Adventure/Sword and Sorcery: Loom. Also Bard's Tale III. Non-Traditional Adventure: Altered Destiny (PC, not Amiga). Runner-up: Deju Vu II. Graphics and Animation: 3 in Three (Mac). Vehicle Simulation: F-16 Falcon v3.0. Runner-up: 'Vette (Mac color version). Arcade/Action: Wing Commander. Strategic Simulation: Patton Strikes Back. Sports: Playmaker Football (Mac and PC). Board Game: The Many Faces of Go. Educational: SimAnt (Mac). Best New Idea: The Playroom and The Treehouse (Mac and PC). Runner-up: Klotski (Windows 3.0) sliding block puzzles.

My own new software love is a pop-up reminder system for to-do lists. (I bought Visionary Software's First Things First because it was cheap. It also came with LifeGuard, a desk accessory that warns you if you've been typing too long without a break.) I use FTF to track ordinary things, like when to pick up the kids and which day to do the white laundry. [Did I mention laundry as one of the joys of a home office?] I feel a weight dropping from my mind every time I type a reminder into the system.

If you do a lot of flying, you might like software for managing travel accounts and maximizing frequent-flyer bonuses, car rental discounts, and hotel packages. TravelWare, Inc. (Salt Lake City, UT) offers Personal Traveler for $149, including quarterly updates of bonus regulations. (800) 336-6312. [Computer Currents, 11/5.] (Perhaps a travel agency or database provider would pay for a bonus-based AI scheduling system.)

Having one set of software on your lap-top and another on your home or office PC is a bummer. Noah Matthews recommends the following shareware programs as suitable for either platform. For word processing -- including headings, footnotes, and spell- checking -- Noah recommends PC-Write Lite from Quicksoft. Lync, for communications, has advantages over the popular ProComm. Contact Plus manages your phone book, client list, and appointments, and even has a word processor with form letters and mail merge. TravelWare notifies you of appointments and helps track flights, calls, and expenses. Other useful utilities are Nicad to monitor battery life, Strobe to make your cursor more visible, and Automenu for hard-disk file management. Noah will send you the programs for $4 each, or $15 for all four plus a 3.5" or 5.25" disk of lap-top utilities. Write to Shareware, P.O. Box 7037, Long Beach, CA 90807. (Registration of the programs is another $79, $25, $79, and $30.) [SJM, 11/24.]

-- Ken