D-Bug is an 'educational' game. The idea behind it runs, I think, something like this. If you let your kid sit down with his Commodore 64 and play games morning, noon and night you'll end up with an ace games player with all the intelligence of an artichoke. But, if you buy this game, they can have fun and learn at the same time!

I'm always suspicious of people who try to make out that their games are good for you - the All Bran syndrome (i.e. the only way we'll get people to buy this is if we convince them it's good for them).

This is how it works. The game part of D-Bug is called Gotcha! There are thirty or so symbols on the screen, half are boats, half butterflies. You and your opponent, or the computer, takes turns to capture the symbols, you go for the butterflies, your opponent the boats. Each player captures a piece by moving a cursor over it, but the cursor can only move one square in any direction. The idea is to force your opponent to capture your pieces - for which you get points. Great fun, huh? Gotcha has all the excitement and tactical challenge of noughts and crosses with the added bonus that you don't need a pencil and paper.

But wait, there's more! To make it doubly exciting when you've been playing for about five minutes, the 'computer' breaks down. You must then go inside the computer and trace the bug. This could be anything from an overheating RAM chip to a loose power cable. On the lower levels, you are given clues as to where the fault lies, but later on you have to work it out for yourself. When the fault is rectified, you can go back to playing the boring game until it breaks down again.

I didn't find D-Bug any fun, and I didn't learn anything either. If I was feeling a bit more charitable I might say young children could get something out of it.