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Originally written for Games Workshop, but now released under the Firebird label, Runestone is a real-time adventure featuring the sort of landscaped graphics first seen in Lords Of Midnight.

Kordimir the Necromancer has been sending his orc legions into the land of Belorn for many years and is on the verge of winning. However, Greymarel, a wizard whose powers have temporarily failed him, has a dream in which he is told that if he can seek out the Book of Zarimir, all may not be lost. Thus begins the quest which Greymarel undertakes with his two friends Eliador, last of the Elves and Morval the Warrior.

You play all three main characters, changing between them at will. It is best to change fairly frequently as time is an integral part of the game, and all the other characters that you meet live their own lives and move around. The game has a large vocabulary even though only the first three letters of each word are checked. 'Examine', 'get all' and 'say' are all supported.

There are over 2,000 locations to explore, all illustrated so obviously descriptions are very limited. As you move towards objects such as huts or towers, you see them getting larger in the picture window. There is also a picture of the character you are currently contrlling. Moving is slightly different from other adventures. N, S, E and W merely turn you in the appropriate direction and you must use "move" or "M" to move. "In" and "out" are used for entering or leaving buildings.

You will frequently get involved in fights with the orcs. You must specify a weapon to attack them with or the computer assumes you will use your bare hands. "Shoot" allows you to use a bow and arrow. You cannot be killed as such but your strength does diminish. You can use the status command to find out how healthy you are.

My initial feelings when playing Runestone was that it lacked atmosphere and was too easy, but after I had wandered well into orc territory, recovered a gold casket, one of the lost treasures of Belorn, and found a silver ring complete with an as yet undeciphered inscription. I was somewhat surprised to find that I had solved about 0%! It should be pointed out though that your score is dynamic and can go down as well as up if some of your characters aren't doing too well (they had been captured by orcs having had all their possessions stolen by a nasty little toad of a character).

Runestone comes nicely packaged completely with an instruction/story book, a parchment map and fragments of the book of Zarimir that were revealed to Greymarel in his dream. If you enjoy the type of adventure where exploration is the key, rather than problem solving, then this is certainly a game well worth looking at.