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Cauldron is a British computer game that was originally created by Steve Brown and Richard Leinfellner and published in 1985 by Palace Software for the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC home computers.

Taken from the game's instructions:

Harken witches everywhere, take the challenge - if you dare, Tomorrow night, '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.

The player controls a witch as she flies above the play area on her broomstick and exploring caverns.

ZX Spectrum version.

There are numerous enemies in Cauldron which tend to be specific to which area the witch is flying over. Forests are full of bats, seagulls attack over the seas, ghosts infest the graveyards and the mountains are home to everything from balls of molten lava (thrown from active volcanos), strange objects like a set of teeth thrown from some sort of plant to pumpkins. The witch has several lives and each life has a limited amount of magic energy. This energy can be used to fire blasts of energy at enemies to destroy them. If the enemy touches the witch, even more magic power is lost in the collision.

Whilst flying over the game world, the witch must locate coloured keys in order to open the doors which allow her to enter the caverns where the ingredients for her spell can be found. The areas of the game inside the caverns are in the style of a platform game with the witch jumping across plaforms and moving floors whilst avoiding enemies in order to reach the ingredient she needs. Once collected, the ingredients must be returned to the cottage where she starts. Once she has concocted her potion, she is ready to defeat the evil pumpkin.

Commodore 64 version.

Amstrad CPC version

There are two sequels to Cauldron. These are Cauldron 2: The Pumpkin Strikes Back (1986) and Super Cauldron (1993).

• The original ZX Spectrum version of Cauldron came with a free copy of Palace Software's video game version of The Evil Dead which had previously only been available for the Commodore 64.

• Cauldron at World of Spectrum