Are there any WinApe afficionados out there? I have found that restored snapshots freeze the emulator keyboard in this game. Has anyone else experienced this behaviour with this game or indeed any other?

I think I solved this by playing around with the settings. I note that the file is a 128K .dsk file so I changed the snapshot settings to "First 128K" from its default "64K." This is my first venture into using an Amstrad emulator and it seems pretty simple to use on the whole.

I am not sure if the Amstrad version of this game is bugged or not. Has anyone been able to enter the Marquee after dealing with the Sorcerer's Apprentice? The entrance seems to disappear (unless Jack Lockerby was being even more obtuse than usual).

I decided to try the updated Commodore 64 release which is a somewhat unusual re-release; I could not progress from behind thwe wine rack. Whereas some of the location descriptions are longer and some objects are in different places or just plain different, the puzzle with the red indian seems to have been left out entirely, as does the concomitant attic location. In the Amstrad version the recess behind the wine rack had only one exit; back down the ramp. In the Commodore 64 version two exits are described, namely back down and out to the cellar. Out however, doesn't work so I am a bit stumped. And for some reason KICK RACK is parsed as drinking a bottle of champagne!

I am afraid this is very buggy and may be unfinishable. I have found a lot of parser problems and some unintentionally surreal goings-on. You can only drink from the bottle of champagne when the bottle is closed! Opening it obviously puts it into a different noun table as attempting to DRINK CHAMPAGNE after opening it tells you "You can't do that!" You cannot then close it again so have soft locked the game quite unintentionally on your part and I suspect Jack Lockerby's as well. Some exits are described as visible but cannot be taken, and not in a "solve the problem to pass" way. The wine rack is parsed as the bottle too which adds to the general mayhem experience. In the Amstrad version you can travel to the bottom of the stone well and stand in three feet of water as well as drop objects into it. In the Commodore 64 version you cannot for some reason jump down a few feet from the end of the rope into the same water nor throw or drop things into the well. You can however drop items in mid air and they stay there, presumably in zero gravity. And you can take a broom ride half way down a well and return unchanged in the same move.

I have discovered that I had made the game unwinnable in the first two moves! If you TAKE BOTTLE from the rack it can never be replaced there and an action which is vital to your progress cannot then be undertaken; this is akin to seventies mainframe games in terms of cruelty. The game is studded with soft locks; tie the rope to the rock before exploring the dry well and you have made the game unwinnable as well. TAKE WOOD from the woodshed elicits: "Chop it first!" The game doesn't recognise CHOP as a command, neither CUT nor SAW. Equally oddly some objects can be discovered using EXAMINE, some using SEARCH and some using LOOK IN. For instance, open the safe and LOOK IN SAFE and SEARCH SAFE tell you that it is empty; EXAMINE SAFE is the command you need. In other locations hidden items can only be gleaned by using SEARCH and not EXAMINE for instance. Why I have no idea. Perhaps Jack's original games didn't display all these anomalies; a bit like the DOS ports of Brian Cotton's adventures developed bugs that were missing from the originals. Whether the STAC versions of some of these games ported to the Atari ST have the same problems I am not sure. On Atari Mania they are nearly all .stt files that won't run in Hatari; only Treasure Island from that site seems to be a usable .st file and doesn't need an ST converter to use them in an emulator.

I rarely give up on a game and usually manage to finish them unaided but I have given up on this one. I had a quick look at Terri's walkthough and it is completely different to the Commodore 64 version. I never did find the silver coin which is supposed to be in the broom bush but isn't; there is no cat in this version or red indian. There are a number of other items not in this version which are in the Spectrum version too...and the apprentice is described as thirsty in the Spectrum version but isn't in the Commodore 64 one. Who knows?

I don't know if the archived C64 version is bugged; one of the issues with the archive of hobbyist releases is that bugs may have been quickly fixed but those versions aren't the ones that have been archived.

The Spectrum Quilled version (which is on Spectrum Computing) should be roughly equivalent to the C64 release, if that helps.

Thanks Strident. I think I'll have a bash at the Amstrad version when I get home next Monday. I see there are quite a few of Jack's games that have been ported to the Commodore 64 and it will be interesting to see how many of them are bugged. I may have a look at the source code for the latter version of Witch Hunt but I am far from an expert.

I am trying the (hopefully completable) Amstrad version but it seems impossible to take the cat. I have tried every conceivable option but it always runs away; when it crosses your path later you are softlocked from winning.

OK I'm calling the Amstrad version unwinnable, similar to the Commodore 64 version.