Dandy (video game)
Dandy (later Dandy Dungeon) is a dungeon crawl for the Atari 8-bit computers. Dandy is one of the first games to offer simultaneous, four-player, cooperative play. It also includes a built-in level editor. Dandy was the direct inspiration for the popular 1985 Atari Games coin-op, Gauntlet.
Gameplay
Dandy takes place in a maze-like dungeon, seen from an overhead view. The dungeon has multiple levels, connected together using stairwells. Portions of the mazes are blocked by locked doors, which can be opened with keys scattered through the maze. The goal of the game is to fight through the maze to the next stairwell, from there to the next level, and proceed through the dungeon's levels to the end.
The players are armed with a bow and arrow which can be shot in any of the eight cardinal directions. Monsters come in several varieties, though the differences are strictly graphical. When hit, the monsters "devolve" to the next less-powerful state, before eventually being killed and disappearing. Some monsters are placed in the maze during its pre-game creation and appear as soon as that level is entered, while others are produced in skull-shaped monster generators.