Dark Castle
darkcastle.co.uk

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246 points

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evo_9

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3 days ago

36 comments

gausswho ・ 2 days ago

Note that Dark Castle was programmed by Jonathan Gay, who would eventually go on to make FutureSplash. You might know it better from what it was renamed to: Flash (of Macromedia/Adobe).

  • DonHopkins ・ 2 days ago

    The first time Marc Canter (who founded Macromedia) introduced me to Jonathan Gay at CGDC as the creator of Dark Castle, I excitedly and respectfully held and flapped my hands above my head and shouted at him: "Nya nya nya nya nya! Yow! Uuuurh! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!" (The sound of the nasty monsters, and picking up rocks.)

    https://youtu.be/6U6v3XyrPLc?t=43

    For years after playing that game, I would always say "Yeah!" whenever I picked up a rock, and I'd always look for bats every time I entered a room.

    After my friend and I (whose Mac we both relentlessly played Dark Castle on) went to pick up a big chunk of hash from his pot dealer, we both looked at each other and said "Yeah!" Fortunately we refrained from throwing it at a bat.

    • z0r ・ 2 days ago

      Someone claiming to be the creator of Dark Castle says they are working on a 40th anniversary edition in the comments of that video.

    • lolive ・ 2 days ago

      Was the dual “euh weuuu heu heuuu” when you were drunk or when you fell from a a bit too high?

      • jjuran ・ 2 days ago

        The latter. There's only one heavy drinker in Dark Castle, and it's not the hero. ;-)

  • ryanisnan ・ 2 days ago

    Wow, thanks for that lesson! I owe that guy my career.

CMay ・ 2 days ago

This game came out the same year the original Castlevania did. They're different enough games, but there are a few similarities that do make you wonder if they had any particular shared influences.

bombcar ・ 2 days ago

I'd love to see a Fabien-style Game Engine Black Book for some of these older Macintosh games.

macleginn ・ 2 days ago

If the author sees this: it's "whose old Apples", not "who's". Only mentioning this because it's very prominent on the landing page.

Also the feedback form doesn't work in Firefox, Chrome, and Edge.

st3fan ・ 3 days ago

Such a classic. Played these for many hours as a kid.

tiltowait ・ 2 days ago

If you've never played it before, Dark Castle really is worth looking at. Its artwork is incredible even before considering the constraints, and its gameplay holds up remarkably well for something from 1986.

astennumero ・ 2 days ago

Would it be possible to play this in those retro platform emulation handhelds? Was able to find ports for DOS, Mac, Genesis, C64, Amiga, Atari ST, Apple IIgs, CD-i. Is this a viable portmaster suggestion?

m463 ・ 2 days ago

The other thing I remember of that era was the (unrelated) Talking Moose

frollogaston ・ 2 days ago

The right way to play this game is on CD-i

einpoklum ・ 3 days ago

So, I was disappointed to find dead links to a Windows-based emulator :-(

Does anyone know...

* What happened to the creators?

* Who owns the copyrights, if at all?

* Has anyone been approached to release the source code and games resources?

Also, if anyone has an appropriate Linux emulator, which supports these games, please share a link and perhaps instructions.

  • fzzzy ・ 2 days ago

    Mini vMac. You’ll need a mac plus ROM file and a copy of the software disk images.

    Or, return to dark Castle is now available on steam as mentioned elsewhere in this thread. It contains all the dark castle and beyond dark castle levels plus many more new levels and works on modern computers.

  • djmips ・ 2 days ago

    Elsewhere in a comment someone posted the archive links which worked - I had fun playing in the emulator on my Windows PC

chrisallick ・ 2 days ago

instill have the floppies :)

wickedOne ・ 2 days ago

i still remember the christmas easter egg in there