Excerpt: Ignatious Watts Intergalactic Adventure

Iggy moved his character slowly. There were no obstacles in this part of the game but he’d moved only a small way from his starting point when he was joined by another character. Before Iggy had time to react, it attacked him.
The eagle man towered over his short, squat troll.
With wickedly pointed claws, it took only a few short, sharp blows and the troll was down. Desperately, Iggy flailed the club above its head. But the eagle let out a piercing cry, which ran right through Iggy’s head, and struck out again, this time with some kind of fire blasted directly from its eyes.
‘Nasty,’ said the fat technician, still watching at Iggy’s side. ‘Better use one of your special abilities.’
What special ability? Iggy wanted to scream.
He’d never seen this game. He doubted if Alex had ever seen this game. Yet something small in Iggy’s mind prickled with the thought that Alex would be doing a lot better than this.
One more blast from the eagle and his troll was finished.
Even though Iggy knew he couldn’t move, he wanted turn his head to look apologetically at the technician.
And the technician had adopted a shocked silence.
From the other side of the room, the bearded man strode angrily, hands on hips.
‘What was that?’ he bellowed.
‘Technical difficulty,’ said the sympathetic technician. For a few seconds he fiddled with the wires on Iggy’s helmet, then bent to whisper in his ear.
‘I’m going to reset you and pretend that didn’t happen. And for goodness sake, blink your eyes to do a ground thump next time anyone gets anywhere near you.’
The troll reappeared on the giant screen.
With the technicians advice, Iggy did slightly better.
One ground thump destroyed a hoard of little nippy things that came his way and a wall blocking his path easily disintegrated with another blow.
He had just started enjoying himself when he came across a lava filled chasm.
There was no bridge, nothing to swing from and no way around, only a small platform that hovered at a considerable distance from the edge of the pit. He would have to jump.