HOW TO BEAT SPELLBOUND With only 48 hours, you’ll need all the help you can get!

First Principles

Spellbound kicks things off with a floor of largely safe rooms where you can get to grips with the game’s menu system. Here you’ll find the teleport pad and its key, and the glowing bottle, which you use to get through the Dark Room. The only other hazard on this floor is the energy-draining ‘odd ball’.

Essential Supplies

Before tackling Spellbound’s puzzles, go and grab the wand and bottle from the roof. Give the bottle to Florin to fill with health potion, and use the wand to command characters. Use the Elf Horn on the second floor to summon them – Samsun has it – and the mirror on the third to show your energy and objects.

Lay Of The Land

Although Spellbound isn’t huge, it’s worth mapping the game out to help you familiarise yourself with it. Before exploring, summon Florin to the lift and send him to sleep, then drop the teleport pad next to him and carry its key with you so you can zap back to power up if your energy runs low.

Character Building

As well as puzzle-solving, Spellbound tasks you with keeping its characters alive, which is problematic as they’re always on the move. The best strategy is to tend to them as and when you meet them, which you do by telling them to eat and to be happy, or to sleep if they say that they’re tired.

Get A Clue

You can solve some of Spellbound ’s brain-teasers using trial and error, but the game contains clues to almost all of them. Most characters and objects reveal the odd hint, and the Banshee is full of them, as is the crystal ball. But for help with the game’s core objective you need the ancient scroll.