14 / 20
Haunted Hedges is one of those early games you would load from Tape and the Whole Family could play. The game offers 5 Difficulty Levels with each level ed from the Title Screen, during play when the board is cleared a new board is drawn, the difficulty of the new board is only triggered by an increase in speed, however the Ghosts vulnerability is shortened when a Pick has been grabbed.
The use of the MODE 1 Graphics in this game reduces the to 4 Colours, which on comparison with the Spectrum version has less colour, though the Rendering of the Maze looks very good giving that 3D appearance. Your main character only has 1 colour, though the animation of your character I thought to be very good and though various sections of the Maze your character appears different.
The use of Sound is limited to Effects (picking up coins, running into Ghosts), with a short Jangly tune when the Board is cleared, the Lack of a Theme tune I felt is unimportant for this game as it makes the game even eerier.
The playability in my mind demonstrates a game playable even today, your character moves at a pace which may feel time consuming, the game gradually picks up pace though only when boards are cleared, so the 1st few boards may feel tedious, this plays a role due to the number of animation sequences needed for your character to move through due to the use of MODE 1.
In terms of Addictiveness, historically this game would have been addictive when it came out and simply watching other family members playing the game would give cause to play yourself. Haunted Hedges offers 5 difficulty levels making it suitable to difficulty based on your age and your desires to avoid the Ghosts, strategising how to get the ghosts and Clearing the Boards. These days it might seem to be something played for a short while, load the Disc through the Emulator and play for 10 minutes or so get a few laughs of out it.
The game offers only one board, though had others been included the game would taken longer to load, the game has a couple of bugs (Game Over message turning to Gibberish for example), the main one seems to be collecting the Bonus', occasionally when this occurs a big score can be reached when one Bonus is replaced with another, which continues over and over when your character passes through the bonus.
For me what's missing in this game which would have made the game interesting is a High Score Table for all of the Difficulty, instead it only offers a singular High Score, perhaps Derek felt that should be enough and offer a range of Levels so everyone could have a change of making a large score, though given the game offers 5 different difficulty settings making for an interesting game.

2 / 20
J’me souviens, à l’époque, j’m étais demandé en le lançant si ce n’était pas un jeu que j’avais programmé auparavant ?!
NAN … Allez, DELETE ! (ou ERASE plutôt)