THE PAY OFF - The Adventure Factory on PD 8
                  (STAC adventure for ST)

                  Review by JAMES JILLIANS

After a bad bet on the horses you find yourself $100,000 in debt
to a rather unsavoury character called Luegi. Unfortunately, you
are unable to pay it off and he wants his money by tomorrow, or
else! There's no messing with Luegi and his "heavies". You've had
a hot tip for the 3 o'clock race but Luegi wants his cash before
then. You must find some way of getting a lot of money - and
fast ...

The Pay Off is a game created with the ST Adventure Creator
(STAC). It is a text adventure with plenty of pictures.

You start the game in a dark alley in the middle of the night,
with some of Luegi's lackeys standing nearby. Time to go, you
think, so you head off into the city to find some means of getting
the $100,000.  The game is quite short. It involves you searching
around the town for a few necessary items, breaking into a couple
of buildings, finding some means of getting into the bank vault
and then escaping with the loot.

The puzzles are mainly of the use-the-right-objects-in-the-right-
places variety. For example, at one point you have to spray a
security system with foam, or feed a dog with a drugged piece of
meat. You do not have to mention the objects in the command you
type in, so you can solve several puzzles whilst being totally
oblivious of the fact that you needed the object to do it! For
example, to break open a door you only need to type in "SMASH
LOCK", but this doesn't work unless you have a sledgehammer.

There are no puzzles that involve interaction with other
characters in the game and you won't have to type in anything any
more complex than simple two word commands.

There are loads of objects, and about half are completely useless
and only serve as red herrings. The same applies to locations -
there are many locations put there just for scenery.

There are no number puzzles, word games or riddles which I like to
see in an adventure, except for a couple of anagrams (which,
incidentally, don't actually need to be solved!). There is a maze
which is quite easily negotiable and shouldn't pose a problem for
even the most inexperienced of adventurers.

The game is quite challenging and some of the item-related puzzles
are original. Sometimes there will be no clues as to how to solve
a problem, and one problem even involves opening the boot of a car
not mentioned in the location description, only shown in the
picture.

The game does not allow you to do anything that is unrelated to
solving the puzzles. Only important bits of scenery are given
descriptions, and the game gives few messages when you try things
that don't work. Many of the objects have not even been given
descriptions!


Many words are misspelt and the game is full of punctuation
errors. All in all, The Pay Off is sloppily presented and little
effort has been made to make the game user-friendly, or to
introduce atmosphere. The graphics are quite good and there are
lots of them, but they are nothing special.

And no, there is no music nor any other sound effects (surprise,
surprise!).

J.J. ROUND-UP

The Pay Off is a user unfriendly, poorly presented text adventure
game. It is only worth buying for solving the puzzles, which are
pitched at a quite-hard-but-still-fun difficulty level. The text
has a lack of atmosphere and humour. The graphics do not really
improve things. Maybe it's worth getting to add to the collection
or for a few hours entertainment - but there are much more fun
things to do with your time.


J.J. RATINGS

GRAPHICS    : 5 out of 10      VALUE       : 4 out of 10
EASE OF USE : 3 out of 10      HUMOUR      : 1 out of 10
DIFFICULTY  : 7 out of 10
SOUND       : 0 out of 10    * FUN FACTOR *  4 out of 10













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