Draculas Castle Game

1. Count Dracula Games Online
2. Dracula's Castle Game

Dark Castle is a 1986 platform game for Macintosh published by Silicon Beach Software, later published by Three-Sixty Pacific for other platforms. It was designed and illustrated by Mark Pierce and programmed by Jonathan Gay. In Dark Castle, a young hero named Duncan tries to make his way to the evil Black Knight, dodging objects as well as solving occasional puzzles. The game uses sampled sounds to great effect.

Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse is the third Castlevania video game produced for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It was published by Konami in Japan in 1989, and in North America in 1990, and in Europe by Palcom in 1992. It was later released on the Virtual Console for the Wii, Nintendo 3DS, and Wii U. Jonathan's search for his wife - and his life - will take you through an Inn, Caverns, a Rail System and Dracula's Castle on his desperate passage to bring Mina back to London. Dracula: The Last Sanctuary As Jonathan Harker, you know that your wife, Mina, trapped under the Vampire's spell, will never be safe as long as Dracula is still alive.

Dark Castle is a 1986 platform game for Macintosh published by Silicon Beach Software, later published by Three-Sixty Pacific for other platforms. It was designed and illustrated by Mark Pierce and programmed by Jonathan Gay. In Dark Castle, a young hero named Duncan tries to make his way to the evil Black Knight, dodging objects as well as solving occasional puzzles. The game uses sampled sounds to great effect.

Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse is the third Castlevania video game produced for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It was published by Konami in Japan in 1989, and in North America in 1990, and in Europe by Palcom in 1992. It was later released on the Virtual Console for the Wii, Nintendo 3DS, and Wii U. Jonathan's search for his wife - and his life - will take you through an Inn, Caverns, a Rail System and Dracula's Castle on his desperate passage to bring Mina back to London. Dracula: The Last Sanctuary As Jonathan Harker, you know that your wife, Mina, trapped under the Vampire's spell, will never be safe as long as Dracula is still alive.

A sequel, Beyond Dark Castle, was released in 1987. A second sequel, Return to Dark Castle, was announced in 2000, but it was not released until March 14, 2008.

Plot[edit]

Mac update el capitan. When the evil Black Knight terrorizes the townspeople, 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, and the Black Knight stands up shaking his fist, as a gargoyle takes Duncan to Trouble 3.

Gameplay[edit]

The game opens with a vista of the castle with storm clouds in the distance. The opening notes of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor play and are followed by thunderclaps. The title along with the programming and development credits are shown on this screen.

Movement within Dark Castle is typical for most platformers. Duncan can run, jump and duck, and can throw a limited supply of rocks at his enemies. More rocks can be found in little bags along the way, as well as bottles of an elixir that provide a one-time antidote to bites of the numerous rats and bats found around the castle.

To defeat the Black Knight, Duncan needs to pull several levers which topple him from his throne. To aid Duncan, a magic shield and the power to hurl fireballs can, fortunately, be found within the Dark Castle. The game begins in the Great Hall, where the player can choose from four doors. The large center door leads to the Black Knight. One other is marked with the shield, and the remaining two mysteriously alternate between the fireball course and a more troubling path. The game can be played at three different skill levels, the hardest 'Advanced' level containing more enemies and a few extra surprises.

Dark Castle may be the first game to use WASD keys and mouse for control.^[1] The trajectory and launching of rocks and fireballs are controlled via mouse movement and clicks respectively, while the character's locomotion is controlled via key strokes.

Duncan easily gets disoriented; when walking into a wall or falling a short distance without jumping he walks around in circles for a moment, mumbling incoherently. He is highly vulnerable to attacks during this time.

Falling into holes in the floor does not cause death but instead leads to a dungeon ('Trouble 3') which can be escaped with some effort. On easier difficulty levels, this is a delay and a source of annoyance. However, this may be strategically necessary on the harder difficulty levels so that you can stock up rocks and elixir.

Easter egg: Playing Dark Castle (and its sequel) with the computer's clock at December 25 or any Friday the 13th, the Great Hall or the throne room (respectively) will have holiday decorations.

Levels[edit]

This game has 14 levels, which came out of the 4 doors in the Great Hall, the first two doors are random.

• Leftmost door (usually): Trouble 1, Trouble 2, Trouble 3.
• Farther away door on left side (usually): Fireball 1, Fireball 2, Fireball 3, Fireball 4.
• Middle Door: Black Knight 1, Black Knight 2, Black Knight 3.
• Right Door: Shield 1, Shield 2, Shield 3, Shield 4.

