[{"TitleName":"Tiler","Publisher":"Interceptor Software","Author":"Stephen N. Curtis, Terry Greer","YearOfRelease":"1984","ZxDbId":"0005270","Reviews":[{"Issue":{"Name":"Crash Issue 11, Dec 1984","Price":"£0.85","ReleaseDate":"1984-11-15","Editor":"Roger Kean","TotalPages":164,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Roger Kean\r\nConsultant Editor: Franco Frey\r\nProduction Designer: David Western\r\nArt Editor: Oliver Frey\r\nAdventure Editor: Derek Brewster\r\nStaff Writer: Lloyd Mangram\r\nContributing Writers: Matthew Uffindel, Chris Passey\r\nClient Liaison: John Edwards\r\nSubscription Manager: Denise Roberts\r\nCirculation Manager: Tom Hamilton\r\nAll circulation enquiries should ring [redacted]\r\n\r\n©1984 Newsfield Limited.\r\nCrash Micro is published monthly by Newsfield Ltd. [redacted]\r\n\r\nGeneral correspondence to: [redacted]\r\n\r\nTelephone numbers\r\nGeneral office [redacted]\r\nEditorial/studio [redacted]\r\nAdvertising [redacted]\r\nHot Line [redacted]\r\n\r\nNo material may be reproduced in whole or in part without written consent from the copyright holders.\r\n\r\nPhotosetting by SIOS [redacted]\r\nColour origination by Scan Studios, [redacted]\r\nPrinted in England by Carlisle Web Offset Ltd (Member of the BPCC Group), [redacted].\r\nDistribution by COMAG, [redacted]\r\n\r\nSubscriptions: 12 issues £10.50 (UK Mainland post free)\r\nEurope: 12 issues £17.50 (post free).\r\n\r\nWe cannot undertake to return any written or photographic material sent to CRASH Magazine unless accompanied by a stamped addressed envelope.\r\n\r\nCover by Oliver Frey"},"MainText":"Producer: Interceptor Micros\r\nMemory Required: 48K\r\nRetail Price: £5.50\r\nLanguage: Machine code\r\nAuthor: Stephen Curtis\r\n\r\nYou have been contracted by Acme (what else) Construction to go and tile the roof of Rob Rubber's roof. But this task is frustrating because Rob is a bouncer - he bounces all over the place like a manic deep sea diver in an over-pressurised suit. If he should land on you, then you're squashed fiat.\r\n\r\nThe game is played out over three screens, the inside of the house, the garden and the garage. Nothing is quite as straight forward as it first seems - stairs are all one way, a key is needed to get through the garage to the garden, and from there you go up past the tree house onto the garage roof to coiled the tiles. Tiles and key are collected by running over them, and as the tiles are deposited on the roof, they automatically appear in place, ready for you to go and collect another one. There is a panic button to press if you can't avoid being squashed by Rob, but you forfeit any tile carried at the time.\r\n\r\nCOMMENTS\r\n\r\nControl keys: Q/A up/down, O/P left/right, SPACE to panic\r\nJoystick: Sinclair 2,\r\nKempston, Protek\r\nKeyboard play: good positions, very responsive\r\nUse of colour: good\r\nGraphics: good backgrounds, poor animated characters\r\nSound: average\r\nSkill levels: 1\r\nLives: 5\r\nScreens: 3\r\nSpecial features:","ReviewerComments":["What a jolly looking game this seemed to be when first looking at it. What a shame, instead of the stickman there could have been someone a bit fatter walking about for you. Playing the game is quite easy, except for the fact that Rob bounces about rather wildly and unpredictably. After discovering the way of collecting tiles to be placed on the roof and working my way back through the screens to get to the roof, something became distinctly apparent about this game - it was going to be very tedious and long-winded. This is a major let down of the game. Tiler lacks an enormous amount of content and has no instant or lasting appeal. \r\r\nUnknown","Tiler would quite possibly win a prize for one of the silliest scenarios ever written. Before making comments on the game itself, I would like to point out that the Hall of Fame is really frustrating. Onto the game; the background is filled up rather well and the graphics are good, but the actual characters are not over impressive. Playability is okay at first as you have to find out where to go etc., but it soon becomes repetitive - addictivity thus suffers. Not, I suppose, a bad game, but this fetch and carry type scenario is now wearing a little thin - I mean, in this case avoiding a rubber man while you tile a roof is not ultra-challenging. To fill the roof takes many tiles - you will probably lose a life while falling asleep.