The game play revolves around assembling a number of pictures of famous people from the eighties which include Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Charles & Diana and Clive Sinclair (remember the ZX80 or the C5?) amongst others. Each famous face is split into a number of square pieces which are fed into the frame one at a time, on demand but in a random order. All you have to do is assemble the face by correctly positioning all the pieces in the frame! Complete a face to move on to the next level.
Once in the frame pieces can be moved around by sliding them up down left or right. Each piece will slide in the chosen direction until it either hits another piece or the edge of the frame at which point it will stop. Pieces can also be jettisoned from the frame (to be fed back in later) through an opening in the frame which opens and closes continuously. Seems simple enough so far. Well to make things more interesting there are various other "things" that are fed into the frame other than the pieces of the picture. These extra pieces are all items associated with the person who's picture you are currently constructing and if slid into the correct other item they both disappear
and you get bonus points but you have to figure out which items go with each other for yourself. (If jettisoned these pieces do not re-appear). If non matching items are slid together they disappear but you get no bonus. (Hint - Dennis Thatcher moved onto the cocktails should get you a few points!)
Now if all this wasn't enough, as well as the "bonus" pieces a number of bombs are also fed into the frame at random times. You only have a short time in which to either defuse the bomb or jettison it. If a bomb explodes in the frame it's game over! A bomb can be defused using water which comes in the form of a piece with a tap on it. Simply slide tap into bomb or vice versa and they both disappear giving you a bonus. Add to this certain parts of the frame which will either permanently or at random repel a piece slid into it back along the path it came along thus making a move in that direction impossible and you've got one hell of a game.
The basic game play is quite simple yet challenging and the variations are infinite! I got many hours of entertainment out of my old C64 with this one (way back when) and would thoroughly recommend it. If you're into games like tetris and lemmings then I think you'll really like this!