Development[edit]

Mark Pierce was based in San Francisco with his own company MacroMind, while Jon Gay and the rest of the Silicon Beach team were in San Diego; so after an initial launch meeting, most of the collaboration between Pierce and Gay was handled remotely. Pierce designed the animations in MacroMind's 'VideoWorks' (the direct ancestor of Adobe Director) and then mailed the files on floppies to Gay, who then coded the game in 68000 Assembly Language on an Apple Lisa (a few parts like the high-score system were written in Pascal). The digitized sound was created by Eric Zocher who worked with voice actor Dick Noel.

Ports and remakes[edit]

A version for the Mega Drive/Genesis was released by Electronic Arts in 1991.

An MS-DOS version of the original Dark Castle was also released, which was closer to the original game. Because of the lower resolution, color was used to make up for it; also, because the PC did not have a mouse at the time, aiming was done through the keyboard. There is some controversy over the colors, due to the nature of the coloring.

Versions for the Apple IIGS, Commodore 64 and Amiga were released in 1989 by Three-Sixty Pacific. This port^{[clarification needed]} was programmed by Lane Roathe, and was almost identical to the Macintosh version except for having lower resolution, color graphics and some controls. John Romero converted the monochrome Macintosh art to 16-color super-res art.

A version for mobile was released in 2006. It is developed by Super Happy Fun Fun, which includes one of the two original developers, Mark Stephen Pierce; it was published by Bandai. It contains slightly remade level designs, borrowing from both Dark Castle and Beyond Dark Castle, it also has updated color graphics.^[2]

There was also a version released for CD-i. As of 2009, there was a port in the works for the iOS.^[3]

Color Dark Castle[edit]

In 1994, the game developerDelta Tao Software acquired the rights to some of Silicon Beach's old games, via Aldus, and were able to produce and publish the modernized Color Dark Castle.

The new version included full color graphics, while changing some other things such as the Water from fireball 2,3 into Lava. This version also included a new difficulty, which let you skip to the end destination from any door in the great hall (e.g. Great Hall, to Fireball 4) with fewer enemies and easier gameplay. There is also a save feature whereby the game could be saved in the Great Hall, though only one game could be saved.

Sequels[edit]

Beyond Dark Castle[edit]

In 1987, the sequelBeyond Dark Castle was released, in which Duncan has to return and defeat the Black Knight, who is still alive. To access the Black Knight's tower, the player must first gather five magic orbs which are placed in various hard-to-reach places. The orbs must be returned to the Ante Chamber and placed on 5 pedestals for the gate to open so Duncan can face the Black Knight.

Beyond Dark Castle had an engine similar to Dark Castle but with improvements and additions like a health bar, bombs, and other items, as well as levels where the player could control a 'personal helicopter'. These levels and maze levels were side-scrollers instead of being limited to a single screen. Games could also be saved in a 'computer room' level. Like all versions of Dark Castle, if the player beat the game on advanced, it presented a special ending.

Return to Dark Castle[edit]

In 2000, a new sequel called Return to Dark Castle was announced, being developed by Z Sculpt, where a new young hero called Bryant, the nephew of Duncan, must once again defeat the Black Knight. This game wasn't released until March 14, 2008.

Return to Dark Castle includes new gameplay mechanics, such as the player being able to keep weapons, and store extra orbs in a room. Though it had been stated that the game would include a level editor, with the ability to create custom quests, this feature is not included in the download. According to the game's official website at Super Happy Fun Fun, the 'level editor will be released soon'.

Reception[edit]

Computer Gaming World stated that Dark Castle was 'the best arcade game I've seen for the Macintosh, and perhaps the best I've seen on any microcomputer, ever'. The reviewer praised the sound and graphics, stating that he did not know that the Macintosh was capable of animations of such quality. He concluded that Dark Castle 'is filled with lots of little touches that show it's one of the first steps toward what Silicon Beach likes to call 'interactive cartoons'.'^[4]BYTE compared the game to Lode Runner, writing 'There's nothing new about the basic concept, but the execution is impressive'. The magazine praised its 'slick animation and realistic digitized sound', and concluded that it 'is a perfect way to fritter away those long winter evenings when you should be doing something productive'.^[5]Compute! praised the Amiga version's 'brilliant graphics, sound, and atmosphere' but criticized the keyboard/mouse control system and gameplay as too difficult. The reviewer also disliked the disk-based copy protection which caused him to fear damage to the disk drives, crashes when loading the game, and slow level loading.^[6]

