Castle of Fear

Acorn Programs, Computing With the Amstrad, Database Publications, Micro User, The 1984

Language:: English
Authors:: Alan McLachlan, Marcus Adams, Mark Smiddy, Michal Noels
Platforms:: Amstrad CPC , BBC/Electron
Genres:: Fantasy, misc., Real-time, Type-in
Entered by:: dave, Garry, Gunness
Added:: 07-12-2010
Edited:: 30-01-2019

Synopsis

Plot

Expert adventuring is becoming a pastime for the idle rich these days. Long ago Kings would pay high prices to the likes of you to rescue their beautiful (and not so beautiful) daughters. Not so now. Even the dragons have stopped eating elvies. In fact, Adventureland is not what it used to be.

Whilst enjoying a fine meal with a friendly dwarf you find yourself transported to the guest room of a large castle. As you try to recover a glowing message appears in the air, 'Escape in five score turns or DIE!' As you watch the message melts away.

The castle is set out like a 3x3 cube. You have to collect three coins that you'll find on pink pedestals. Once you've collected all three, you have to drop them in three adjacent rooms that are set out in a straight line.

While you are attempting to do this, you have an opponent (a troll) who is trying to do the same thing, except that he has to collect jewels found on blue pedestals.

Just to keep you frustrated, there are a number of possible sudden-death scenarios and a wandering sprite that steals one of your coins and deposits it elsewhere in the castle. All of this is done in real time and the game must be completed within 100 moves.

Notes

Originally published as a type-in game for the BBC in The Micro User, vol. 2, no. 6, August 1984, pp. 98–99, 159–160, 162.

It was ported to the Amstrad by Alan McLachlan and published in Computing with the Amstrad, issue 5, vol. 1, no. 5, May 1985, pp. 35–37.

The publishers are quite confused about the authors. The The Micro User article gives the authors as Marcus Adams & Michal [sic] Noels. The Computing with the Amstrad article gives the authors as Mark Smiddy & Michael Noels.