I've just seen the original game has popped up on Steam. Yaaaay! There do seem to be a number of comments on their forum that it doesn't run on Win7. I'm on Win8 so I'm hoping it works. Anyone else had a go yet?

That's interesting news - hopefully they will get the kinks out so that it runs without difficulties for players.

I remember this little gem very well - in fact I wrote a brief review for it - and was sad that the developers weren't able to give us more

It's running ok on my Win8. Bit stuttery but ok. But.....I can't access the game menu. With Win8 all I get is Windows Help. What do I have to do to the F1 key to access the menu?

You may have to wait for help from Steam.
They list their version as compatible with XP/Vista/7/8

The original CD version was made for Windows 95/98/ME/2000/NT4.0

The person who posted in the Steam forum that it didn't run in Windows 7 had the disc version, not the Steam version.
http://steamcommunity.com/app/365730/discussions/0/598199244893921468/

Who knows if Steam actually made any changes to their version that would improve compatibility over the original.

It's interesting that the Steam page for the game at
http://store.steampowered.com/app/365730/
lists the Wikipedia page for the game as the "game website" and
the Gameboomers walkthrough for the "game manual."

Did your game come with a pdf manual?

I've emailed you a scan of pages 16-17 of the manual, which are about the Options screen.
It should give an idea of what you're supposed to see.
However if F1 isn't working to bring up the manual, I don't think it will help much.


Just press it. The screen to save, load, quit and adjust options should appear.
If it doesn't, the game isn't working as described.
You could try other keys to see if any of them brings up the Options screen.

FI defaults to Windows Help so doesn't work ingame. I tried restarting and pressing Esc but nothing happened. So as things stand, I can play the game fine but can't save! I've posted on Steam but heard nothing yet.

I have tried launching this game in Windows 7 & Windows 10 - everything works fine for me in both of them!
I have original Russian disks, not Steam version though - but it is still the same game with F1 for the menu.
I don't have Windows 8 and have no idea why F1 does not work there - you can try enabling Windows 95 compatibility mode, or wait and update to Windows 10

I've figured it out. Yaaay! After a lot of trawling I found a very simple solution. Press and hold the function key at the same time as F1. So I can now save my game and access other options.
Iurii..I think it was you who also replied to me on Steam. Thanks.

Are you using a laptop?
I've only seen function keys on laptops.
Maybe this is a quirk of certain laptop models and nothing to do with Windows 8.

I'm working on a laptop right now on which you can only invoke the F1 etc. functions by using the function key. I'll bet that's what lynthorpe has.

Yup. It's an HP laptop. I'm not very techie and there was lots of stuff about restarting and hitting Esc on startup to access BIOS and disable the F keys. I tried that but it didn't work. You seem to have to time it just right and that is NOT easy. Being so IT illiterate, I worry about messing too much with settings.So glad I found such a simple solution. I'm well into the game now.