The Wizard’s Castle is very similar to a game that I played on my mom’s IBM when I was a lad of fifteen. Games were never good quality back in the early eighties, and we’ve really grown a lot since then.  The Wizard’s Castle is a reminder why computer games grew up. 

This game is played on a 8×8 grid that is full of question marks. You are the main character who explores every room, and any unsearched room has a big question mark over it.  In the rooms are a treasure, a monster, a book, or a vendor.  You get the idea.   

Apparently, your goal is to find the “Orb of Zot”.  Doesn’t look like the game developer took much time to develop a backstory. As I mentioned before, I remember playing a game like this years ago. Back then, I could never see the grid, and had to keep track of my quest with pencil and paper.  This is still the same concept, the only difference is I can see what is in a room before I enter it.  Also, everytime you face a foe, you see an image that looks like it has been plucked out of Lord of The Rings.

 

Essentially, this game is made to look like Dungeons and Dragons.  You can even pick out a character class, and buy items such as a sword or armor.  Of course, a lot of the money you get goes to pay for a lamp.  

The keyboard controls are very confusing.  Apparently, every letter does something.  A for attack, C for Cast Spell, R for Retreat, and so on.  However, when I pushed H for Help, all I got was a screen that said “Action Cancelled”.  Here’s what I was able to figure out.  If you enter a room with stairs, U takes you up the stairs and D takes you down.  By the way, going up and down stairs takes you to another level with a whole bunch of question marks. Also the F key lights up a flare, if you have one. 

On the whole, this game just wasn’t worth taking up my time. There are better games to get in to. You can download Wizard’s Castle here

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 24th, 2006 at 10:09 am and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.