Color Dark Castle
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| Color Dark Castle | |
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| Developer(s) | Delta Tao |
| Publisher(s) | Delta Tao |
| Designer(s) | Joe Williams |
| Release date(s) | 1998 |
| Genre(s) | Platform game |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
| Platform(s) | Apple Macintosh |
| Media | Two 3.5" 1.4MB floppy (Mac) |
| Input | Mouse, Keyboard |
Color Dark Castle is the first Computer Game in the Dark Castle series developed after the rights were sold from Silicon Beach Software to Delta Tao. Color Dark Castle, is essentially a remake of the original Dark Castle, in color. Though it may seem Identical besides the color at first, Delta Tao reported that they had to redo the code from scratch, also they added a new difficulty, and a alleged "Secret Level".[1] Since this is a remake, the sequel to it would be Beyond Dark Castle, another color Dark Caste was announced titled Return To Dark Castle, which is now complete, though yet to be released.
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[edit] Features
Including almost identical gameplay as Dark Castle, being a remake, Delta Tao also added a few of their own things, such as a new difficulty "Novice" for beginner players, eliminating some of the harder levels in the game, and having less monsters. Also, the great hall's door setup was static, as opposed to the random setup of the original. There was a new "Secret level" added, it was accessed by hitting 4 spots hidden through out the game, without dying. They added a save system that allows one save, that can be saved, or loaded from the great hall.
[edit] Story
The story in Dark Castle is rather simple, the evil Black Knight terrorizes the townspeople, our hero Prince Duncan decides to topple his throne, but in order to do that, he must travel to the four sections of the castle: Fireball, Shield, Trouble, and Black Knight.
After collecting the Fireball, and Shield, Duncan makes his way to The Black Knight's Throne room, where he topples the Black Knight's Throne. On Novice, Beginner, and Intermediate the Black Knight stands up shaking his fist, as a gargoyle takes Duncan to Trouble 3. On advanced The Black Knight's throne falls off the bottom of the screen, while Duncan dances, and it fades out.
[edit] Levels
This game had 16 levels, one more then the original game, all of which came out of the 4 doors in the Great Hall. Unlike the first game the setup of the doors is static, rather than random.
- Left most door: Trouble 1, Trouble 2, Trouble 3.
- Farther away door on left side: Fireball 1, Fireball 2, Fireball 3, Fireball 4.
- Middle Door: Black Night 1, Black Night 2, Black Night 3.
- Right Door: Shield 1, Shield 2, Shield 3, Shield 4.
- ????: Secret Level
[edit] Secret Level
The Secret level was announced in the Color Dark Castle F.A.Q. [1]. The F.A.Q. said you had to pull 4 secret chains, this is untrue, but one must find 4 secret spots. The first 3 spot's order don't matter, but the forth must be done last. It's easiest to do when the shield and the fireball have already been obtained. To activate a spot, one must find the spot, and jump at the wall. To find the secret room, one must hit all 4 spots without dying. Hitting Apple-Q, during a level, will take you back to the great hall, and it doesn't count as dying, which makes this much easier to find.
- Spot 1 - Shield 3, in bottom right corner of the screen, lower platform.
- Spot 2 - Trouble 3, from the top, jump the gap, climb down the stairs, and jump to left to the small walkway, it's at the end.
- Spot 3 - Fireball 1, middle platform, right side.
- Spot 4 - Black Knight 1, bottom platform right side.
On jumping into the 4th spot, you will go through the wall into the secret room.
[edit] Remakes
Return To Dark Castle a sequel to Beyond Dark Castle in full color, with all the levels from Dark Castle and Beyond Dark Castle. It has yet to be released (January 2007). It is being developed by Z Sculpt.
A remake of the original version for mobile was released in 2006. It is developed by Super Happy Fun Fun and published by Bandai, It contains slightly remade level designs as well as updated color graphics.
[edit] Trivia
The Christmas tree Easter Egg is still in this version, it is seen by changing the computer date to december 25 and playing the game.
At the end of the credits, it says: "Watch out next year for Beyond Dark Castle" which never arrived.
Delta Tao had plans to convert Beyond Dark Castle to color, but they were dropped, because Return To Dark Castle is going to include all the levels from it.
Delta Tao offered discounts to owners of the original version of Dark Castle.
Though you can still buy this game, it doesn't work on any modern Macs, without emulation, as the newest system that supports it is Mac OS X 10.2 in classic mode.
[edit] References
- ^ "Color Dark Castle new features " Color Dark Castle F.A.Q.
[edit] External links
- Delta Tao Homepage Creators of Color Dark Castle.
- Color Dark Castle review From MacGamer.
- Dark Castle links, including the closest to official forum
