Dandy (video game)
Dandy (later Dandy Dungeon) is a dungeon crawl maze game for Atari 8-bit computers published by the Atari Program Exchange in 1983. It is one of the first video games with four-player, simultaneous cooperative play. Players equipped with bows and unlimited arrows fight through a maze containing monsters, monster spawners, keys, locked doors, food, and bombs in search of the exit leading to the next level. If a player dies, they can be revived by finding and shooting a heart. The game includes an editor for making new dungeons.
| Dandy | |
|---|---|
| Publisher(s) | Atari Program Exchange Antic Software Electric Dreams |
| Designer(s) | John Howard Palevich Joel Gluck |
| Programmer(s) | John Howard Palevich |
| Platform(s) | Atari 8-bit, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum |
| Release | 1983: Atari 8-bit / APX 1985: Atari 8-bit / Antic 1986: C64, Amstrad, Spectrum |
| Genre(s) | Dungeon crawl, maze |
| Mode(s) | Single-player, 2-4 player multiplayer |
Dandy was written by John Howard Palevich for his undergraduate thesis while attending MIT, drawing inspiration from Dungeons & Dragons, Defender, and arcade maze games. Some of the levels, and level design elements which have become standard in dungeon crawls, were developed by fellow student Joel Gluck.
The 1985 Atari Games arcade video game Gauntlet built upon the core design of Dandy, and a lawsuit from Palevich was settled out of court. Gauntlet designer Ed Logg later called Dandy a direct influence. Electric Dreams Software published versions of Dandy for the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, and Amstrad CPC in 1986. Dandy was reworked into Dark Chambers, without Palevich's direct involvement, and published by Atari Corporation for the Atari 2600, Atari 7800, and Atari 8-bit family.
The name Dandy is a play on D&D, the common abbreviation for Dungeons & Dragons.