Funware

Funware produced modules for the TI and were one of the earliest of third party manufacturers.

Hen House

This is the first Funware module. You control a farmer at screen bottom who has two conflicting tasks: to protect his hen house from poachers and wolves, and to collect eggs.

If too many eggs are dropped or the wolf reaches the hen house, the game is over.

The game starts slowly, but as the score increases so does the speed. As you reach 10,000 things are really zipping around, and you have to make fast strategy decisions: do you take the chance on letting an egg fall in order to get your gun?

The instructions are a bit thin... the rifle is stored at screen left, to pick it up or drop it, move to extreme screen left. The eggs are collected by standing under a chute (without the gun!) and when the chute is full you press the fire button (joysticks are optional). You then move to screen right to drop the eggs into a red lorry (which is invisible on black and white displays : it is there though!).

A simple game perhaps, but the animation is neat and as it speeds up things do get tough.

Rabbit Trail

If you saw the 'review' in Personal Computer News, forget that. As usual, the instructions are thin, and the PCN reviewer didn't work them out...

You control a lovely bunny who has the arduous task of collecting carrots. When all the carrots on a screen are collected, you move to the next. I understand there are seven screens, but I've only made screen four so far.

To prevent you reaching the next screen, there is a timer and various hazards such as weasels, hawks, traps and so on. You can leap over these with care,or hide from the hawk.

Joysticks optional. To jump over two weasels close together or over a trap, you must jump while moving : this involves using both sides of the keyboard: Use O to jump and J or K to move, or Y to jump and S or D to move.

Level one is a simple run, level two is a little harder, level three more complex, level four adds an elevator (or lift).

Driving Demon

A car racing game for one player. JOYSTICK REQUIRED.

Your task is to drive a car, which is at the bottom of the screen, and can be driven left or right. Speed is controlled with joystick up/down, and fire changes gears upwards (auto-down).

Perils to avoid are:

Cars to overtake- you NEED to overtake cars in order to extend the limited time you have available! These have a habit of wobbling around the screen a bit- and when two come down screen side by side, you need to think fast! Cars come down the screen towards you at varying speeds. but you can control that speed by speeding up or slowing down yourself using joystick up/down.

Oil spills- these can make you spin off the track.You have a warning beep before these appear- first the beep, then a car to overtake, then the oil patch.

Overheating- failing to change up despite the red marker and warning squeals

And of course driving off the track!

You have a time limit, which goes down with time and up with each car passed You have a limited number of cars to write off which are increased with super high scores!

The joystick is used to change gear (fire button), accelerate and brake, and move left and right to avoid the other cars.

There is also a time clock.

Ambulance

As an ambulance driver race to collect casualties and then race them to hospital (or a first aid centre - which may only be used once per screen), while avoiding the other traffic.

The hospital is on the other side of a fairly busy railway! and there are other cars on the road you must avoid.

Pulling up to pick up a casualty can be tricky but is quickly mastered. Once the alarm sounds you have a time limit to get the injured to medical treatment.

The game ends after either you run out of ambulances following collisions, or you lose too many patients due to being too slow.

In common all Funware modules the game becomes faster and faster as you go along.

St Nick

Lovely animated opening sequence, and a pretty difficult game, played out on a layout of several rooms (a simple maze I suppose!). Two goblins wander around dropping toys, then when they have finished it is your job to pick the toys up.

Two difficulties: There are two witches trying to catch you. And there are four different types of toy which MUST be collected in a specified order (eg pick up all the trumpets first, then all the balls...) and if you pick up a wrong one, all action stops while the goblins come out and drop MORE toys.

There is also a clock running against you. The goblins also drop the letters S A N and T from time to time, and if you can pick up enough to spell SANTA's name, the witches freeze for a while, and you can pick up ANY toys regardless of order.

As the game progresses there are more and more toys to pick up, and it really does get very very hard indeed!