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Level 9 Computing, £9.95 cass
New releases from Level 9 are I always welcome. For cassette based games, they are clearly the leaders in the field. Red Moon is another example of their ingenuity and imagination, providing a quality of game in a different league to those of their competitors. Enough of this high praise, I won't get paid more for it. Let's have a look ...

The introduction is supplied on the reverse of the slip card, being in the form of an old story teller reliving the experiences you are about to have! It's an atmospheric little detail and helps whet the appetite whilst the game loads. However, I did recognise references to two characters from Larry Niven's classic fantasy The Magic Goes Away, yet I saw no credit for this. I hope Level 9 haven't done anything naughty. If you have read the book however, you should appreciate some of the narrative details which may well be lost on others.

Sometime, long ago, the moon was red. It shone with the power of magik and allowed the existence of now mythical beasts. Every so often, the paths of the sun and the moon would cross and the two would fight The moon became weaker thr-ough the centuries but few noticed the effect.
Then one day, all the castles fell out of the sicy as the 'mana' (the stuff of magik) became ex-hausted. Afterwards, few spells worked. Those that did would eventually fail as what little mana remained, disappeared forever. A new moon had to be built. So the Red Moon Crystal came into being and was placed in a tower in tne land of Bask-alos. Life being the uncompro-mising struggle it is, the crystal was stolen. Red Moon is the Story of how you recovered it.

The game follows the established Level 9 format, containing two hundred pictures, the option of pure text display and single command (though not necessarily two word) input. Text is in the standard Amstrad character set (Level 9 have made some costly mistakes with experimental character sets on previous games). Level 9 also experimented with a 'type ahead' system whereby the program doesn't force you to wait for the next command until it has processed the previous one. The idea is, that you can type away merrily and the computer catches you up, thus allowing a speedy dash through those sections where you know what you are doing. On earlier games, this had some drawbacks, but with Red Moon they have all been ironed out so you can really hurtle through. It may seem like a small point, but it does add greatly to the polish of the program.
The graphics aren't the greatest ever seen on an adventure game but then, the adventure is more substantial than most. Still, they are well drawn and colourful and compared to the graphics in a certain other game reviewed in this column, you would think Red Moon's had been written on a Cray!
In the game, you play the one brave magician who takes upon himself the task of recovering the crystal and as such you have the option of using magik so long as you possesses the cor-rect objects and this feature works quite well Because of the weight restrictions imposed on you and the necessity for other non—magical items, you have to be careful about where you use certain spells and when to disregard them. In using spells, the command is CAST, followed by the spell's name and the direction in which it is to be cast, for example: CAST SCOOP WEST. Before a spell may be used, its 'focus' is required, each spell having an attachment to a
particular object such as a pearl for the SNOOP spell, which lets you look into a nearby location. Here, the weight restrictions force you into the traditional adventurers bane - the darting back and forth between locations in a frenzy dropping and picking up required objects. This is when you really begin to appreciate the type ahead!
In addition to magik. Red Moon also incorporates combat where you pit your strength (or hit points) against various assai-lants like rats and guardians, using such weapons as daggers, swords or magical cloaks. Once a combatant has been killed, however, they are so totally out of the game that you can't even examine them to see whether they had any other information to impart - obviously, dead men don't tell tales.
The problems are not too difficult and logic will always find an answer for you, given time. But it is the atmosphere that gets you. As with all Level 9 adventures, the location descriptions are copious and detailed, adding enormously to the unfolding story line. So atmospheric are they, that the locations seem half lit and there's a fantastic effect of constantly being watched. I could have stayed up all night playing Red Moon (but the guys at the office threw me out). I nave no criticisms worth mentioning when it comes to this game; it's a perfect example of how to write a graphic adven-ture. No gimmicks, fast, intelligent. Buy it.

Atmosphere 92%
Plot 90%
Interaction 86%
Lastability 84%
Value for money 89%
Overall 94%