Game reviewers Hartley and Pattie Lesser complimented the game in their 'The Role of Computers' column in Dragon #122 (1987), calling it 'the finest arcade/adventure game ever designed for the Macintosh computer — as a matter of fact, for any computer!' and stating, 'The graphics and animation are quite literally stunning!'.^[7] In a subsequent column, the reviewers gave the game 4 out of 5 stars.^[8]Macworld reviewed the Macintosh version of Dark Castle, praising its gameplay, graphics, and sound, stating that 'Dark Castle is at its core a shoot-'em-up, duck-'n'-run type of game, but one so finely crafted it deserves a new classification that reflects its fast-paced action as well as its superb animation, graphics, and sound. The game has a humorous aspect as well.', and futhermore stating that 'Dark Castle provides the highest quality graphics and sound of any Macintosh game available. Its action is fast and furious, its scripting sublime.' Macworld summarises their review by listing the game's pros and cons, stating 'Great graphics, sound, animation, and design' as positives, and stating 'None' for Dark Castle's negatives.^[9]

In 1996, Computer Gaming World declared Dark Castle the 136th-best computer game ever released.^[10]

References[edit]

1. ^Moss, Richard (2018-03-22). 'The making of Dark Castle : An excerpt from The Secret History of Mac Gaming'. Gamasutra. Retrieved 2018-03-25.
2. ^'Dark Castle game resurrected for cell phones' from MacWorld
3. ^'Dark Castle game being ported for the Ipod touch' from TouchArcade
4. ^Boosman, Frank (November 1986). 'Macintosh Windows'. Computer Gaming World. No. 32. pp. 15, 42. Retrieved 17 April 2016.
5. ^Shapiro, Ezra (December 1986). 'Stocking Stuffers'. BYTE. p. 321. Retrieved 9 May 2015.
6. ^Anderson, Rhett (March 1988). 'Dark Castle'. Compute!. p. 25. Retrieved 10 November 2013.
7. ^Lesser, Patricia (June 1987). 'The Role of Computers'. Dragon (122): 76–80.
8. ^Lesser, Hartley and Patricia (October 1987). 'The Role of Computers'. Dragon (126): 82–88.
9. ^Goehner, Ken (March 1987). 'Silicon Castle Magic: Dark Castle Review'. Macworld. Mac Publishing. p. 146-147.
10. ^Staff (November 1996). '150 Best (and 50 Worst) Games of All Time'. Computer Gaming World (148): 63–65, 68, 72, 74, 76, 78, 80, 84, 88, 90, 94, 98.

External links[edit]

• Running Dark Castle on an emulator, plus advanced walkthrough
• Dark Castle for cell phones from Super Happy Fun Fun
• Dark Castle links at Z Sculpt A collection of links, including the official forum

Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse^[a] is the third Castlevaniavideo game produced for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It was published by Konami in Japan in 1989, and in North America in 1990, and in Europe by Palcom in 1992. It was later released on the Virtual Console for the Wii, Nintendo 3DS, and Wii U.

Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse is a prequel to the original Castlevania (much like the earlier Game Boy game Castlevania: The Adventure), set a few centuries before the events of the original game. The game's protagonist is Trevor C. Belmont, an ancestor of the original hero Simon Belmont.

Gameplay[edit]

Castlevania III abandons the action-adventure and role-playing elements of its immediate predecessor Castlevania II: Simon's Quest and returns to the platform game roots of the first Castlevania title. Unlike Castlevania, however, Castlevania III is non-linear: Trevor, the main character, can be assisted by one of three possible assistant characters, and after completing the first level, and at several other points throughout the game, the player is given a choice of two branching paths to follow. The player can obtain multiple endings depending on the choices they make throughout the game.

There are two main routes through the game's sixteen stages, which are referred to as blocks and are broken down into several sections. The second stage is an optional excursion for picking up one of the three partner characters, and the main branch occurs part way through the third stage. Each route contains total of nine stages (ten if the player takes the optional second stage). The upper route takes the player across the lake to the main bridge, entering Dracula's castle through the front gate, and is generally regarded as the easier of the two routes.^{[original research?]} The lower route takes the player through a series of tunnels and cavernous areas, eventually scaling the cliff side below the castle, and is generally considered more difficult than the upper route.^{[original research?]} The lower route also features one short branching section of its own at stage 6. The two paths converge in the main hall of the castle.

