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Fifteen dungeons packed with spectres, necromancers and assorted nasties lie in wait for those brave enough to enter.

Taking the role of Thor, who can be joined by Sheba (controlled by a second player), you must hack and zap your way through rooms, passageways and stairways to get to the treasure.

Dandy may seem an odd name for a massive, magical, arcade adventure but it is named after an original game that later became known as Gauntlet.

Only a fraction of each dungeon level is shown on the screen at any one time which flips to the next section when you move off the edge of the screen.

This lack of gradual scrolling means that you often rush into situations you'd rather avoid... like a horde of necromancers.

Immediately below the dungeon display is a scroll indicating the present levels of energy and number of keys, treasure and spells for each player.

You begin the game with 1,000 energy units that are drained at an alarming rate whenever a nasty gets near you. Luckily this can be topped up by collecting piles of food that are strewn around the dungeon (usually on the wrong side of an army of dungeon denizens).

Keys, magic and treasure can also be found and are essential to your survival.

The keys are used to open the doors that would otherwise block your path but since there are less keys than doors, care must be taken to use them only on the doors that are important and lead to treasure or the way out. Quite often a room has several doors, all leading to dead ends when the correct route is through a teleport pad that jumps you to a similar pad in an adjacent room.

Use the valuable keys on dead end doors and you won't have enough to reach the stairs that lead to the next level.

Pressing the fire button hurls a hail of blasts at the nasties in your line of fire. One hit is enough to take out most dungeon dwellers but the necromancers need four hits to kill them. The worst to shift are the spectres, not only because they need more hits to kill them but also they can drift through walls that block the others. If you don't get them, they'll certainly get you.

There can be as many as thirty or more critters coming at you so even one shot nasties become a big problem. The answer lies in magic.

Unfortunately, the spells that you find have a random effect when they are cast. Sometimes a spell may wipe out a screenful of nasties, but others may only stun them for a short time or just disorientate them.

Even if you've wiped them out you must move quickly as they'll quickly be replaced as more are generated.

If things get really tough and your energy plummets you can trade treasure for energy that might keep you going long enough to find some more food.

Dandy must be played at a frantic pace, otherwise you will be constantly overrun with nasties. This will mean that you will make mistakes such as using a key on the door you were trying to avoid letting loose a horde of monsters that begin to chase you.

Complete a set of dungeons and you'll be awarded a clue but you'll need to survive all of them to get all three clues to solve the game.

I'm not sure of the point of these clues that are thrown in almost as an afterthought but perhaps when the riddle is solved, it will make more sense. But before then I've got a few more spectres to trash!