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As Eric, the schoolboy, you must snatch your end of term report from the headmaster's safe to prevent your parents from being exposed to the true horror of its contents. To obtain the combination code, you must set all the school shields hanging on the walls flashing. You do this by hitting them with your catapult. Once they are all flashing, you must extract a code letters from each of the teachers by knocking them over. All except the history master who has had his code letter implanted in his brain by hypnosis. There are all sorts of school-related methods of knocking over the teachers and obtaining the codes and it is great fun, even if it seemed like a bit of a busman's holiday at the time. Perhaps the most enjoyment to be had is watching all the other characters going about their business.

SKOOLDAZE explodes into the imagination with a cloud of chalk dust and a hail of catapult bullets. It is one of those rare games where nothing over-ambitious is attempted in the way of programming but all the elements unite to provide an addictive and satisfying romp.


The screen displays a school, with classrooms spread over three floors. The playing area is not large, being about three screensful of scrolling school, but the careful planning of the game allows for plenty of action.

You are Eric, a Bad Boy whose dreadful school report is locked in the headmaster's safe. The task is to get it out. Only the masters know the combination of the safe and to make them reveal it you must set all the school shields flashing by hitting them with your catapult. A nice refinement is that Mr Creak the History Master is a doddering fellow who cannot remember his part of the combination and must be forced to reveal it by writing his date of birth on his blackboard.

In between performing the quest, you must take part in the normal activities of the school - that is, playing and attending lessons. Instructions appear at the bottom of the screen and if you are caught in the wrong place by a master you will receive lines. 10,000 lines and you are sent home, and have to start again.

The characters of the game have a cartoon-style quality and represent school stereotypes - the trendy master, the bully, the tearaway and the swot. You can change the names to those of your choice which should make the game even more fun.

Whether or not you want to attempt the extremely difficult problem of cracking the headmaster's safe, Skooldaze is tremendously enjoyable. You can have a great time simply trying to survive, as masters dole out lines with hideous abandon and, sometimes, quite unfairly. You can have catapult fights with other boys, and if you manage to fool a master into giving the bully or swot some lines then you lose some from your own tally.

They may not be the happiest days of your fife, but Skooldaze should provide some of the happiest hours of the day.



Chris Bourne

SKOOLDAZE Microsphere Memory: 48K Price: £5.95 Joystick: Sinclair, Protek, Kempston Gilbert Factor: 8

Awesome game! I have many fond memories playing this game, hitting the teachers, bullying the little kids, trying to sneak into the Headmasters office. Truly one of a kind.

SKOOL DAZE
Microsphere / £5.95

Ross: In Skool Daze you get a chance to re-live your youth or, as in my own case, do all those things you didn't dare do!
You play Eric, and if you want to be able to sit down for the next week, you must retrieve your school report from the safe before your parents get to see it. The first thing to do is to hit all the shields hanging on the walls. This in itself is not so easy and may require using one of the other boys as a spring-board, or even deflecting one of your catapult pellets off a teacher! Once all the shields have been hit the masters can be persuaded to reveal their letter to the safe's four-part combination.
Eric and the other children can go to any room but must obey the bell which signals the start of lessons.
The graphics are very clear and well animated, and the independence of all the other characters makes the game fun to watch. However I didn't really find that I wanted to play it for very long. It is, nevertheless, a very clever piece of software. 3/5

Dave: This is a very original game with good graphics. The playing area isn't very big, and it does seem rather unfair that if you go to a lesson where there aren't enough seats you get lines every time you get pushed out of your seat. I want my Mummy! 3/5

Roger: Buy now - before Sir Keith Joseph has it banned! This is as near to the real thing as I'm prepared to get. If you're still at school, learn and inwardly digest ... 4/5

Producer: Microsphere
Memory required: 48K
Retail price: £5.95
Language: machine code



Skool Daze is the best daze of your life and if the gratuitous violence possible in this extraordinary new game is anything to go by, it is probably best to go through them all in a daze! The nefarious hero (or is he an anti-hero) of this piece is called Eric, although the program allows you to input a new name If you prefer to personalise your software, and you can change the names of the other ‘actors’ in this play. ‘Play’ and ‘actors’ are apt words in this game, for it carries on its own life regardless of what you are doing, in fact the demo alone is like watching ‘Grange Hill’ on the telly!

