Wild Life Tony Roberts, Liverpool. One of the greatest problems I have with my Spectrum is not mentioned in any of the manuals: the insistence of my four- year old daughter that she should be the one to press the keys. Most of the games I have are simply beyond here and, as yet, there is no software produced specifically for the pre-school child. This program has several advantages over a bought pro- gram, in any case. It is entirely modular, and plays as many games as you wish in a random sequence; each indivi- dual game is a short, simple affair, and it is easy to write your own to fit in with your child's wishes or with what he/she is doing in nursery. The four games in this version are just counting games - in one, 1 to 12 variously coloured butterflies flit around aboce a field of grass, in another worms of extraordinary length crawl out of the grass, the third has flowers of various sizes, and the last apples in a tree. In each case, the child has to count the butterflies/ worms/flowers/apples and press the appropriate number on the keyboard. As I wanted to use numbers up to 12, I re- defined the zero key as number 12, the ENTER as 11, and space as 12 - and stuck labels marked 10, 11, 12 on to the keys. Various other exciting things happen like a tune - out of the Spectrum manual - when the answer is right, a big cross or tick on the screen as appropriate, and other odd noises at various times. As usual, the program's organised "back-to-front" in order to speed response times. Each batch of lines 1100- 1199, 1200-1299 through to 8800-8899, 8900-8999 is intended to contain a game. Here are the main variables: Variable Purpose o Set to the number of games to be randomly accessed m (=1) Set from the keyboard - silences most of the noisy routines n Random number between 1 and 12 n$ String form of n g Line number of start of animation routine for each game - this is GO SUBbed between each scan of INKEY$, so keep it short x,y Screen co-ordinates Each routine is accessed 1 to n times to set up your graphics, then g is accessed once between each scan of the keyboard. Pressing m mutes the program, and n will make it noisy again.