Please login to submit a screenshot

THE COLOUR OF MAGIC
Piranha, £9.95


Bear with me one moment... I'm just looking for a photograph that's been lying around my floor for about eight weeks and it seems such a shame not to mention it after someone went to all the trouble to shoot it and everything. It shows a Mike, a Fergus and a Stephanie with the label, 'Level 9 sign contract with Delta 4', which sounds the wrong way round, but all seem happy in the photo.

Well, the upshot of it is that this Fergus McNeil chappie is popping up just about everywhere, and it's all that his sidekick, Judith Child, can do to stop him. I mean to say, I'm sure amongst the folder of info proffered by Piranha to go with this game there was one bit that indicated a slight lack of enthusiasm for the Colour project on her behalf. Really, Judith, having read about two-thirds of the book to date I can say I think it's an excellent book, one of a kind (whatever that means).

I'll be quite honest here - I had never heard of the book by Terry Pratchett called The Colour of Magic but a friend who reads WHITE DWARF had, but there again, he's heard about and read just about everything in the science fiction and fantasy fields. Now, if you're reading this review, and you've read the book, and, what, you've played the game as well... then what the heck are you reading this for - a second opinion? No, seriously, you've got no idea what the book's about and you want to know what the game can offer. Well, the answer is the game has much to offer and the book is all about the magical number eight (hence the crummy joke at the beginning about eight weeks - oh, you get it now do you(??)?

The chief character in the book, and the one you whisk around the environs of Ankh Morpork and beyond in the game, is a hapless wizard named Rincewind who winces his way through all manner of mishaps and unbelievably bad runs of luck. Take his training as a wizard, where, sneaking a peek at a powerful grimoire he ended up with one of the spells leaping from the pages and lodging in his mind. This curtailed any further studies, meaning he couldn't cast spells like other wizards. It wouldn't be so bad if he had any control over the one spell he does possess, but this isn't so; the spell leaps out of its own accord.

But the magical dabbler isn't a total loss as he is an excellent translator and it is this skill which brings him crashing into the storyline. The big picture has four gargantuan elephants supporting a disc atop the meteor-pocked shell of a turtle by the name of Great A'Tuin. Because the Discworld is supported by this turtle tracking its way across the skies, this gives licence for a joke concerning its Steady Gait crawling or its Big Bang rendezvous (this involving some mating on a cosmological scale, get it).

Now if you're not so sharp with the old memory, forget all the curious creatures in the sky and just consider the Discworld for one moment. There is a long waterfall wisping away at its circumference but more relevant to the game is its makeup which does away with the normal east, west, south movements and replaces them with Hubward, Rimward, Turnwise and Widdershins.

The Hub of the DiscworId is never closely warmed by the sun and the islands there are locked in permafrost. The Rim is a region of sunny islands and balmy days. Turnwise and Widdershins are less obvious, but relate to the direction of spin on the Discworld where Widdershins opposes the 800 day spin direction. There are 8 days in a disc week and 8 colours in its light spectrum with the eighth colour being octane which is a sort of greenish-yellow..., purple. Eight is a number of some occult significance and in some places (like the temple of Bel-Shamharoth) shouldn't even be mentioned. Needless to say, Rincewind's room in the Unseen University's Halls of Residence was the unfortunately contrived 7a!

The next piece of geography brings us back to the twin cities of Ankh-Morpork and the plot of the adventure. Ankh-Morpork are the foremost of all the cities bounding the circle Sea, but even so, few people from the