#54: Spellbound Dizzy (Codemasters, Amiga, 1991)

The grand centrepiece of Spellbound Dizzy is the “Windy Shaft”; a deep pit with strong winds that blow upwards from its depths, initially preventing you from exploring more than a handful of the game’s many screens. To combat this, you are required to trek across to a quarry and pick up a few heavy rocks to weigh you down. But, thanks to a series of obstacles along the way, you can only actually carry one rock at a time, because your inventory slots are needed to traverse the the obstacles. If, at any point you drop one of these rocks, it will break immediately, and you will have to go and get another. And you will, frequently, need to drop whatever rocks you are holding in order to progress in the game. What this all adds up to is that the vast majority of your time in Spellbound Dizzy will be spent carting rocks back and forth from the quarry to the shaft. It’s not difficult. There’s no challenge involved. It’s just a bunch of mind-numbing tedium blocking your access to the ostensibly fun parts of the game.