psAddle I've never played the game Addle, so I didn't really know what to expect from psAddle. This is a numbers strategy game ported to the Psion by John Peat and continued by Martin Guthrie of Clock5 fame, distributed by FreEPOC. I definitely have an opinion now, though!

psAddle starts with a soundclip from the Simpsons, which surprised me somewhat! You are thrust straight into a game, but if it's your first game it would be wise to look at the help file, which is concise, but gets the job done because the game itself is very simple. You are shown an 8x8 grid of numbers ranging randomly from about 1 to 16, with one raised column. You must then choose a number from this highlighted section, then the row the number you chose from is raised and the computer picks from this row. Then the column that the computer chose from is selected, and you choose from that column, and so it goes on.

This sounds very easy, but actually it isn't, since if you just pick the highest number in your column this could allow the computer to take a larger number in the row you open up for it. Sometimes you end up with a Catch-22 situation where any number you choose will allow the computer to select a larger one, and in these cases you have to compromise.

To make matters worse, your score is actually your score minus the computer's score, so it isn't good enough just to beat the Psion - you must beat it by the largest amount possible! A running total is kept of the number of games that you and the computer win as well. Three difficulty levels are offered, so in Easy mode the computer blindly picks the highest number on offer, but in Normal and Hard modes it gets more intelligent. I don't claim to be a particularly good games player, but I couldn't always win against the Psion on Normal mode.

The presentation of psAddle is good, including several sound effects and even toolbar icons like the Series 5mx, without the text becoming truncated! You even get 'Welcome back!' appearing in the bottom right when you switch to a different program, then back to psAddle. The only tiny snag is that the Score and Best/Wins labels look like buttons, although they do nothing when tapped, but this is no major problem.

psAddle is a hopelessly, even abominably addictive game. Its gameplay is simple and easy to pick up, but it has huge 'just one more try' value, especially since you tot up your Wins counter whenever you defeat the Psion. Well worth trying, provided that you don't mind not getting much work done on your palmtop...