Impatience

Crash Issue 95 review, courtesy of spectrumcomputing.co.uk

Review by Steven Pick from the Sam Coupé Scrapbook

Hooray! At long last, the SamDisk Magazine office recieves a huge pack! Yes, we have in our midst the first ever release from FRED… Colin Macdonald’s new software house, Fred Publishing! On this pack, is a feast of code for all puzzle addicts and arcade junkies alike! There are 2 games - Triltex, and Viking. Both can be played by mouse or keys, which is a very good thing for SAMCo as more software should be mouse compatible.

Viking Game

This game was played by Vikings you know! (So it sez on the inlay package!). Seriously though, the game is set so two players can play! And with two players, things can get very hairy indeed, as you capture your other players pieces! The plot is that the black pieces are around the outside of the board, while in the centre is a cluster of white pieces surrounding a king! To capture a piece, 2 pieces should sandwich the opposing piece while it takes 4 to capture the king (Because he’s a mean bloke!). The king has to go to one of the corner pieces to win! Music-wise, there is a good ditty which plays at the start. Also the layout is good, with more than functional graphics. An excellent 2 player game!

Triltex

Here we go! When SamDisk Magazine first grabbed the Triltex demo, we were rather impressed by it (although it had 3 levels). But now, we have the superb finished version, which is worth the 10 quid you are paying! The plot is that on each screen, you have to clear the screen of tiles. The tiles in question are stacked, so you have to move your cursor over the blocks, and click onto identical blocks to make them disappear. Things get worse with added “attractions” like mystery squares, flip-over squares, turn-through-an-angle squares, bomb squares (guess what these do!), and so on! Every 4 levels, you get to play a special bonus screen, where you have to clear the screen to get lots of points! The time limit on the other screens doesn’t end your go once it ends! Yes, you can play forever on a screen, though the time limit is there for you to beat and receive much-needed lives. If you do pass the bonus screen, you are given a line of 5 blocks (a passcode) so you can play on the level you finished! In a nutshell, this game is brilliant! The music is excellent (as it is by František Fuka of Fuxoft - he did the SCPDSA music, Hexagonia music, Shanghai (Fuxoft), etc.etc.!), as is the fab presentation. The graphics are great too. Clear and colourful!

On both Triltex and Viking, the cursor movement is silky smooth which helps on both games! All in all, Impatience is a fantastic first release from Fred Publishing! Any puzzle fans out there (Anyone who reads SamDisk Magazine regularly knows I am!) should buy this straight away!! And Triltex boasts 25 levels, which doesn’t seem much, but wait until you play level 1!!

Your Sinclair review, (Recovered) courtesy of the YS Rock 'n' Roll Years YS73

Impatience (SAM) FRED     £9.99     Jan 1992

The premiere release of FRED magazine's software arm, Impatience is a twin-pack of mouse-compatible puzzler games. The main attraction of the pack is Triltex, a match-the-tiles affair with a sneaky twist: the titles are stacked anything up to seven deep. Naturally, this means you have no idea if your cunning strategy is correct until you reach the bottom of the stacks, and usually find one tile left over. Each of the twenty levels is scattered with special symbols, such as transporters, flippers and the boon-or-bane bombs which destroy their four adjacent tiles. Be warned - this game is knuckle-gnawingly hard!

It's also incredibly likeable, what with the presentation buffed to a shine and loads of friendly features such as a password system, and a non-fatal time limit that awards an extra life if you beat it. To put it simply, Triltex is the kind of game you'll switch off in fury, but swear to beat next time.

The Viking Game runs at a different pace altogether. It's an adaptation of a 1000-year-old strategic brow-furrower for two players, defender and invader. The game centres on the capture or escape of the defender's King. Moving like the rook in chess, pieces are taken by being trapped between two of the opponent's; or in the case of the King, by being completely hemmed in. It's smartly programmed, but there's some awful slow music and an unnecessarily obscured King. It's all good, clean fun but, to be honest, I can't see what advantage it has over the board game.

So there you have it. A sizzler and a fairly good supporting act - a lot for your crumpled tenner. It's got to be a Megagame. And it is. Hurrah!

Verdict: 90%