aSometimes I flash back to my favorite childhood memories. One of the most fond of these memories is playing “Dark Castle” at my friend’s house in the late 1980’s. What is “Dark Castle”? It’s a black-and-white platform game with an extremely engaging soundtrack and very fun gameplay. It was one of the first games where you used both the keyboard and a mouse to control the action. In it, you play Prince Duncan, who is on a quest to topple the throne of the Black Knight and save his town. In order to do this, he must enter the Dark Castle and travel to and survive the four sections of the castle. This involves the player entering the castle doors and entering the four doors, which lead to Fireball, Shield, Trouble and The Black Knight.
This game was an intense, better-than-arcade quality experience at the time because it was fun to play and listen to and it created a believable fantasy environment. The monochrome display enhanced the game, giving it a surreal quality. The game was ported over to MS-DOS, Commodore 64, the Amiga, Atari ST, IIGS, Sega Genesis, CD-I, and MSX. The game is also available for download on some cell phones. Two sequels, “Beyond the Dark Castle” (1987) and “Return to Dark Castle” (2008) followed. Check it out on YouTube; this game still rocks! I’m ready to enter a time machine and play through the Macintosh “Dark Castle” again, and I suggest you do the same!