Painting and decorating is not one of my favourite jobs but after playing Bristles, it will seem like a good way to relax.

Up to four players each have to paint eight different rooms in a building. You can choose to be any one of eight differently named painters (four are male, four female) and select any of the six skill levels. Trying to hamper your painting and decorating is a weird assortment of objects: dumb flying buckets, intelligent flying half-pint paint pots, a relentless bucket chucker, steam pipes and, last but not least, Brenda the Brat.

Elevators and ladders help you move from floor to floor but you have to watch out that you don't get squashed by a moving lift. Other objects, such as candy bars, paint rollers, safe rooms and paint mixers can help you out of a tight spot.

Each painter is represented by an amusing, large-sized cartoon-style character, suitably garbed in cap and overalls.

Up comes the first room, a three-tiered chamber linked by ladders and lifts. All your painter has to do is to rush around the room, passing every blank wall in sight - the paint is automatically slapped on as he/she passes. The painter can run, climb up and down, leap to the left and right, jump and duck. The animation is most entertaining.

The first lesson you learn is to keep out of the way of any moving lift, otherwise it will bowl you over knocking you head-over-heels back to the start position at the bottom centre of the room. Every time you get knocked down you lose one of your ten brushes (lives). What you're supposed to do is jump on and off a lift when it is stationary.

As well as lifts zipping up and down, there are flying buckets to dodge, paint rollers to grab (for bonus points) and a time limit to beat.

In some rooms Brenda the Brat (the Building Superintendent's horrible little daughter) appears. She has the nasty habit of leaving sticky hand-prints all over your painted walls, so you have to redecorate them. The only way to keep her out of mischief, albeit temporarily, is to grab hold of a candy stick and pass it to her.

All the difficulties are made more bearable by the humorous sound effects and snatches of light classical music which accompany the game throughout.

Bristles has an imaginative plot, excellent animation, good use of sound and a host of challenges. Thoroughly recommended.