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Dynamite Dan

Reviewed 19 August 2026

PlatformerClassic

Publisher: Mirrorsoft, 1985 · Author: Rod Bowkett · Memory: 48K

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Dynamite Dan cassette cover art: Dan in a mine shaft dodging obstacles, 1985 ZX Spectrum release
The Dynamite Dan cassette inlay.

Dan lands his airship on the roof of Dr. Blitzen's hideout with one job: collect all eight sticks of dynamite scattered through the building, reach the central safe, and steal the plans for the doctor's Death Ray before escaping back the way he came — past Blitzen's assistant Donner, who'd very much rather he didn't.

The building itself is the game's best idea: one large structure split across dozens of screens, all wrapped around a central elevator shaft, so the map genuinely feels like a place rather than a sequence of levels. Falling from a great height kills you, touching a monster kills you, running out of energy kills you (food tops it back up), and there's an underground river that ends the game outright — unless you've collected oxygen first, in which case it just dumps you back at the start. It's unforgiving in the way most 1985 platformers were, but it's never cheap about it; every hazard is visible and every death is your own fault.

Verdict

Crash readers voted it Best Platform Game of 1985, and nearly twenty years later Your Sinclair still had it at 24th in their all-time top 100 — that's not nostalgia, that's a genuinely well-built game. Mozart's Rondo Alla Turca playing over the loading screen was a small touch that made a real impression at the time, and the whole thing still holds up as one of the tighter Spectrum platformers of its era.

Score breakdown

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