\r\r\nUnknown","Tiler is a very infuriating game. The graphics are, at first glance, very good, but they seem to look worse when you examine the two character moving around, The one-way stairs are about the only hazard in this game, you don I even have to work out a routine to get around the screens. By the time I'd tiled half the roof I had become very bored with this one.\r\nUnknown"],"OverallSummary":"General Rating: Repetetive, lacking in content and ultimately below average.","Page":"59","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Unknown","Score":"","ScoreSuffix":""},{"Name":"Unknown","Score":"","ScoreSuffix":""},{"Name":"Unknown","Score":"","ScoreSuffix":""}],"ScreenshotText":[{"Text":"The way up to the garage roof is via the tree house. Good looking backgrounds but poor character in TILER."}],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Use of Computer","Score":"72%","Text":""},{"Header":"Graphics","Score":"61%","Text":""},{"Header":"Playability","Score":"50%","Text":""},{"Header":"Getting Started","Score":"63%","Text":""},{"Header":"Addictive Qualities","Score":"39%","Text":""},{"Header":"Value For Money","Score":"54%","Text":""},{"Header":"Overall","Score":"57%","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"Big K Issue 9, Dec 1984","Price":"£0.85","ReleaseDate":"1984-11-20","Editor":"Tony Tyler","TotalPages":132,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Tony Tyler\r\nAssisted By: Richard Burton\r\nArt Editor: Ian Stead\r\nFeatures: Nicky Xikluna\r\nContributors: Andy Green; Kim Aldis (Features); Steve Keaton; Richard Cook; Richard Taylor; David Rimmer; John Conquest; Nigel Farrier, Duncan Gamble; Tony Benyon; Fin Fahey; Gary Liddon\r\nPublisher: Barry Leverett\r\nPublishing Director: John Purdie\r\nGroup Advertising Controller: Luis Bartlett\r\nAdvertisement Manager: Robin Johnson [redacted]\r\n\r\nEditorial Address: [redacted]\r\nTelephone: [redacted]\r\n\r\nPublished approximately on the 20th of each month by IPC Magazines Ltd. [redacted]. Monotone and colour origination by G.M. Litho Ltd [redacted]. Printed in England by Chase Web Offset, Cornwall. Sole Agents: Australia and New Zealand, Gordon& Gotch (A/sia) Ltd.; South Africa, Central News Agency Ltd. BIG K is sold subject to the following conditions, namely that it shall not, without the written consent of the Publishers first given, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise disposed of by way of trade at more than the recommended selling price shown on the cover, and that it shall not be lent, resold or hired out or otherwise disposed of in a mutilated constitute or any unauthorised cover by way of trade or affixed to as part of any publication or advertising, literary or pictorial matter whatsoever. IPC MAGAZINES 1984."},"MainText":"MAKER: Interceptor\r\nFORMAT: cassette\r\nPRICE: £5.50\r\n\r\nWhat ho! Has somebody come up with a game where you have to edit a computer mag? This should be pretty gory stuff. But no, all you have to do is tile the roof of a house. Easy? Well, actually no, because the house belongs to Rob Rubbers who can't stop bouncing around and if he bounces into you, you get squashed. There are three high-res screens, the house, the garage and the garden. The tiles are on the garage roof which is reached, for choice, from the garden. Different levels are connected by one-way stairs and you have to collect keys to pass from the house to the garage and the garage to the garden. All in all, filling your hod becomes a pretty fraught enterprise.\r\n\r\nThere are three criticisms I'd make,; neither of the figures, the tiler or Rob Rubbers, is as well defined as the background and the tiler especially can get lost against it; Rob doesn't bounce, as far as I can see, according to the physics that I was taught, so it's impossible to predict his trajectory; and when you move from one screen to the next, you have no way of knowing where Rob will be sop, there's a good chance that you'll walk straight into him, unless you're very quick with the Panic button which will take you to an adjacent screen. Even so, an enjoyable game and interesting to see one with at least one foot in the real world.","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"30","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"John Conquest","Score":"2","ScoreSuffix":"/3"}],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Graphics","Score":"2/3","Text":""},{"Header":"Playability","Score":"1/3","Text":""},{"Header":"Addictiveness","Score":"2/3","Text":""},{"Header":"Overall","Score":"2/3","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"Personal