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While dusting out one of the dungeons I trod on a cassette that one of the dwarves must have dropped. On wiping off the bat's blood, I found it to be Castle Of Riddles. A quick look round revealed no traps so I picked it up and flew (which is a clever trick if you know how) to my micro. Kicking an inquisitive minor demon out of the way I loaded up and prepared to do battle.

The quest, it appears, is to enter the castle of a sorceror that has been taken over by his evil rival and return with the Ring of Power. I found myself outside the main gate of the castle with paths leading off round the back. Nothing ventures, I went straight in - wrong! Picking myself up I returned and finally entered the main courtyard where - surprise, surprise - the Ring is easily found. I grabbed it - wrong!

This is another great adventure from the Acornsoft stable. It has good atmosphere and a wealth of new traps. It also has a bug. Should you attempt to RUB something and foolishly forget to specify what you want to rub, you will receive a very interesting reply! Someone at Acorn must have got his head rubbed rather hard for that one.

The game has the additional incentive of a large prize for the first fearless hero to solve the final mystery, and I assume it was for this reason that the many mazes have been included. I hate mazes, but as these have novel solutions I will forgive Acornsoft. The game has a continuous storyline so I found it more exciting than earlier adventures from Acorn, and some of the traps have a nice touch of demonic humour.

For those sneaky individuals who can't resist the impulse to cheat I'm afraid Acorn's chief wizard has made this game almost 'bomb proof' - I've spent some time trying to wrest the secrets from the code and I'm not winning.

Like the Wishing Well bucket I'm now stuck in the mud beneath the castle. I only hope another adventurer comes along soon to help out as my lamp is going dim and that damn giant spider is still around here somewhere.

Andy Mitchell