One of the things I like the most about the computer gaming industry is the fact that there's no set formula for success. Doom was a smash hit because it allowed the player to storm around and commit countless acts of violence and mayhem without really harming anyone. Sim City let you develop and plan a community, and was so well received that Maxis could probably sell 100,000 copies of its phone directory if it simply slapped "Sim" in the front of the title. Tetris was really much too simple a game to become popular, but it overcame that apparent handicap to become one of the most recognizable games in the business.

	That simplicity niche is where QQP is trying to fit with Zig Zag, an adaptation of an old Hawaiian word game that the Flemington, NJ-based company is simultaneously releasing in MPC, Windows and Macintosh versions. The premise is simple: you're asked to solve 4-7 letter words or 4-7 digit numbers in a limited amount of turns. However, accomplishing your task isn't nearly as simple as it seems.

	You can't guess the entire word at once, as you're only allowed to guess 2-4 letters at a time. There's no picture of Vanna White anywhere on this game, so you can't simply plug in random letters and hope you get lucky. You have to guess with real words, and each turn forces you to work with a different part of the mystery word.

	Then there's the fact that when you get something right, you're given just enough information to keep you interested in the game. When you guess a letter in its exact location in the mystery word, you earn 1,000 points - but you aren't told which letter is in the exact location. When you guess a letter that's a part of the word, but isn't exactly where you guessed, you earn 250 points - but you aren't told which letter is part of the word.

	This is the point where the aggravation level goes right over the top. The first couple of times I played this game and failed to get anywhere, I told myself that it was because I wasn't concentrating. My theory was that if I bore down and really paid attention, I'd get so damn good at the game that QQP would probably award me with a free trip to Hawaii to show me off to the game's inventors.

	Wrong again. All bearing down made me realize was that the basic design of this game was very well done. If Zig Zag let you just plug in letters, it would be too easy. If it told exactly where your correct letters were, or which letters were part of the puzzle, it would be too easy. By putting these special rules in effect, what they came up with was a game that's too hard to overwhelm in a hurry, but too challenging to simply give up on.

	The game also has a set of four quests, which are simply vehicles to allow the gameplayer to string together a bunch of puzzles into one game. You move from the start to the finish of quest by successfully solving puzzles. There are special point values involved, and you're moving within a maze that involves roadblocks, but your success and failure will still be driven by how good you are at solving those maddening puzzles.

	To be honest, I can't really say much of anything about the number puzzles, since I didn't spend any time playing them. Dabbling in digits in Zig Zag is probably easier than letters, since I imagine you aren't limited to in the number combinations that you can use to solve the puzzle, but going that route held little interest for me.

	The interface includes an option which allows you to keep track of your correct and incorrect guesses. When this window appears, it blocks out part of your view of the game screen, so you have to move it around to get it to fit. And, in the IBM version of the game, you can't leave that particular option on when you're working on the puzzle, so that's probably not as helpful as it could be.

	Of course, this complaint falls in the category of "there's no such thing as a perfect game, so I've got to find something I don't like." Don't let this problem keep you from playing the game. As a matter of fact, don't let anything keep you from playing it. Dig up those Bermuda shorts, don that wild flowery shirt, grab a seat in front of the computer and pleasantly while away the hours with Zig Zag.