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I think, when we play games today, we gravitate towards those which have a sense of justice about them. Put in the time, and reap the rewards. That's why games like Bejeweled and Candy Crush are so darn popular. They reward repeated play. The more you play them, the better you get at pattern matching against the clock.

Magic Mushrooms is the absolute opposite. It's a diabolical travesty of a game with no sense of fair play. I despise it.

The basic premise of the game is identical to many others. You've got ladders, platforms, conveyor belts, shaky floors, disappearing floors, icy floors and patrolling red bugs. You have 99 seconds on the clock when each screen starts, and the aim is to collect all the mushrooms on the screen then stand on the chequered flag box.

Mushrooms are plotted at random, so they are in different places every time you play the same screen. The bugs also move randomly, changing direction on a whim. This is where all the problems come in.

A bit like playing a game of bingo, whether you will have any chance of a win has already been pre-determined by the fates. If you need to jump from one platform to another without leaping into a bug, but the bug just loiters on the square you want to jump to then of course the time will run out before you can progress. If you're leaping over a bug but it changes its course whilst you're airborne then you'll land on it no matter what.

The pixel-perfect positioning which is needed to leap the central character, Murphy, from one platform to the next is another issue. The time limits, which are tight at best and impossible at worst, mean that there's simply no time to plan ahead.

You don't so much as play Magic Mushrooms as scurry around its levels at breakneck speed. Even then, every single game is still guaranteed to leave you howling with frustration. What's remarkable to me playing it now is that I don't remember it being nearly as galling in my childhood as it now seems.

That revelation is actually the most fascinating thing about it. It has an in-built screen editor (one of the first games to do so!) and, in my misspent youth, I constructed many an intricate screen and challenged myself or friends to clear it within 99 seconds.

And yet now, I just cannot muster up any enthusiasm for it whatsoever. Pretty graphics? Meh. Assortment of platforms? Also meh. If there were a strategy to playing it that would at least just tip the odds in my favour, I'd say fair enough as platform games go. But considering I paused when I needed to, I jumped at the right time and I absolutely could not have done any of it any more quickly - but yet I still ran out of time, sorry, it's unplayable unfair garbage. So I call it out as such and recommend you steer very well clear.

If looking for a physical version of Magic Mushrooms, note that it's one of the more difficult ones to track down and it's one of the very few Acornsoft games that originally came with a manual. If it's all there and complete, expect to pay a somewhat astonishing £10-£15 for this game.