking nice in Jean's disk box. Two were done on the
old BBC (with only one being distributed to a few schools) and the
third was done with STAC but that was once again confined to the
disk box once Jean's young lady and kid had played it.

The game is based around time travel, an idea that came to Jean
because she wanted to mix fact and history together but couldn't
decide which era to use.

The story goes like this:

You and three friends (Tom, Dick and Harry (original or what?))
live in the 23rd century (2218 to be exact) and after a little bit
of exploration you accidentally came across the abode of a rather
brilliant but extremely eccentric scientist, Yon Barkodhi.  Being
rather annoyed to have four chums bustle in on his ground-breaking
experiments he locked them up in his house.

Yon did keep you alive though by feeding you twice a day but one
day he seemed terribly excited and forgot to lock the door so you
and your friends made a daring escape....  only to run slap bang
into the whacky scientist.  That was what we call in the business
a rather large mistake.  Yon roped you into being guinea pigs for
his time travelling experiments and told you to bring him an
object of beauty, one of knowledge, one of bravery, an object
depicting achievement and an object of friendship. He tossed you a
coin and then disappeared.

So, here you are in his hall with a coin, a panel of buttons in
front of you and a lounge to the east.  What now?  Play the
adventure, that's what.

Being an adventure game the idea of three friends struck me as
strange, surely they will just be cardboard characters who just
sit there, looking interesting. Well I was wrong. Jean said the
idea came about after a conversation with Sue about HELP messages
in games and how Sue is dead against them. This sent Jean's brain
into overdrive and she finally came up with the idea of the
friends.  She said that they started off to help with a puzzle
or two but they all ended up with characters of their own (she
even started to recognise people she knew in them) and they became
a large part of the game. She also admitted (after only a few
moments of torture) that they were handy for getting round
difficult programming bits.

Apart from the friends I was raring to go with the game so off I
went.

As with most STAC adventures this has got RAM SAVE/LOAD, AND
(, or .) commands as well as a easy save game bit. Oh, and it has
got a few graphics.

There is a graphic for each time-zone (of which there are five in
the game) and one for the beginning and ending bits as well as one
for inside the time machine and one for when you diffuse a bomb.
All in all they are quite good apart from one or two which don't
show the same creativity 'cos they are made up with squares and
circles. As well as static graphics the game also boasts a bit of
animation which does, unfortunately, slow the game down a bit and
if you play it time and again they can get slightly annoying.

Each time-zone has its own theme, the first zone is based on a
tropical island, the second in an Aztec temple type place, the
third during a war, the fourth in Africa near a mountain and the
fifth in 19th century Japan.  This splitting of the game into
small portions allows for a great variety of puzzles from
diffusing a bomb to getting a man a drink of water and climbing a
mountain.  This is a very good point in the game as with most
games you are limited to one type of puzzle (magical, futuristic
etc.) and it makes a nice change to see such a range of puzzles in
such a small(ish) game.

The splitting does have its own problems though. Unless you save
once every zone and keep that save 'till the end of the game you
will find yourself having to start time and again. This is because
you could quite easily miss a vital object in the first time-zone
which is important in the last one.

As you nip through each zone it is best to examine everything, not
just because of finding items and clues but just to see what Jean
has included. There has obviously been a LOT of research done to
find out all the facts, from the Aztec beliefs to Japanese customs
and other such things. All this 'extra' info adds great depth to
the game and it is really nice to see an author who has taken the
time to do a bit of research before spewing out a load of rubbish.
Jean did say she enjoyed the research immensely so maybe all her
games will be like this.

The puzzles are all logical and vary in difficulty. The hardest
was diffusing the bomb where you had to put colours into numbers
(ie BLUE=40 because B=2, L=12, U=21 and E=5 so 5+21+12+2=40) and
then you have to find the correct sequence to cut the coloured
wires from a radio. It sounds easy with hindsight but actually
doing it was quite difficult.

When I look at the game now and the solution I've knocked up I
find it quite hard to criticise this game.  Apart from the lack of
sound effects the only other criticism is that the game was
probably a weeny bit short.  There were loads of locations, all
oozing with atmosphere but when you look at, say, the second
time-zone, there were only 2 puzzles for 17 or 18 rooms. There
are plenty of red herrings but, to me, they were easily by-passed.
The only time-zone that I found was jam-packed with puzzles was
the third based in war-time where you had to diffuse the bomb.

Having said this the game is still very good and will keep you
very happy for a few nights' solid adventuring. Novices will find
it quite hard and hardened veterans will still find it challenging
but a titchy bit short.

The ending of the game is just like the end of Aliens, perfect for
a sequel so maybe we'll be treated to another Tom, Dick and Harry
game in the near future?  (Maybe with their names changed 'cos
Jean thinks having three male friends is sexist.  How about Jean,
Joan and June?)

Well done, Jean, give yourself a nice pat on the back and go to
bed content that you've put a really good game into the
adventuring scene.

Excuse Me (HYGTT) is available from Jean Childs for the measly sum
of œ3. Make cheques, POs payable to Jean Childs and send it off
to 24 Waverly Road, Bagshot, Surrey, GU19 5JL.

ATTENTION ALL ADVENTURERS:  Jean is currently working on another
adventure which is a remake of her old STAC game but with nearly
everything being re-written and a new..... no, I'll let you find
that out when she has finished it.