THE EMERALD ELF by George Hoyle A text adventure from Zenobi Software Review by Bev Truter on PC / Spectrum(e) Emerald Elf was written as a tribute to the T.V. series Red Dwarf, and the game is loosely based on several episodes from the first series. It is not a spoof or send-up of Red Dwarf, but rather a gentle meander through some of George's favourite scenes from the T.V. series. There is no introduction in Emerald Elf - it is assumed you know the gist of the plot/s from the Red Dwarf series, and that you'll pick up the drift as you go along. This made me wonder how popular Emerald Elf could be, as text adventures generally have a fairly limited appeal, and in E.Elf the appeal is further narrowed to fans of the Red Dwarf series. To put it another way, if you haven't watched and enjoyed Red Dwarf, you'd be unlikely to buy or play Emerald Elf. The story so far: You are Dave Loster, and due to circumstances beyond your control you find yourself newly-awakened from a long sleep in the stasis-booth aboard the spaceship "Emerald Elf". You appear to be the only human life-form on board, but fortunately everything seems to be (almost) fully functional, and with a bit of luck and some guidance from Wally (the on-board computer with personality plus), you may be able to find your way home again - or at the very least learn how to fly the ship and head off in the right direction. So that you won't get too lonely, Wally has activated a hologram of your old room-mate Arnold Rommer. Shortly after starting the game you are warned by Wally that an alien life-form has been detected aboard the ship, and this turns out to be...no, not the Cat, but Mouse. Elf recognizes all the usual commands such as X (examine) and LOOK (must be typed in full, otherwise "L" is confused with PORT, which moves you one location to the left if there's an exit in that direction). Being a spaceship, movement is F, A, P and S (Fore, Aft, Port and Starboard) rather than the more familiar N, S, E, and W. You can converse with other characters in the game by commands such as SAY TO FRED "WHERE IS THE BOOK?". You can RAMSAVE and RAMLOAD as well as SAVE and LOAD, and I (inventory) displays anything you are carrying, plus your current score. There is no indication of the total score possible, so if you have 115 points, for example, you have no idea of how well you are doing in the game. Location-wise Elf is fairly compact, covering 37 locations spread out over 7 of the accessible floors on board "Elf", and travel between the different levels is via an easy to operate lift. Which is just as well, it can become exceedingly irritating if you have to continually struggle with the available transport; like lifts or cars or alien spacecraft. Thankfully Elf does not degenerate into one of these battle-with-the-buttons epics. At first glance there didn't appear much to do in E.Elf, and nothing much seemed to happen, no matter what I tried. But after discovering a few simple tools, and searching a couple of locations to reveal some previously-hidden openings, the action livened up considerably. Rimmer, sorry, Rommer, has to be watched closely and followed; and the Mouse kept on disappearing with a vital manual clutched in his arms. Then there was the food dispensing machine to fix, and the airlock to unlock...and I know cats like fish, but what about Mouse? Would he want fish? I think not. Although I'm a great fan of Red Dwarf I couldn't get really engrossed in Emerald Elf. It was fairly amusing, fairly interesting, quite well written, but not a game I can honestly rave about. On the negative side I found the primitive graphics which occupy the top half of every screen annoying, and with no HELP function available I wasn't able to turn the graphics off altogether, or even discover if they were turnable off (turn offable? Turnable offable?). Wally's standard interjection of HEY, WHAT'S UP DUDES? uttered frequently when you and Rommer are in the same location soon became tiresome, and I must confess to harbouring some nasty thoughts about switching Wally off permanently. On the plus side Emerald Elf is a short romp through the familiar terrain of Red Dwarf, with many problems of medium-level difficulty to solve, and if you're a fan of the series you'd probably enjoy this game. The locations, characters, events and even dialogue are instantly recognizable, and if you haven't watched Red Dwarf you'd find some of the puzzles very puzzling indeed! Triton was a bit of a disappointment, but Rommer is *very* Arnold-ish, and the Mouse is gorgeous. For further info, contact Zenobi Software, 26 Spotland Tops, Cutgate, Lancs. OL12 7NX. The cost is #2.99 for PC, ST or Amiga emulated Spectrum versions. - o -