This game must be a podium finish in the bad grammar Olympics. Aside from the regularly systematic abuse of the English language the game is replete with interminable corridors, all identical and likewise mazes to bump the thing up to 500+ rooms. Add to this random deaths and an existential protagonist who goes walkabout if you fail to type on the keyboard for a few minutes (often leading to his demise). The only other game I can think of that had this annoying function is a vastly superior RISC Archimedes offering called Gorm.

As it is the forty odd year wait for the sequel to the original game doesn't seem long enough.

To give you some idea of the ineptitude of this game, the verb "Dig" provides you with your inventory.

I have seen it all now. There is a room with a chip in the floor. Take Chip crashes the game deliberately with a jokey "ERROR: Missing ROS ROM." Yep - you have to brute force a closure of the window and re-run the executable. One of those games with scores of rooms almost identical and one having an object hidden under a bed so that you have to systematically examine every single one in case you missed something. Weird Wood eh? I can think of another word beginning with 'w' which might encapsulate it more accurately.

Mark has been in contact regarding the game and I have discovered a way round a persistent bug. After four or five save or restore game actions the incongruous but consistent message "I can't see a door here" is parsed. I have found a way around this; after receiving the door message, type any command (i.e. inventory, wait etc) and then retry a load or save and it seems to work. I have no idea why but it does.

It is a seriously large game as I have found around 100 locations already and have yet to make it out of the prison into the eponymous wood although I have made it onto the north wall of the prison only to be captured. There are several nods to the Hiutch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy here, namely Marvin, the number "42" and several quotes lifted from the novel / radio series.

There appears to be a bug in this game involving solitary confinement in the prison where you start the game. If you are in your hospital bed or on the psychiatrist's couch you still get sent to solitary confinement. According to the author this shouldn't happen. I am not sure if this is a game breaker or not. Oddly a stale sandwich that you eat re-materialises after you eat it into the bargain.

The new executable that Mark has sent me seems a lot more stable and alleviates the save game and lamp/torch timer bugs. It is still a very tough game though. I have so far discovered 170 locations and I haven't even entered the eponymous wood yet.

I have discovered that the solitary confinement puzzle is not a bug after all; there is a way to become a Trustee of the prison and a clever solution it has too. I still can't see why you would be pulled from your hospital bed or a psychiatrist's couch for breaking roll-call but that was as the author intended.

I have uploaded the new executable for the game. It corrects several bugs in the previous version and was supplied to me by Mark Cox himself. If you download the version from "http://8bitag.com/info/weird-wood-ii.html" and replace the executable WW.exe with the one uploaded it should be up to date.