You, an agent to the Royal Duchy, sift through the wreckage along the shores at Daymer Cove. Finding the ship’s log sends you off on a treasure hunt deep into the caves. You start this text adventure trapped in some dimly lit caves. The computer replies to your standard adventure input with classic pirate chatter – which does give this game some atmosphere. With an average level of difficulty you’ll soon be solving the puzzles that lie ahead, but the crude-looking pictures, which often take an age to display, delay the pace and start to ruin your interest.

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Rating: 4/10

I don’t know why the word ‘snoball’ is spelt the way it is in this game, but you know the saying about “a snowball’s chance in hell”, and now you’re attempting to raise hell, armed with just a few snowballs. Can you pull it off? This is a Breakout clone, using an armoured tank as a bat and a snowball as a ball. Unlike many other Breakout clones, though, the bat moves vertically and not horizontally, and there are also plenty of monsters which fly towards you. They can be hard to dodge, but you soon learn to hold down the fire button more or less constantly. The graphics are very colourful, but there’s nothing that makes it better than similar games.

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Rating: 6/10

The Snodger family live in a large mansion, but they suspect that little creatures called Snodgits are stealing (or snodging) their possessions. Their butler, Benton, turns detective to find out which of the many characters in the game is responsible. You have to wander the mansion, locate objects and give them to the member of the Snodger family who wants them; the Snodgits will tell you who to give them to. You also have to correctly answer questions based on a table of clues that is displayed on the screen. The graphics are simple but cute, but Benton moves around the mansion rather slowly and the sound effects are very limited. It’s a strange game and it’s not easy to understand what’s going on at first. Once you do, you may enjoy it, but the gameplay becomes a bit repetitive after a while.

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Rating: 6/10

A snooker management game? What kind of lunatic thought of this? It’s one of Cult’s terrible efforts at writing management games, being written entirely in BASIC with no graphics to speak of. You start bottom of the world rankings and have to play in tournaments and earn prize money to make it all the way to the top. You can also arrange matches with other players and gamble your money on other players. The big problem is that you have to sit through other players’ games, and of course, your own games. It is duller than watching paint dry, and even die-hard snooker fans will loathe this sorry excuse for a game.

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Rating: 1/10

The classic comic strip comes alive on the Amstrad CPC. Credit where credit’s due, I don’t think this could have looked better. On the sound front it’s a different story – discordant music and very basic effects. So how does it play? Very slowly. Find an object, travel with an object, use an object, rinse and repeat – but what keeps your attention is those graphics. This is Snoopy as you’ve seen it in the comic strips in the newspapers and it’s just about enough.

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Watch a YouTube video of this game by: jgonza.

Rating: 7/10

Join Kim Kimberley, secret agent extraordinaire as you attempt to save the interstellar transport Snowball 9 from certain disaster. Waking from hypersleep you literally begin the game in the dark – but escaping your coffin is only the beginning of your problems... Level 9’s first foray into science fiction is a difficult but atmospheric text adventure thanks to some well crafted descriptions. Working out how to deal with the syringe-wielding nightingales will be your first major stumbling block, but that pales in comparison to the maze (a highly frustrating piece of coding that exists seemingly to allow Level 9 to boast of the game having over 7,000 locations). Originally text-only, Snowball was reissued as part of the Silicon Dreams compilation boasting graphics, but it loses part of its mystique in the process. Overall, it’s still a highly polished adventure that you can easily lose a couple of hours playing.

See also: Return to Eden, The Worm in Paradise.

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Rating: 8/10

Despite the title, this game isn’t about the white stuff that falls from the sky. Rather it’s the other white powder that usually hails from South America. From the box art and screenshots you would think this was a complicated flight simulation, but it’s actually more of an arcade/simulation hybrid. It means the game is more accessible than similar titles on the CPC but it also lacks depth. The missions are of a seek and destroy nature. The presentation is good with Mode 0 graphics and the game runs at a good speed. The gameplay is simplified compared to other air combat games so this may make a good choice for anyone who is normally intimidated by a traditional flight simulation.

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Rating: 7/10

Despite the name of this game, you don’t actually play a proper game of football; instead, the game concentrates on training. There are four types of training – dribbling, tackling, passing and penalties. When you have completed all four courses successfully, you can then go on to the assault course. The courses are all self-explanatory, except for the dribbling, in which you have to kick the ball around some cones in the direction highlighted by the arrow shown on the screen. There aren’t many football training games around, mainly because they’re just not as exciting as actual football games. This is no exception; the graphics are OK, but the gameplay is really dull.

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Rating: 3/10

There are lots of football management games on the CPC, but this game instead sees you as a crooked businessman trying to buy at least 501 shares in the top ten clubs in the 1st Division. Starting with £200,000, you buy some shares and watch their value rise and fall as each team’s fortune changes. Each week, you are paid a dividend through your ownership of the teams, and you can use that to buy more shares. You can also bet on a team to win the league or be relegated, and you can also call meetings to demand pay rises, ground improvements, or a new manager. There is no excitement to this game at all, mainly because it takes ages to build up enough money from your dividends, and you are forced to look at screen after screen of information after each turn. It’s also written entirely in BASIC.

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Rating: 2/10

The French version of this football game is known simply as Foot and was endorsed by Marius Trésor, a great French footballer who played for France in the 1982 World Cup. You can select two of four teams (Great Britain, France, Germany or Italy) and choose the level of each of your players (from 0 to 20) and your opponent’s players. However, there are no differences between the different teams, save for the colour of their shirts. You automatically control the player that is closest to the ball, although pressing the fire button allows you to change the player you want to control. Once you are in possession of the ball, your speed is reduced by half, which favours a very collective method of play! In summary, it is a fast and really enjoyable game, though it isn’t realistic at all.

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Rating: 6/10