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Table manners are the order of the day in this game - or rather the lack of them.

Gliding round the screen, you have to slurp up various objects which appear. However, some of them are poisonous, in which case you only have a second to spit them out.

The central character is Slurpy, a Q*bert lookalike. His language may have been cleaned up, but his eating habits are appalling. He must travel round the screen, helped by the fast-reacting joystick-finger of the player.

The game is set in a cave where small blue and red pills bounce around, happily minding their own Pac-Man-like business.

But here's where the similarity to other games ends. You have to go round eating the pills by touching them with the glittering force-field... which extends in front of Slurpy's nose.

If they're blue, then all's OK. If they're red, this means poison, and they must be rejected from the body before they reach the stomach. You must spit them out by pressing the fire button on the joystick.

But if you think that's all there is to this game, then you'd be wrong.

In addition to the pills, or Glowbugs as they're officially known, there are various other undesirables wandering the cave.

On higher levels, there are more of them, but even on early levels you'll encounter scorpions, blinking eyes and more. All of these can be slurped up, provided that they're blue and not red.

At the base of the cave is a row of eggs. If these are touched by one of the aliens, then they'll hatch and more meanies will be born.

All the action takes place against the block; stay in the cave too long and it'll start to cave in. The screen shakes and pieces of rock start falling from the roof. If you manage to get out in time then chances are you'll be hit by a piece of falling debris.

The vortex in front of Slurpy's nose is the only part of his body allowed to come into contact with his food - if anything except a glowbug touches his body, he'll lose one of his three lives.

I think this game is great. There are remnants of other hit games in there, but the overall theme is different enough not to be called a rip-off.

The game uses joystick control, but I found it hard to control Slurpy at times. With perserverance, though, I managed to reach screen five.

Slurpy is from Creative Sparks, the new software division of Thorn EMI. This makes you feel more like you're buying a computer game and less like you're getting a fridge or dishwasher.