Whether you like adventure games or not, you owe it to yourself to look at this one. Unlike the "pure" adventures, this has graphics (pictures) along with the text. About half the screen is filled with graphics, while the lower half gives you a printed description of where you are, what you see and which escape routes are open to you. If you don't like to read, the game disk is also programmed to run a Votrax speech synthesizer.

This is not the sort of game for the impatient. You have to learn the limited vocabulary that the program can understand, but once you do, you can start your treasure hunt in earnest.

The simple vocabulary consists of two-word commands such as "GO HOLE" which really means, "Go into the hole." As you explore, you acquire tools and useful items along with your treasures. With your axe, you chop down a tree, whose hollow stump becomes the storehouse for all your collected items.

You use these items in some interesting ways-such as the mud to keep you from getting stung while you collect the swarm of bees-presumably to sting the dragon. You collect a pot of honey which you can feed to the jumping bear.

There's no time pressure during this game, and you can save it on the disk to resume play at a later time. The directions tell us that one game can easily take five to ten hours to complete.

In the course of your explorations, you collect some swamp gas in a wine bladder which you later ignite to blast a hole through a bricked-up doorway so you can get into the mysterious caverns, where you have to light your lamp so you can see. At times like this, you discover that all those items really do come in handy. If you're a string saver, you'll especially like the packrat that you have to become. In the caverns, you stumble on a royal anteroom, and then a throneroom, and all the time you're busily scooping up such treasures as the crown, a diamond ring, and others.

One other special feature: in the Atari version, you can print out a record of your adventures to record inventories and transactions. This is the first game I've seen that lets you do that. Overall it's fun, engaging and interesting, and is a good choice for your first, second or tenth adventure game.