The simple object of Skool Daze is to get the end of term report out of the headmaster’s safe, so suppressing the appalling information contained in it. However, achieving this aim is not so simple. In essence, to get the safe combination code, you must set all the school shields hanging on the walls flashing. You do this by hitting them with your catapult. Once they are all flashing, you must extract the code letters from the teachers, each one of which has been entrusted with one letter. This is done by knocking them over. All except the history master who, because of his advanced age has had his code letter implanted in his brain by hypnosis.

The methods to be used to set shields flashing, knock over teachers and extract the information are very varied, and typically school-like. But even with the codes, all is not over, because Eric must try out all the combinations on a blackboard. And even with the safe accessed safely, Eric must then cover his tracks by stopping all the shields from flashing by the same method he used to start them.

This may all sound involved and fun, and it is, but the bare bones of the plot don’t even begin to explain how hard the task is made by the ants nest building of a school! It swarms with kids and teachers, the former milling innocently around, bopping each other in the eyes, scrawling rude messages on the blackboard, tripping up masters and generally causing havoc to Eric’s endeavours; the latter handing out lines, ringing bells to change classes, asking daft educational questions, and generally being just like school teachers. Quite honestly, the Department of Education should have this game suppressed before it really causes trouble...

CRITICISM
‘Skool Daze takes me back a bit, to the good old days — school days. This incredible 3D school time game has many features associated with school, such as ‘Whacker’ — the teacher that is out to get you with his cane. The object of the game is quite easy although achieving the objective is very difficult, and this seems to add very well to the playability of the game. Among the many things I like, two things that stand out are — the catapult action, where your missile if fired at the back of someone’s head, promptly knocks that person down, with the victim scratching his head — and the fact that there is no character disruption when the figures pass in front of the background. Colour, sound and the general idea are all exceptionally good. I think this will provide many hours of joyful skool daze.’

‘Skool Daze is a fun game to play. The graphics are excellent and the sound is good. You are set an enormous task, which I have only just started. Most of the shields are much too high to reach, and all the teachers are line-happy. When ever you do anything and there is a teacher near you, the teacher will shout remarks at you. I really enjoyed playing this game and recommend it to everyone with a sense of mischief.’

‘From the moment you see Skool Daze, you fall in love with it, because the graphics are tremendous. The whole playing area is alive with action. The cast of characters is presented in a long menu which introduces each recognisable graphic, tells you who they are and their names and allows you to change them if you want. The game has the feeling of an animated comic strip with the teachers’ and pupils’ comments all appearing in balloons. Playing the game requires a lot of attention to keep up with everything that is going on, and even if you don’t feel up to a day at school, you can always sit back and watch it happen around you on the excellent demo. Microsphere seem to have a knack of finding unusual themes for games, and this is no exception. They also find the great graphics to go with it. I can’t imagine anyone being disappointed with Skool Daze.’



COMMENTS
Control keys: cursors or Q/A up/down, O/P left/right, plus; S for sit/stand, H for hit, W for write, J/L jump/leap and O or F for fire
Joystick: Kempston, Protek, Sinclair 2
Keyboard play: very responsive
Use of colour: very good
Graphics: excellent — it seems an inadequate word
Sound: very good, good tune
Skill levels: 1
Lives: 1
Screens: scrolling school building
Special features: masked character graphics
General rating: excellent value, plenty to do, addictive, unusual.

Use of computer 92%
Graphics 93%
Playability 95%
Getting started 93%
Addictive qualities 94%
Value for money 94%
Overall 93%