Reviews

Witches are very popular and the sofware world could not ignore them for long ... Cauldron is the living proof.

The setting is involving if not impressive and the feeling of riding a flying broomstick is quite convincing.


Black cats, poisoned potions, old trees, and all the parafaernalia of the wicca world is present in this wicked , wicked game . . .

3 stars + 1 extra star for its originality ! ! ! :-)

'Tis Halloween, when only one shall be Witch Queen, Six ingredients thou must take, and in the cauldron boil and bake, Juice of toad, eye of newt, wing of bat and hemlock root, Mouldy piece of splintered bone, found from deep in musty tomb, Molten lava, cooled awhile, taken from the smoking isle, Then the spell shall be at hand, to rid the pumpkin from the land.'

So take the broomstick and face the challenge. Fly avoiding bats, pumpkins and others creatures in search of the keys to open the different doors of the underworld where you'll find all the above ingredients.

A brilliant game with a high level of difficulty. Good graphics and a cool atmosphere. A classic.

Double section game with appealing presentation, but heavy flaws in the gameplay, that make it excessively difficult. The first section is a horizontal flying broomstick game, being the main character a witch [or hag, as the game and the instructions call her], in which you move across flip screens infested with bats, ghosts and other energy draining creatures [the measuring unit of you energy is "magic"]. When you see a key, you can land, but only on a small portion of the ground, at the center of the screen, while the keys are always at the extremities. We see the early symptoms of a not properly balanced difficulty in this first part of the game: while when you're flying you can at least try to spray the creatures with some killer magic, while you're on the ground you're totally helpess, and they can freely clash on you, diminishing your power, and, of course, you're even rather slow. Once you've found a key, and a same coloured door, you can make your first visit to the underworld, and that's the "second section", and this is where the tragedy of this game fully reveals: this part is one of the hardest and frustrating platformer that I've ever played. It's full of misconceived features [admitting they have been wittingly put in the game]. For example, totally silly rocky platforms with a sort of hallucinatory left side, which usually lets you pass through and fall. And, of course, even in this section you're totally vulnerable to the nasties touch. I've barely made any progress by using snapshots and repeating some passages again and again, so on a real Spectrum must be even more fun... [well, in fact I tried it as a kid, and deserted it very fast]. In short, it could have been much better. As it is, for me it's a 3/5.

Highly frustrating game that has a great atmosphere, nicely drawn graphics and a large play area. The shooter/platform combo is well-conceived too. Sadly the fussy and deceptive platforming and the vulnerability of your walking witch when landed undermines the fun and the result is a badly flawed game that could have been a classic.
Cauldron was hailed as a great game by Crash, Sinclair User et al but it hasn't held up as well as the true classics.