C&VG


Hareraiser: Prelude
By Haresoft
Spectrum 48K

 
Published in Computer & Video Games #38

Hareraiser: Prelude

Hareraiser is not so much a game as a puzzle. It comes in two parts: Prelude is available now and Finale is yet to be released.

The "player" has the four cursor keys at his disposal, allowing him to move around the countryside in search of clues to discover the Hare's whereabouts. These are disaplyed as short lines of text on a graphics background of a field. Sometimes the hare comes loping in to the accompaniment of music before divulging his clue, sometimes he doesn't. Is that a clue?

The object of all this is to be the first person to solve the puzzle. If that happens to be you, then you write in to Haresoft with the Hare's location, plus an explanation of how you arrived at the answer, together with the two tapes and a letter quoting your personal numbers. You could win the Golden Hare itself, or choose to take £30,000 in cash instead.

Hareraiser: Prelude

To be eligible to enter, you must first have registered the purchase of each part, by returning a card on which is printed your unique personal number.

That's the task - how will you shape up to it? All you need is pencil, paper, your eyes, patience and an inquiring mind, says the inlay. Pencil and paper certainly seemed to be useful, for the information observed is easily recorded. In fact, I could see little reason why this puzzle should be published as software.

To be honest, I wouldn't buy it unless I fancied my chances for the £30,000 (sod the Golden Hare - I'll take the cash!) But hang about! That's a huge pile of readies to be giving away. Where will it all come from? Suppose £1 per game is put into the kitty - that's one helluva lot of copies to hope to sell for a puzzle that isn't even a game!

Could it be that we have to wait for sales to reach a pre-determined level before we see any sign of the Finale?