September 1988 - Lincoln Green, Boom and Bust, Lava Flow

One of the Letters to the Editors complains about how few of the pages are numbered, which I admit has always annoyed me about magazines as well. I guess in general advertisers don't want their precious ad marred...

Lincoln Green - Robert Bixby

This game answers the questions no one thought to ask: what happens if we make a maze game with no sense of object permanence? You're Robin H-- err, "Lincoln Green" running (with a pleasing clickety-clack sound) around an Enchanted Forest. Your goal is to make it to 0,0 at some corner of the world (supposedly the direction varies) It's a long haul but if the path ahead of you doesn't look clear, run backwards a bit, and the offscreen forest will be seeded anew, and might provide a clearer journey. Harassing arrows come in from the sides (and are equally subject to disappearing when off screen, like if you outrun one off the side of the screen it will never catch up .) The reconfiguring maze works a bit better than I expected, but it's such a haul to get through that it only gets Rating:3/5

Boom and Bust - Fred Karg

Wheel of Fortune meets "Circus Atari" but with crappy collision detection. You maneuver the clown and then hit fire to launch and hopefully hit a letter balloon. Then press F1 to guess when you've seen enough. Rating:2/5

Lava Flow - Forrest Bentley

Creative 2-player game, kind of like a 2 player "Zookeeper" if you replaced the unruly animals with a batch of ever-growing lava. Press fire to toggle on your brick laying ability that slows you down but has you putting a trail of wall behind you. (The article mentions a devious strategy of walling your opponent into a tiny, vulnerable space then building up a more secure area around yourself.) Tentative Rating:4/5