The Worst Witch/Children's Instructions

As mentioned on the Walkthrough page, if you choose Children's Instructions on the main menu, the first part of the following text shall appear on the screen (with the text "To read through these instructions use the up and down cursor keys. Press ESCAPE at any time to return to the menu." above it):

THE WORST WITCH The Worst Witch is an adventure game ''for you to play on the computer. It is'' ''based on the book by Jill Murphy. In'' the adventure you take the part of Mildred Hubble from the story.

To play the game you tell the computer what you want to do and the computer will try to follow your instructions. You can type anything you want but remember that the computer only understands about one hundred different ''words. If the computer says it doesn't'' understand or that you can't do what you want and you are sure you are on the right track, then try typing your sentence a different way or use different words.

Try to keep your sentences as short and ''exact as you can. Usually your'' sentence will contain one verb and one noun like this:- DRINK the POTION or READ the BOOK Always remember to press RETURN when you have typed your words to let the computer know that you have finished.

Remember the computer can only do one thing at a time.

''Your task is to save the school. To'' discover how to do this and why, you will have to read the book carefully. All the clues you need to help you are there.

You won't have to do everything Mildred did and you will be able to do things ''she could not. You can find the objects'' you will need by exploring and examining things.

Here are some words that you will need to know, it would be a good idea to write them down. SAVE: This lets you save where you are so that you don't have to start again from the beginning the next time you ''play. Make sure you have a spare disc'' to save your game on. INVENTORY: This tells you what you are carrying. FINISH: This will stop the game and let you start again. WORDS: This stops the pictures changing ''when you move from place to place. It'' ''makes the game quicker to play. If you'' want the pictures back type PICTURES. Direction words - NORTH, SOUTH, EAST, WEST, DOWN, UP - can all be entered by just using their first letter. Other useful words are IN, OUT, TAKE, DROP, EXAMINE, FIND and USE.

If you are stuck, try typing HELP.

The thing that will help you most is a ''map. Start drawing one right from the'' beginning.

You now know all you need to start the ''game. Good Luck!''

Once you've pressed Esc, the game will return to the main menu; however, on an emulated BBC Micro, it will return to the virtual console's command prompt, with the error message "Mistake. Bad program." at the top of the screen, and you shall have to press Shift with either F12 (if you are using B-Em running in DOSBox), or Pause (if you are using !BeebIt running on RISC OS), to reload the program into it. The SAVE command also does not work on an emulated BBC Micro or Acorn Archimedes - which means that you'll have no choice but to finish this game in one sitting if playing it virtually. The WORDS command shall also cause the changing picture to become a static one of the Worst Witch book until you enter the PICTURES command, and it is advisable to enter it if you ever have to end the game and restart it again (as it will not take as long to get back to the point you had made it to).