Previous Next

One of the "Mister Tronic" collection of supposedly educational games, this one is a variation on the sliding sections puzzle. After a very lengthy loading process, a menu offers a wide selection of pictures. There's a map of Britain, moon rocket, spider's web, digital watch, racing car, and several more.

Once a selection has been made, mixing takes place at a key-press. This involves division into three vertical and horizontal sections which then scroll very smoothly down and across, respectively, leaving you with a real tangle to sort out.

On-screen instructions then tell you which keys to press to achieve similar scrolling, but it's up to you to fathom out which one to scroll where! If you can do it in less than thirty moves you join the hi-scorers. For me this sort of thing has always been difficult, and I haven't improved any!

No joysticks are catered for, in fact, the program crashed with mine just connected, but keyboard control is straightforward and unlikely to scar your machine. The quality of the graphics varies from sound but uninspiring to rather fine.

I can't honestly say that I would regard this as any more educational than the original puzzle, but it could be argued to have some benefit in terms of abstract learning and short term recall. Even so, I feel it's very hard for children. However, it is fun and cheap and the game concept does come from a popular smash-hit of the moment.

D.M.