FRUSTRATION
                ON SYNTAX LIBRARY DISK 1064

                  A REVIEW BY PETER CLARK

Aunt Maud has entrusted you with her shopping and as you set out
to the town with the shopping list, a gust of wind blows it from
your hand. The paper is carried by the wind to the edge of a
manhole where you make a grab at it. The council worker who forget
to fix the grating correctly could be in for trouble as you fall
down through the grating and fall and fall and fall.........

Arriving safely at the bottom of the shaft you begin to look
about. Ah! What's this? The standard adventurer's lamp and sword.
I explored the underground pipe system and only found a strange
puddle, a hole above my head that I couldn't reach and a key and
gold ingot.  Unfortunately it was impossible to retrieve these
items as I could not pass through a narrow fissure whilst holding
them and no amount of throwing or pushing of them through the
fissure seemed to work. I decided to leave these where they were
and see if I could find a way out of the pipe system. This proved
remarkably easy and I soon found myself on a narrow path.
Proceeding to the east soon brought me to a dead end so I set off
in the other direction. This proved more profitable and I found
myself in the garden of a large house.  To one side of the house I
found a small garden shed that had nothing in it except a red
button set into the floor. Naturally I pressed it but nothing
happened. Well, not in that location anyway.

Turning my attention to the house I found that there was no
obstacle to my gaining entry and soon I was in the Entrance Hall.
Now to explore the house. There are several floors so, starting on
the ground floor I searched a Music Room, a Scullery and a Morning
Room. There were no obvious objects lying around and a locked door
in the Morning Room proved to be too much for me as I never
managed to open it.

The Entrance Hall had steps leading downwards into a Cellar which
needed the lamp and proved to be a maze. I tried the usual method
of mapping it but Jim has found a way of moving the objects that
you drop making mapping difficult if not impossible. After
wandering about aimlessly for a while I came upon a Large Chamber.
This had a sealed door leading from it. There is a talisman to be
found here but again I found no way of opening the door. I
wandered some more and eventually found my way back to the
Entrance Hall.

I set off now to the upper parts of the house. Here I found a room
with an opening in the floor but there was no way of entering it
to see where it went. On the floor above I found that a corridor
leading to the east took me to Broom Cupboard where I came upon a
pumpkin and a means of climbing higher to an Attic and eventually,
through a skylight to the Roof. All I found here was a potion and
a flagpole. It is impossible to take objects back through the
attic so I resorted to throwing them from the roof.  This rather
surprisingly worked! I found no way to remove the flagpole however
although I felt that there was something here that I had missed.

Returning to the corridor I found a Cubical Room.  There was an
aperture here that I climbed through and found myself inside a
Dilapidated Shop. This proved to be a Locksmiths shop but there
was nothing to be found here. Leaving the shop I found myself in a
small village that contained a Workshop where I found a hammer and
some wire. In the village there was also a Cottage that had a
Broom Cupboard in it but nothing else, a Wine Shop where I found a
bottle. There was also a trapdoor that proved too difficult to
open.  Exploring further I found an Office where some gloves and a
key were discovered. There was also a Stationery Cupboard that
appeared to have nothing inside it. Next stop was the house of
Winifred the Witch. Here there is a cauldron with a magic wand in
it. Guess what? I couldn't find any way of getting the wand! The
village also contains Waxwings Workshop and a Scorched Room that
contains a horseshoe.  Proceeding further took me into some
Shrubbery where I found an apple and continuing further took me
back full circle to the first part of the game outside the pipe
system near the large house.

My score after this quick expedition into the frustration of Jim
McBrayne's world was very low and there is obviously a lot more to
this game than I have so far discovered. I left many loose ends in
my gallop through and will have to return to it later. The game
itself is, as far as I can tell, bug free and I found no spelling
or grammatical mistakes but that is only to be expected of one of
Jim's games. The game is one which you will certainly not finish
quickly and it will give the old grey matter a lot to puzzle over.
My verdict? A really good game that you should have in your
collection. Get it now!












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