Spellbound not working

[Benji]

I've downloaded a copy of Spellbound Dizzy (perfectly legal as I already own it on cassette tape somewhere!) for ZX Spectrum emulator but I have a problem - when I get to the leprechaun and try to give him the gold shamrock I cannot talk to him or give him anything - is this a bug with the copy I've downloaded? If so where can I get a good version?

[Adz.M]

Well I've never really had a proper go on Spellbound via Emulator myself, but we've had this problem mentioned a lot in the past, it is possibly believed to be a bug with the ROM itself, I'm not sure if theres a way to solve that problem I'm afraid :(

Also, The Dizzy games do have their own sections further down the main page in this forum, so in future, if you have any problems with the Dizzy games, post in the game's own forum :v2_dizzy_wink: This thread will be moved to the "Spellbound Dizzy" forum in the next 24 hours.

[Peter]

The shamus/shamrock problem is too do with playing the game in 48k mode. If you play the game in 128k/+2 mode you won't get this problem. :v2_dizzy_wink2:

[Benji]

Sorry for using the wrong forum guys - won't happen again


My emulator (ZXSP) has an option for 128/+2 modes but when I select them all I get is the grey Speccy startup screen and it won't let me load up the file for Spellbound without reverting automatically back to 48k mode.

Any suggestions?

[Peter]

it is possible the copy of the game you have is a memory snapshot was taken in 48k mode. (normal sna or z80 files)

The best thing i can suggest is to look for a copy of the game in the .tap format (tape format) but due to copyright laws we are unable to say where to get it.

[AndyUK]

I recall a very similar bug in the 64k Amstrad cpc version. Which is a bug with every copy of the 64 version (and therefore most likely a bug in every 48k spectrum version)

It's better to get the 128k version from somewhere i'd say

however i do know how to solve your problem, it's not impossible.

Bascially drop the shamrock away from shamus and inch closer to him whilst picking up and dropping again, the item will gradually drop closer to him until you can drop it ON him, and he will thank you for finding it... etc.

this is the only way to do it in the lesser 48K (Spectrum) or 64k (Amstrad) versions.

[Firefly]

I completed Spellbound Dizzy on a real CPC 464 and never had the problem with the shamrock. The only thing missing was the cheat mode and a couple of other minor details.

[Invisibabe]

Yes! This problem existed back on the original Spectrum version. Both myself and a mate called Dave got totally stuck independantly on this "speak to the leprechaun bit" over and over.

I had possibly been playing on my 48k+ but I suspect it was the +2A as I remember the music well. Dave had been playing on his +3.

One day I had leant my +3 to another mate called Crichton and was round at his place. We'd played various Dizzy games and missed that one out cos of the problem. He suggested we play it anyway, I said "no", then said "ok, just to prove you can't complete the game."

When we got to Seamus the Leprechaun I walked up, said "and you press enter and nothing happens", I pressed enter, and bizarrely it actually worked all of a sudden! :dizzy_confused:

Anyway, I mentioned this to Dave at school the next day. His reply was "I'll try it again tonight too."

Even more bizarrely he came in the day after to tell me his one had suddenly started working again too! Both of us went on to play the game many times and NEVER encountered the problem again. Weird or what?!

We ended up half-agreeing that the game had some in-built timer and it wouldn't let you get past that point until a certain date. Obviously 1994 ish tape loaded Spectrum games didn't have that possiblilty, but how the eff else can it be explained?!!! :dizzy_confused:

[tridy]

I wasn't that lucky at that time and had only 48k ZX Spectrum, so it took us (me and some other guys working on that problem day after day) 3 months to solve the shamrock problem.

In comparison with 128k version that is straight forward (just give the shamrock to the guy), for the 48k you need to force the guy to take the shamrock in a tricky way. Here are the screenshots of how I did it at that time. And I did compete 48k Dizzy 5 Spellbound at that time.

http://i31.tinypic.com/awdkhu_th.gif (http://i31.tinypic.com/awdkhu.gif)

Was I the only one who was limited to 48k at that time? :P

A nice feeling to go back to Dizzy with emulator.

hope it helps

[AndyUK]

Yeah, thats kinda like that way i explained above,

It is a bug that will happen on 48k spectrum versions or 64k Amstrad versions. It will ALWAYS happen on these versions because the game's code will always remain the same (unless of course someone decides to make a hacked version of it, fixing it)

The bug does not happen on 128k versions, so anyone that didn't get the bug was most likely playing 128k versions at the time.

Oh actually i just thought of something, There were two releases of Spellbound dizzy, the Dizzy's Excellent adventures and the Single release. The single cassette release came later so it might have had the bug fixed, which is what happens sometimes with games.