Developer: Ed Raven
Genre: Text Adventure
Platform: Spectrum 48K
Language: BASIC

Ed gets off to a dodgy start in this, his 2nd entry, with a short-but-quite-good rendition of that spooky music from The Exorcist followed by this effective, if a little disturbing, loader!

No messing about here as, after a short 'please wait...,' you're thrown straight into the game - a text adventure - in which the unnamed protagonist appears to have got himself into a spot of bother with some of society's less desirable elements.

You find yourself tied up in the trunk* of a car, there's nothing you can see and there's no obvious way out... What do you do?

While it's obvious what you're meant to be doing, you're given no clue how to go about doing it, so I reach for my handy copy of Interactive Fiction for Numpties and start typing...

Get Out, Unwear Ropes, Open Trunk. The game whirs and clicks as if it's thinking about what I've asked it to do, however, I'm not getting anywhere. Then comes an ominous message; "The air in here feels thinner as each moment passes. You need to get out!"

Oh no - we have ourselves an oxygen supply problem!

It's worth noting that the parser in this game seems almost competent!? Look at something and it tells you it's dark, try to move and it reminds you there are no exits, try to pick something up and it questions 'where?'

I'm starting to feel a little claustrophobic anyway but it seems being locked up is the least of my worries - it's about to get a whole lot worse; another ominous message; "You feel something brush against your hair and freeze in terror!"

WHAT. THE. (Fudge - Ed) !?

Ever since seeing The Grudge I've not done too well with creepy figures appearing silently in the background, or waiting for the scary face to edge forward and reveal itself from out of the darkness. Nick (Um.. Ed) knows this and so I know he's done this on purpose.

As far as I can tell though, unlike Minty from Boo!, the spooky presence in this game is entirely in your head - or at least it's never got me?!

Thankfully a few of these creepy messages later I'm dead, having suffocated, and I don't think I've ever been so happy!?

As a game this explores an interesting and, at the same time, macabre theme that - while par for the course in modern movies and games like Grand Theft Auto - somehow seems a bit extreme here in the CSSCGC?

Of course the joke here is that nothing you type appears to do any good, however, for those who persevere (or BREAK into the listing and cheat) there is a way out of the trunk* and a classic horror ending that I won't spoil for you.

Nicely done Ed. When will you learn?

* or boot, for us Brits.