The player starts off in the middle of a
maze level covered by fog. The first ten levels are a mix of trees, cacti,
sunflowers, and
Easter Island style statues. Progress is achieved by completing each floor and
warping to the next by moving the character to a differently colored square, found by clearing the level. Weapons, armor, potions, rings, food, money and enemies are randomly placed on the ground. If a player walks around for too long without picking up food, he will die of starvation. Cake objects give 11 to 27 and meat objects 42 to 46 food points. The maximum number of food points is 99 and each food point allows the character to move six spaces on the screen. The player has a number of
Hit Points dependent on the level achieved, these increase by killing monsters and advancing to the next character level. Hit points are traded in battle with the enemy and recovered by moving around. Money is used to revive from death, increasing in cost with the number and severity of previous deaths. The game is essentially turn-based, with each movement or action the equivalent to one turn and both monsters and the player will take it in turn to make an attack. This means getting surrounded can be particularly dangerous as every enemy would get one attack for every one attack the player makes. Likewise, a player who wanted to take their time in thinking about what to do next in a battle could do so without being attacked by just standing still. Items picked up in the game, with the exception of armor and weapons, are color-coded, with colors representing an effect that cannot be discovered until the player does one of the following: uses an item of that color, or throws it on an enemy. Once, say, a Bronze Book has been used, all future Bronze Books will be renamed to reflect its powers. Generally speaking, Pots are potions that can heal or poison the player, Books provide either maps or spells that may strengthen the player in some way or negate a harmful effect (such as removing cursed items), Rods cast spells that affect enemies and Rings provide bonuses to stats (or sometimes are cursed, such as the Hunger Ring, which makes the player consume food much more quickly and requires a Bless Book to remove). Unwanted items, such as armor or weapons weaker than the ones already worn by the player or cursed or poisonous items, can either be dropped or thrown at enemies for minor damage. The player may only carry a limited number of items. As the player equips better items, their in-game appearance changes to reflect the new gear if it's sufficiently different. Robe,
Cuirass, and Leathers all have the same basic appearance, while
Chainmail gives the player a new look. As the player gains levels, the egg accompanying the player hatches into a dragon that grows with the player as he moves through the levels. Each enemy has a unique attack. Toads can poison the player, Fire Diamonds cause dizziness (which has the effect of randomizing the direction the player moves), Ninjas teleport around the map, some Slime Blobs create copies of themselves and so on. The game ends when the player finds and picks up the holy goblet hidden in level 30, or runs out of hit points. If the player has collected sufficient gold throughout their playthrough, they may continue the game, but will lose all unequipped items they had before they continued. ==Sequels and ports==