Plot[edit]

The year is 1476, and Count Dracula has started to ravage Europe with an army of monsters. The Belmont family of vampire hunters, once exiled from Wallachia, are called into action by the Church. They feared the Belmonts' 'super-human' power, but with Dracula menacing to swallow Europe in darkness, they are left with no choice but to call Trevor Belmont, current wielder of the Vampire Killer Whip.

Joining Trevor Belmont in his mission to defeat Dracula are three new playable characters: Sypha Belnades, a young sorceress with poor physical attack power but powerful elemental magic spells at her disposal; Grant Danasty, a pirate with the ability to climb on walls and change direction in mid-jump (a rare ability in earlier games of the series); and Alucard, Dracula's son, a dhampir^{[citation needed]} with the ability to shoot fireballs and transform into a bat. Trevor can be accompanied by only one companion at a time. If he chooses to take on another he must abandon his current companion. The player can 'spiritually transform' between Trevor and his ally with the 'select' button. Both Trevor and whoever is accompanying him share the same health meter. The ending of the game differs depending on which companion Trevor has with him at the time, or if he does not take another character with him at all.

Development and release[edit]

Count Dracula Games Online

Besides the different title, Akumajō Densetsu, the Japanese version has several other differences. It contains a specialized 'VRC6' coprocessor chip. The game's audio programmer, Hidenori Maezawa, assisted in the chip's creation. This chip added two extra pulse wave channels and a saw wave channel to the system's initial set of five sound channels. The majority of the music combines the channels to imitate the sound of a synthesized string section. Western versions of the NES did not have the ability to support external sound chips, so the North American release replaced the VRC6 with Nintendo's Memory Management Controller 5 (MMC5).^{[citation needed]} The MMC5 chip's sound channels cannot be used with the NES, and the game's music had to be downgraded by Yoshinori Sasaki to comply with the NES's standard five channels. Akumajō Dracula Famicom Best was a soundtrack album that included the Famicom version of the game's original music.

In the Japanese version, instead of using a stabbing dagger, Grant throws daggers as his main attack. Some enemies do less damage in the Japanese version, and had their sprites changed for the Western releases. Some instances of nudity on the enemies were censored, and religious iconography was pared down. The Japanese version has slightly different backgrounds in many stages, and has special effects not seen in the North American and European releases.

The North American and PAL versions have several hidden features that can be accessed by entering a certain name for the player, which include starting the game with 10 lives (by entering the name 'HELP ME'), the option to start the game with any of the three spirit partners, and to access the second, more difficult quest. These features are not present in the Japanese version.

Castlevania III was the first game in the series to have different packaging artwork outside Japan, painted by Tom Dubois using alkyd paints. It was inspired by Ray Harryhausen. Dubois would go on to design the North American packaging for Super Castlevania IV, Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge and Castlevania Bloodlines.^{[2][unreliable source?]}

It was released in Japan on December 22, 1989, in North America on September 1, 1990, and in Europe on December 10, 1992. The game also received a Windows release on November 16, 2002.^{[3][better source needed]}

It was released on the WiiVirtual Console in the PAL regions on October 31, 2008, in North America on January 12, 2009 and in Japan on April 21, 2009. It was released on the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console in the PAL regions on April 17, 2014 and in North America on June 26, 2014. It was released on the Wii U Virtual Console in Japan on April 16, 2014, in North America on June 26, 2014 and in the PAL regions on September 4, 2014.

It was later released again as part of the Castlevania Anniversary Collection for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch on May 16, 2019. The Famicom version was made officially available to western audiences for the first time as a bonus update to this collection a month later.

Reception[edit]

Japanese game magazine Famitsu gave it a 30 out of 40 score.^[4] In 1997 Electronic Gaming Monthly ranked it the 57th best console video game of all time, citing the multiple playable characters and routes to choose from and the outstanding graphics and music.^[5]Nintendo Power listed it as the ninth best Nintendo Entertainment System video game, praising it for its strong improvements over previous entries in the series.^[6]Game Informer's Tim Turi felt that it was a return to form after Castlevania II. He discussed characters such as Alucard (whom he called iconic) and Grant (whom he praised for his wall cling ability).^[7]GamesRadar ranked it the eighth best NES game ever made. The staff felt that it returned to Castlevania's roots after Castlevania II yet 'took the series to new heights.'^[8] GameZone ranked it as the third best Castlevania title. The staff preferred III the most as it felt like the original game the most; they felt its price on the Virtual Console was worthwhile.^[9]

