
The making of Dark Castle - zeveb
https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/315720/The_making_of_Dark_Castle_An_excerpt_from_The_Secret_History_of_Mac_Gaming.php
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aresant
That article was pulled from book "The Secret History of Mac Gaming" which is
full of same quality of research from same author.

You can get the digital version here -
[https://unbound.com/books/macgaming/](https://unbound.com/books/macgaming/)

Or looks like you can buy on Author's site via Amazon here -

[https://www.amazon.com/Secret-History-Mac-
Gaming/dp/17835248...](https://www.amazon.com/Secret-History-Mac-
Gaming/dp/1783524863/)

I was an original backer of the project, no other affiliation very cool to see
it on HN and highly recommended the book is a beautiful piece!

~~~
Tossrock
I assume he must talk about Ambrosia SW, right? If so I might have to get it,
I've always wanted to know more about them, especially the development of the
Escape Velocity series.

~~~
archgoon
Yep. From the above linked page, interviews with:

Andrew Welch (Ambrosia)

Ben Spees (Harry the Handsome Executive, Ferazel's Wand)

Matt Burch (Escape Velocity)

Also:

Alex Seropian (Bungie)

Eric Klein (former Mac game evangelist, Bungie)

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jonah-archive
Playable in-browser over here at the Internet Archive:
[https://archive.org/details/mac_DarkCastle_1_2](https://archive.org/details/mac_DarkCastle_1_2)

An article about that collection:
[https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/05/mac-a...](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/05/mac-
attack/527979/)

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eludwig
What a great game! I played this for hours back when it was released and I did
finally make it to (and beat!) the Black Knight level. So many good memories.
IMO, the difficulty level was much closer to today's tougher indy games.. Not
sure I'd have the patience today.

Beyond Dark Castle was fun too, but it was way more sprawling and confusing.
DC was just a compact, tight, totally winnable game. Loved it. It being in
black and white was not an issue, either. Given the mood and subject, it
totally fit.

The vertical blanking hack is real typical of Mac software of the era. There
were a bunch of things that low-level devs had to use it for, but you had to
be careful, as it didn't last very long.

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ajennings
Mark Pierce's Super Happy Fun Fun did release an amazing game called Return to
Dark Castle: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/return-to-dark-
castle/id4107...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/return-to-dark-
castle/id410703154?mt=12) It runs on modern macs, is tremendously faithful to
the original, recreates all levels from the original and the sequels, and adds
some new levels (I think).

Also, at an amazing price!

~~~
ghostbrainalpha
50 new levels.

Price is $10, which I'll say is fair... but not exactly amazing.

~~~
ajennings
Interesting. I bought it when it was $20 and felt it was well worth it. I was
worried when they dropped the price to $10 about the company going out of
business.

I guess there are probably better deals out there, but I'm happy to pay $10
for a game this well-done that provides this many hours of entertainment.

I'd hate to see good games like this disappear because there are too many free
ones on the app stores and people don't want to pay for games anymore.

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jcl
An easter egg that I fondly recall finding: If you ran the game on December
25th, the suit of armor in the entryway is replaced with a Christmas tree.

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hota_mazi
It's striking to me to compare the state of games in 1987 on the Mac (as
depicted in this article) and on the Amiga:

[https://www.google.com/search?q=amiga+game+1987](https://www.google.com/search?q=amiga+game+1987)

It doesn't even look like the two computers are of the same generation.

~~~
robterrell
Dark Castle was 1986, but your point stands. But 1987 was the year the Mac II
came out, with excellent color graphics support. It just took a while for
developers to support it.

~~~
sien
When the Mac II came out it cost $5500.

The Amiga cost $600.

Sources:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_II](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_II)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_500](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_500)

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slantyyz
Wow, hadn't heard the name "Dark Castle" in eons. That was a pretty good game,
but as someone who has pretty much sucked at platformers forever, I could
never get very far in the game.

The game I probably ended up played the most on my Mac of that era was
Canfield (solitaire).

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gwern
Ah, the early days of PC gaming - where one kid could program the most popular
game and make a fortune off it without Apple/Steam/etc taking all the profits
in an commoditized market of games; but also where they had to be written in
assembler by hand, a single PC would cost your life savings, and distributing
a game could require a (third) mortgage on your house... They were interesting
times, but as a consumer I definitely prefer now.

~~~
ghostbrainalpha
Can you name an example of a child video game prodigy who made millions making
a game by themselves?

I knew that it was much easier to make a fully formed game as an individual
developer back then obviously, but I've never heard of anyone who profited
from it like that. I thought independent developers were much better off today
with the ability to make a game like "Flappy Bird" and have it distributed and
advertised for you by companies like Apple.

~~~
gwern
I seem to recall seeing a number of examples on filfre.net, and other games
like _Prince of Persia_ were largely one-man jobs (he got some help with
animation and whatnot, but it was essentially a one-man thing, judging from
the famous developer diary). One problem is that people don't always cite
exact dollar amounts, and when they do, they don't inflation-adjust - if you
made 'only' $300k off a computer game in 1980, well, that's a million dollars
now right there.

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xnomad
My mum would try to stop me playing this because it was too violent. The
prisoners getting whipped in the dungeon really apalled her. Violence has come
a long way since then.

~~~
throwaway010718
I must admit that I stopped watching this video at the scene where the
prisoners are getting whipped because I found it upsetting. I watch Game Of
Thrones and have played violent video games. So I'm not your Mom. :)

Perhaps the audio is just too clear ? Or perhaps there isn't enough going on
scene-wise to distract. Or just the fact that the whipping is perfectly
periodic and programmed to go on indefinitely. I don't know.

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lph
Dark Castle and Beyond Dark Castle were astounding to me as a kid. Sounds like
they had a great team.

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coldcode
I remember sitting with Charlie on a boat in SF Harbor during the first Apple
WWDC (called something else) in 1986 listening to how they did the audio. He
was definitely an inspiration to us younger Mac developers.

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paulific
This was my one break during the year of my honors thesis! Once a week on
Sunday morning I would stop work and play Dark Castle for a couple of hours.
Good times!

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tinus_hn
If you like this, Jordan Mechner did a great series of journals about the
making of Prince of Persia which you can buy in book form and I think also
read for free on archive.org

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justherefortart
That ending was spectacular.

>international style rapid-fire pistol shooting

and he made the team!

My startup partner will likely take his earnings and realize his dream of
owning a club (adult variety) should it ever take off. I just want a jet
(small like HondaJet).

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theNJR
Oh man I loved this game. Playing it on my Mac Classic felt magical.

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abalone
TIL Jonathan Gay is a cattle rancher now.

