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Barreldrop is, presumably, an arcade game with educational overtones - the cassette inlay shows a teacher and blackboard, and I suppose the game is designed to give very young children an idea of numbers and words. As such, it is not altogether successful.

Barreldrop features a character called Gordon and his dog, Flash (geddit?). Gordon stands on a ledge at the top of the screen and rolls barrels down the roof of his house.

Pressing SPACE at the right moment allows the barrels to drop into a set of drainpipes, numbered one to five. At various times during the game. it is possible to discern Gordon's dog peeping out from the right-hand corner. If you realise that you are about to miss your target, pressing 'D' will send Flash scampering across the screen to retrieve the errant barrel and bring it back up the ladder for another go.

Filling all the drainpipes brings a bonus, and there are various riddles and other games included. The riddles are of the 'What has four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three at night?' variety, but there is no acknowledgement as to whether they have been answered correctly or not.

Attention to detail is not all that it should be either. Writer Russell Vincent has included a routine to speed up the auto-repeat while playing the game, but this remains in operation even when the user is invited to type in his/her name, which means that a very light touch is needed to avoid letters repeating.

For very young children only.