IGN placed Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse 5th on their list of the Top 100 NES Games.^[10]

Former Castlevania Producer and developer Koji Igarashi cites Castlevania III as his favorite game in the series, noting the sound and setting as the reasons. Shutaro Iida, who was a programmer for the GBA and NDS games and director of Castlevania: Harmony of Despair, also said it as his favorite in the series, and cited the special sound chip in the Japanese version as the reason why.^[11]

In other media[edit]

Ninox database 2 5 88. The 1991 Captain N: The Game Master episode Return to Castlevania was based on this game.^{[citation needed]}

An animated Dracula's Curse movie had been in development since 2007 with writer Warren Ellis, Frederator Studios, and James Jean attached to the project.^[12] In August 2015, film producer Adi Shankar teased that the project, now an animated mini series, was finally in production.^[13] Titled simply Castlevania, the first season of the series premiered on Netflix on July 7, 2017.^[14] After the 4-episode first season premiere, it was later renewed for an 8-episode second series which premiered on October 26, 2018. A ten-episode third season was released on March 5th, 2020.^[15]

Dracula's Castle Game

Notes[edit]

1. ^Known in Japan as Akumajō Densetsu (悪魔城伝説, Demon Castle Legend)^[1]

References[edit]

1. ^'Akumajō Densetsu' 悪魔城伝説 [Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse] (in Japanese). Konami. Retrieved 2020-08-02.
2. ^Dubois, Tom. 'Tom Dubois interview'. BOX=ART (Interview). Interviewed by Gidney, Adam. Archived from the original on August 30, 2016. Retrieved August 22, 2016.
3. ^'Konami Collector's Series: Castlevania & Contra'. GameFAQs. Archived from the original on 2015-09-12. Retrieved 2015-06-16.
4. ^'悪魔城伝説 [ファミコン] / ファミ通.com'. Famitsu (in Japanese). Retrieved 2018-07-24.
5. ^'100 Best Games of All Time'. Electronic Gaming Monthly. No. 100. Ziff Davis. November 1997. p. 126. Note: Contrary to the title, the intro to the article explicitly states that the list covers console video games only, meaning PC games and arcade games were not eligible.
6. ^'Nintendo Power – The 20th Anniversary Issue!'. Nintendo Power. Vol. 231 no. 231. San Francisco, California: Future US. August 2008. p. 71.
7. ^Turi, Tim (2012-04-04). 'Ranking The Castlevania Bloodline'. Game Informer. Archived from the original on 2013-05-07. Retrieved 2013-12-05.
8. ^'Best NES Games of all time'. GamesRadar. 2012-04-16. Archived from the original on 2015-08-03. Retrieved 2013-12-05.
9. ^Workman, Robert (2011-09-27). 'Happy 25th Birthday Castlevania: The Ten Best Games in the Series'. GameZone. Archived from the original on 2013-12-11. Retrieved 2013-12-06.
10. ^IGN Staff (2011). 'Top 100 NES Games'. IGN. p. 5. Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse. Archived from the original on October 25, 2013. Retrieved July 29, 2020.
11. ^Knezevic, Kevin (2017-06-23). 'Symphony Of The Night Designer IGA Talks Bloodstained's Delay And His Favorite Castlevania'. GameSpot. CBS Interactive. Archived from the original on 2017-10-17. Retrieved 2017-07-25.
12. ^Justin McElroy (2007-05-07). 'Warren Ellis planning on three Castlevania films'. Joystiq. Archived from the original on 2008-10-05. Retrieved 2008-07-13.
13. ^Trumbore, Dave. 'Super Violent 'Castlevania' Animated Series Coming from Producer Adi Shankar'. Collider.com. Archived from the original on August 26, 2015. Retrieved August 26, 2015.
14. ^Williams, Mike (February 8, 2017). 'Castlevania Headed To Netflix in 2017, From Warren Ellis and Adi Shankar'. US Gamer. Archived from the original on February 11, 2017. Retrieved February 8, 2017.
15. ^Elfring, Matt (March 5, 2020). 'Here's What's New to Netflix in March 2020: Castlevania Season 3, More Movies, TV Shows, and Originals'. GameSpot. Retrieved 6 March 2020.

External links[edit]

• Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse at MobyGames