Computer Games Issue 13, Dec 1984","Price":"£0.95","ReleaseDate":"1984-11-15","Editor":"Chris Anderson","TotalPages":172,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Chris Anderson\r\nDeputy Editor: Steve Cooke\r\nProduction Editor: Roderick George\r\nArt Editor: Ian Findlay\r\nStaff Writers: Peter Connor, Bob Wade\r\nEditorial Assistant: Samantha Hemens\r\nCartoons: Kipper Williams\r\nScreenshots: Chris Bell\r\nGame-of-the-month poster: Graham Humphreys\r\nArt Director: Jim Dansie\r\nGroup Publisher: John Cade\r\nPublisher: Tony Harris\r\nGroup Advertisement Manager: Peter Goldstein\r\nAdvertisement Manager: Sarah Barron\r\nAssistant Advertisement Manager: Phil Pratt\r\nSales Executives: Ian Cross, Marion O'Neill\r\nProduction Manager: Noel O'Sullivan\r\nAdvertisement Assistant: Susie Cooper\r\n\r\nPublished by VNU Business Publications, [redacted]. Typesetting by Spectrum Typesetting, [redacted] Origination by Fourmost Colour [redacted]. Printed and bound by Chase Web Offset [redacted]. © VNU Business Publications 1984."},"MainText":"MACHINE: Spectrum 48K\r\nCONTROL: Keys, Kemp, Sinc, Prot\r\nFROM: Interceptor Micros, £5.50\r\n\r\nPlaying this game made me wonder where on Earth computer game writers get their ideas from. The author of this particular program must either possess an incredibly twisted imagination or spend half his life drugged to the eyeballs. Would you think up a plot like this?\r\n\r\nAs the tiler, you must walk around the house, garage and garden of one Rob Rubber, collecting tiles and taking them to the roof. Meanwhile - and here's the weird bit - Rob bounces around performing incredible leaps and cartwheels. Should you be caught underneath him you are squashed and lose a life. Now try and tell me the author of this is a sane human being.\r\n\r\nThe three scenes are beautifully drawn, from the bathtub and lights of the house, to the car in the garage and the tree house in the garden. You are a pleasant little stick-man who walks quite smoothly while Mr Rubber performs his acrobatics in equally pleasing graphic style.\r\n\r\nYou go from location to location, up and down stairs and, on possession of a key, through doors. The tiles are in the garage and you must take them to the roof of the house, all the while dodging Rob.\r\n\r\nUnfortunately, you must collect so many of the things - you can only carry one at a time - that the game can become a routine as you repeatedly follow the same path again and again. Thus the lasting appeal of the program is doubtful, even beyond the first few days.\r\n\r\nControlling your man is easy enough, either with keys or any of the three popular joysticks. However you do find that getting off stairs is a problem, as you need to be at either the very top or bottom.\r\n\r\nA pity really, because a nice, if strange, idea and some good graphics have been spoilt by a lack of variety.","ReviewerComments":["I have mixed feelings about this game. On the one hand, the graphics of the locations are really superb, colourful and totally hi-resolution. But on the other, it seems that Interceptor have designed these at the expense of everything else.\r\r\n\r\r\nAs character graphics go the stickman in this game is totally unappealing and extremely hard to control. There is no variety in this game and I soon tired of it.\r\nMartyn Smith","As the saying goes, 'All that glitters is not gold', and unfortunately this is very true of Interceptor's Tiler. The background scenes are very attractive, perhaps even up to Ultimate standards, but sadly the programmer has forgotten that a game so needs to be playable. Your stick-like man has a tendency to become invisible when he clashes with some of the badly chosen background colours - this is really very annoying.\r\r\n\r\r\nThere is a very limited variety of gameplay, with only you and Rob Rubber in the neighbourhood. With the time it takes to transport tiles to the roof and your adversary the bouncing Rob, this rapidly loses what little shine it has.