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Before he moved onto converting some of the biggest games on "other" systems to the Electron, Peter Scott wrote a slew of original games. His early titles were a bit hit and miss, usually because they were just slightly too hard for mere mortals. But later ones, like Thunderstruck, were games of some depth, and it features some pretty graphics and animation too.

Thunderstruck is the story of a space refuse collector who has become stranded in a medieval castle (in an extremely unlikely set of circumstances). The aim of the game is to escape the castle by the tried-and-tested method of exploring every room, picking up any items you find and then carrying them to a different room and using them. Also, as you might expect, the castle is inhabited by some rather unfriendly droids who must be avoided.

It's typical graphic adventure stuff, although unusual in that it only uses half of the screen real estate. I suspect this decision was taken to allow for more graphics and sprites than its competitors - certainly the spaceman is a very impressively animated sprite indeed. He tends to walk everywhere a little bit like Robocop although he's not nearly as tough, with even a little heat from the candles he passes depleting his energy bar at an impressive rate.

In fact, energy depletion is your biggest problem when playing Thunderstruck. The game itself isn't particularly difficult, and the handy "% seen" counter at the top left is initially quite encouraging. Even a brand new player can usually avoid the demon droids, and solve the early, easy puzzles (i.e. take the cellar key to the cellar and use it), and solve 25% of the game on his first try.

The trouble is that the game is bigger than it at first appears, and every time you touch an enemy, it freezes so it can drain as much energy from you as you let it. Stand still and you'll be stone cold dead in about five seconds flat. This means that every time you try to duck under an enemy, it's done with your heart in your mouth. The collision detection is usually fair, but occasionally you do lose some energy when you feel you shouldn't have.

Food will replenish energy, as will using an object in the correct place, but food is scarce... This is one of these games where every move matters, so it can't be played recklessly. Well, it can, but you'll die.

Thunderstruck makes good use of colour, graphics and sound and it's all very well animated, such that there's nothing really to complain about. The problem is that it sort of feels like it just improves a genre on the Electron that has already been done to death rather than introduce anything new. I suppose the fact there's a lift shaft is a novelty (It's controlled with the up and down cursor keys), but it's hardly mind-blowing stuff.

With what seem like a million graphic adventures on the Electron, a game needs to be exceptional to be near the top of the list. On release, it may well have been, as Electron User proclaimed, "one of the best arcade adventures on the Electron". However, Peter Scott went on to write graphic adventures that were even better, and if you consider the entirety of the Electron's catalogue, Thunderstruck is better than average yet falls below a lot of others.

Nevertheless, it sold well and tends to fetch a quite respectable £6-£7 when copies of it come up for sale.