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Your quest is to find three keys and a scroll and return them to the hut where you started.

With one or two exceptions, the graphics are not worth viewing. The text scrolls smoothly on a split screen under the graphics, but the response is painfully slow at about 10 seconds which is a long waiit. Worse is the fact that key location details disappear under the graphics by the time the response is complete. Although there is time enough to read all the text, a quick look aside to jot down details on your map and you'll miss other vital information.

Other shortcomings include a QUIT with no "Restart?", a failed TAKE that gets no response at all, and a blanket reply "You can't do that... yet!" to commands that are unrecognised.

Any attempt to examine either a character called Josh, who might be man or beast for all I know, or any other feature results in the hilarious reply: "Curiosity killed the cat".

This is a pity, since the map developed in quite an interesting way and so did some of the events, like helping a servant with a crossword puzzle. Given a bit more thought, more memory and less graphics, Black Tower could have proved quite interesting and enjoyable.

Black Tower is from Dollarsoft for the 48K Spectrum.