Requires: 256 color capable Mac, hard drive with at least 2.1 MB of space
Protection: None
 
When Dark Castle first crawled onto the barren landscape of the Mac game software world, way back in 1986, there wasn’t much around. Almost any game was near-guaranteed success because it wouldn’t have any competitors. Silicon Beach Software ignored that fact and released one of the best games ever for the Mac. Though it only ran in black and white, hated Multifinder and fit on a 9-inch screen, Dark Castle was an instant success. Why? It used the graphics and sound capabilities of the earliest Macs to the fullest and was unbelievably addictive.
Unfortunately for the Mac world, Dark Castle went the way of the tuatara, never evolving from its original form in order to deal with the bigger, better and more colorful Macs that soon appeared. Licenses changed hands and Dark Castle was relinquished to survive only on dusty back shelves and the memories of those who spent hundreds of hours playing Dark Castle and its equally awesome sequel, Beyond Dark Castle. Was it the end?
Well, until last year, it was the end. Then the Delta Tao Software crew got their hands on Dark Castle, and in the computer equivalent of the Six Million Dollar Man, rebuilt the game, making it better, faster and way cooler than before. Dark Castle still uses the Mac’s awesome sound and graphics capabilities but it now does so under System 7 and 256 glorious colors.
Dark Castle Anatomy. So what is Dark Castle? While merely mentioning the name to my little sister sets her drooling and glancing around for the nearest Mac, let me assume that not everyone has reached her level of addiction. Dark Castle is an arcade game that forces you to use hand-eye coordination, quick reflexes and strategy to accomplish your noble goal. And that goal is noble indeed.
 
You, as a brave young lad named Duncan, have volunteered (or were forced) to enter the Dark Castle, home of the Black Knight. All you have to do is cruise through the castle until you find this foreboding character and put him out of his misery (he must be miserable, ‘cause he drinks ales at an astonishing rate). Sounds pretty simple, right? You’ll just waltz in, whip out your Uzi, and after a clip or two, the Black Knight is toast! Well, I hate to break it to you, but things aren’t quite that simple. First of all, you have no Uzis. In fact, your deadliest weapon is your arm. Did I mention that your only weapon is your arm? All offensive and defensive action comes from your arm. You can throw rocks or fireballs, if the Wizard has been kind to you. You can run from danger but eventually you have to fight and your shield (if you can get to it) works only for a few minutes. Sounding a little tougher yet? There’s more.
The Black Knight has managed to assemble quite the menagerie of henchmen and assorted vile creatures. Bats may drop in uninvited and sample your blood, with fatal results (for you, not the bat). Around your feet hordes of plague ridden rats may scurry and you’d best step smartly, lest they bite you and you die! And these are the simple threats. You may find the indestructible Rock Henchman and Torturer a little more trying. Face it, these guys are out to get you and you can’t get them. But the worst of the bunch aren’t even alive. They’re robot guards and they have these dandy little crossbows that shoot these dandy little bolts that’ll make you look like William Tell’s son on a bad day. And then there the. . . well, I’d better not let you know about those guys, not yet.
Dark Castle Architecture. Dark Castle has four difficulty levels, each a little more challenging than the first. At each level, you are presented with a castle with four wings: the Shield Rooms, the Fireball Rooms, the Trouble Rooms and the Main Hall. Depending on the level of play, you have to go through two or more rooms to get to your final goal. In the case of the shield and fireball rooms, the quest is for the shield and the fireballs (bestowed upon you by a sometimes-kindly wizard) while the Main Hall is where the Black Knight hangs out. The Trouble Rooms are wonderful locales that you tend to see again and again and again, except that you normally start at the depths of the Trouble level and try to work your way back out. In each room you are presented with obstacles designed to prevent you from advancing, obstacles that are normally arrayed in depth.
 
These run the gamut from large bouncing rocks that want to pulp you to rivers of molten lava to a flock of very unfriendly crows. You have the make Prince Duncan run, walk, jump, climb, duck and fight his way through the rooms. At the lower difficulty levels this is pretty easy but as you get to the intermediate and advanced levels, plan on spending lots of time figuring out how to survive.
Now when I first read that Dark Castle had been rewritten to run in color, I assumed that they’d just added color to the old version and made it work with current Macs and system software. Fortunately, Delta Tao’s programmers realized that Dark Castle had a legacy of setting standards of innovation and game quality, so they went ahead and made some minor changes. Minor changes, like adding brand new rooms, like the one shown in Figure 3, and brand new threats, like some I have found ways to defeat and others that still have me stumped. However, it is clear that Dark Castle as released by Delta Tao is a whole new beast. Sure, it is based on the original and still retains the same rooms, graphics and sounds but it has now evolved into an even better game. Sort of an Ultimate Dark Castle. If you played Dark Castle back in the dark ages and figure that since you beat it fair and square way back when you don’t need to beat it again, think again. Delta Tao has added some rooms that will rekindle the fires that used to burn long into the night.
 
Dark Castle Engineering. Dark Castle is now a lot bigger than it used to be, eating a full two megabytes of hard disk instead of fitting nicely on an 800K floppy. For some reason, the screen size is still a mere 9 inches, which is great if you have a color Classic but might be a tad annoying on monitors 15 inches and larger. Dark Castle runs only in 256 colors; I tried to force it to run in either 16 colors or 256 grays and it automatically switched my monitor back to 256 colors each time. Delta Tao does state in their manual that if you are desperate enough, you can call and ask them for the old black and white version that will run from a single floppy.
Dark Castle games can run for hours, if not days, as you make your way through the different rooms and castle wings. Delta Tao has included a Save Game option but it doesn’t let you save multiple games. If you save a game and then start a new game and save that one, it will over-write the old saved game. This may have been corrected on the release version.
Pros
• Dark Castle now runs in 256 colors
• All the old rooms and a bunch of new ones bring the game to new heights
• The sounds and graphics are excellent, exceeding even those in the original
• The controls are simple and easy to learn, but the game remains challenging
Cons
• Uses screen area equivalent to a 9-inch monitor, even on large screens
• Games aren’t saved individually. Save two games in a row and you’ll lose the first one
• The Black Knight has no mercy. None whatsoever. Not even a shred. He hates you.
