Witchcraft is a fascinating puzzle designed to stretch your powers of logic and reasoning to the limit. Slow down, take a break from zapping aliens, give your fingers a rest and exercise the old grey matter for a change.

This one-player game is based on a 3 x 3 grid, shown in Figure 1. The Micro Kid is surrounded by the wicked witch Zelda, and your task is to reverse the situation so the Micro Kid surrounds the witch, as in the puzzle target on the right of Figure 1.

The control keys are shown underneath the puzzle and you can zap any of the witches in the grid by pressing the corresponding key below. You can't press a key with the Micro Kid on.

The effect of a key is to switch certain squares so a witch becomes a Micro Kid and a Kid becomes a witch.

The keys in the corners (Q, E, C and Z) reverse a block of four squares, the one in the middle (S) reverses the central cross while the ones in the middle of each side (W, D, X and A) reverse that side. Figure II summarises the effects of the control keys.

Once you have solved this puzzle you'll be presented with the next - there are eight in all. You have 120 seconds (two minutes) to solve the first one, 110 seconds for the second, 100 for the third, then 90 and so on.

If you turn all the squares into the Micro Kid there won't be any witches left to zap and you'll have failed to solve the puzzle. Be careful, this is quite easy to do without realising it.