\r\nSteve Spittle"],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"56,57","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Peter Walker","Score":"5","ScoreSuffix":"/10"},{"Name":"Martyn Smith","Score":"","ScoreSuffix":""},{"Name":"Steve Spittle","Score":"","ScoreSuffix":""}],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Graphics","Score":"7/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Sound","Score":"5/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Originality","Score":"7/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Lasting Interest","Score":"5/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Overall","Score":"5/10","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"Personal Computer News Issue 82, Oct 1984","Price":"","ReleaseDate":"1984-10-05","Editor":"Peter Worlock","TotalPages":66,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editorial\r\nEditor: Peter Worlock\r\nProduction Editor: Lauraine Turner\r\nDeputy Production Editor: Leah Batham\r\nSub-Editor: Harriet Arnold\r\nEditor's Assistant: Karen Isaac\r\nNews Editor: David Guest\r\nNews Writer: Ralph Bancroft\r\nNews Writer/Sub Editor: Sandra Grandison\r\nFeatures Editor: John Lettice\r\nSoftware Editor: Bryan Skinner\r\nPeripherals Editor: Kenn Garroch\r\nHardware Editor: Stuart Cooke\r\nPrograms Editor: Nickie Robinson\r\nArt Director: Jim Dansie\r\nArt Editor: David Alexander\r\nAssistant Art Editor: Tim Brown\r\nLayout Artist: Bruce Preston\r\nPublisher: Cyndy Miles\r\nPublishing Assistant: Tobe Bendeth\r\n\r\nAdvertising\r\nGroup Advertising Manager: Peter Goldstein\r\nAdvertisement Manager: Bettina Williams\r\nAssistant Advertisement Managers: Sarah Barron, Phil Pratt\r\nSenior Sales Executives: Laura Cade, Claire Rowbottom\r\nSales Executives: Claire Barnes, Phil Benson, Mike Blackman, Paul Evans, Tony Keefe, Christian McCarthy, Amanda Moore, Sarah Musgrave, Tony O'Reilly\r\nProduction: Richard Gaffrey\r\nAdvertisement Assistant: Jan Moore\r\nSubscription Enquiries: Gill Stevens\r\nSubscription Address: [redacted]\r\nEditorial Address: [redacted]\r\nAdvertising Address: [redacted]\r\n\r\nPublished by VNU Business Publications, [redacted]\r\n© VNU 1983. No material maybe reproduced in whole or in part without written consent from the copyright holders.\r\nPhotoset by Quickset, [redacted]\r\nPrinted by Chase Web Offset, [redacted]\r\nDistributed by Seymour Press, [redacted]\r\nRegistered at the PO as a newspaper"},"MainText":"PRICE: £5.50\r\nPUBLISHER: Interceptor Micros [redacted]\r\n\r\nThe trouble with being in the building trade is the way your customers tend to fuss around you while you're working. Normally this is just annoying, but in Tiler, where your goal is to tile Rob Rubber's roof, it's downright dangerous.\r\n\r\nRob, you see, is a man with a problem. It may have just started with a all ht spring in his step, but now his condition is such that he just can't stop bouncing and, as he's also swollen up to Michelin man proportions, if he accidentally bounces on top of you - it's curtains.\r\n\r\nUnfortunately, the game doesn't seem to have a facility for jumping on his back, grabbing hold of his ears and using him as a spacehopper. The only thing you can do is make your way back and forth between the roof and the stack of tiles, keeping clear of Rob.\r\n\r\nThe game consists of three screens, each one being a cutaway section of part of the Rubber residence. You start off on the ground floor of the main building, and to get to the tiles you must go through the garage into the garden, up to the tree house, then back onto the garage roof to collect a tile.\r\n\r\nYou then have to take your tile back the way you came, then up to the attic where you apparently stick it onto the inside of the roof, and go back for the next one.\r\n\r\nAlong the way, you'll encounter several locked doors which you can only pass by using one of the keys sprinkled around the shop. And things are made more difficult by the stairways being one-way for you. Rob however, cartwheels up and down them with ease.\r\n\r\nVisually, the game is a hoot, the detailed graphics being set off nicely by Rob's comic figure bouncing around. But the game isn't all that challenging.\r\n\r\nAlso the continuing trudge from attic to garage and back can get pretty tedious. The review copy also had a couple of odd flaws in it.\r\n\r\nAssuming they are cured Tiler isn't at all a bad little game, but it could really have been a bit more difficult.","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"48","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"John Lettice","Score":"6","ScoreSuffix":"/10"}],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Overall","Score":"6/10","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]}]}]