The Sword and the Sorcerer is a dungeon crawler set in a maze consisting of 225 locations that the player has to explore, one screen at a time, with the aim of making it out in one piece. To succeed with that it’s necessary to collect three pieces of a key and to locate a bolted door to escape through. In the maze the player will come across more or less dangerous creatures (there are nineteen in total) and he will also find weapons (thirteen different ones), gold, potions and food.
The game is entirely controlled with the keyboard and all actions are available from a menu and the player has to enter the corresponding number. To get past a creature the player either has to attack it, bribe it or trade with it. For each attack the enemy and the player will lose some strength and the player has to keep entering the command until the enemy has died. If losing the player can choose to run away but it will cost five strength points. Strength is also decreased by one for every move made in the maze but it’s possible to recharge it by eating food or drinking potions. The player has an inventory for eight items and of those one offensive and one defensive weapon can be equipped. Different weapons do different damage on different enemies.
