On picking up this game I though it was going to be a Jack & the Beanstalk fairytale type game and in a way I suppose it was. However it is a mixed-up game, part fairytale and part science fiction. The author couldn't make up his mind. I'm not sure that it worked. Anyway, Jock lives with his mum in an insignificant house in the middle of nowhere and your quest is to help Jock find his fortune.

Entering Jock's bedroom you can't help but notice a rather large bomb, which, if you examine it, you are told is in fact a painted oil drum which has a hinged door and is ticking. Definitely no ordinary bomb. It is possible to disarm the bomb but it has no relevance to the rest of the game and in fact if you do successfully disarm it the game ends! So there are two parts to this game, the defusing of the bomb and the beanstalk. If you wish to play the rest of the game just ignore the bomb - it won't go off if you don't touch it, even when you go to sleep in the bed.

Anyway in the usual fairytale way I set out to take the "clapped out cow" to market in order to sell it. Instead of the usual magic beans I was given a tin of baked beans! These however proved to be magical also, once the can had been opened, and grew into the obligatory beanstalk ready for me to climb. However on climbing the beanstalk, instead of the expected giant's castle I found myself in a town with a chemist shop, carpark and Chinese laundry. In the Chinese laundry I met a Chinaman who wanted to know if I would like to hire the X-team. On saying yes I learnt that he is really Cannonball Smith and the rest of the team arrive in a black van - why? I'm not sure. After rescuing a lemming who (as all lemmings are) was intent on jumping off the cliff I was rewarded with a pair of pink fur boots - just my colour! From here I made my way to a muddy field containing a blue telephone box. Yes, you are right, we are now into the science fiction part of the game. It's the Turdis and on entering you meet The Doctor but he doesn't do much other than to wander off to "run through some corridors" from time to time.

The Turdis takes you to three different locations, the muddy field where you started, a high security area where you meet Ugeen who is desperate for some coke, and an alien space ship where you will meet some more Dr. Who characters, a Dirlik and Divros. No prizes for guessing who they are. What next? Visiting a nearby carpark and waiting around for a short while there is a large crack and a space-suited figure sitting on a rocket-shaped object appears. The rocket then explodes and you come around in limbo where out of nowhere jumps a tree - yes a tree! Beat that? Yes, sure can! Next a green pig flies close by and asks if you want a lift. Well, why not I thought, there can't be too many flying green pigs around that are capable of carrying me off into the sunset. Well, maybe not the sunset, but to an even stranger land than the first. Reading a nearby sign I learnt that it is a taxi stop. Well why not, let's mix it up a bit more. Anyway before calling for a taxi, I investigated a nearby castle belonging to the giant, with ten-foot high steps leading up to a door with a bell I couldn't reach - back to the fairytale. After gaining entry to the castle and nicking the giant's singing harp I returned to the taxi stand and called a cab which took me back to the top of the beanstalk with the giant chasing me. Dealing with this problem in the normal fairytale manner the beanstalk fell on my house and I went to seek my fortune with the singing harp.

There were a few minor spelling and punctuation errors in Jock & the Beanstalk but nothing that spoils the game. It is a relatively simple game, the hardest part being defusing the bomb, but that doesn't really need to be done anyway. In my opinion the mixture of fantasy and science fiction didn't quite work. On the plus side the game was reasonably well written, the examine command has been implemented and the parser is reasonable. Most important of all is that it is possible to complete the game and the program has no major bugs, which hasn't been the case in a few games I've played recently.