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Fancy riding a dragon from its lair in the Black Mountains into the wild blue yonder? Of course you do. Fancy playing a slow, boring game, written in Basic, that's about as challenging as a game of one-player Snap? Of course you don't. Well, I've got bad news for you...

Salamander's program just doesn't make the grade. You control a dragon as it flaps ponderously about the screen, and by pressing the 'f0' key you can fire at some rather indistinct graphics shapes as they move slowly from the top of the screen to the bottom.

If they hit the bottom of the screen, there is a noise like an explosion and a bit of the ground disappears.

Your dragon only has a limited amount of energy, and changes colour as it gets tired. Once it turns black you have only a few seconds left, unless you get it down to earth and land it on a magenta-coloured rock where it can feed and replenish its energy.

You have to manoeuvre it carefully into exactly the right position before it will start to eat. If all this is too difficult for you, you can try pressing the 'f1' key, which releases the dragon's fiery breath and wipes out two or three of the enemy at one blow. This uses more energy and the game finishes sooner, so I suppose there is something to be said for it.

The higher skill levels do little to improve the game, except that the dragon runs out of energy quicker. I'm afraid I ran out of interest long before my last dragon ran out of breath.