Dark Castle

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Dark Castle
System(s): Sega Mega Drive
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: Artech Studios
Original system(s): Macintosh
Developer(s) of original games: Silicon Beach Software
Genre: Action
Number of players: 1
Release Date RRP Code US 1991 703401 EU 1991-11 E177SMXI UK 1991-11 £34.9934.99 E177SMXI AU 199x BR 199x
Non-Sega versions Amiga Apple IIGS Atari ST CD-i Commodore 64 IBM PC Macintosh

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Dark Castle is Sega Mega Drive action platform game developed by Artek Digital Productions and published by Electronic Arts. A port of the classic 1986 Silicon Beach Software game Dark Castle, it was released in 1991 to overwhelmingly negative reception.

Plot

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Prince Duncan traverses a treacherous castle to defeat the dreaded Black Knight.

Gameplay

Prince Duncan can run, jump and duck, interact with parts of the scenery and throw a limited number of rocks. Elixirs can be found to protect from animal bites, and acquiring a bag of rocks with replenish his projectiles. Duncan can also equip a magic shield, and upgrade his projectiles to powerful fireballs.

The game is infamous for its weak protagonist. Prince Duncan frequently trips on the scenery, grows dizzy after short falls, and dies in a single hit. To compound things even more, while the original game was designed to aim Duncan’s arm with a computer mouse, the home versions instead rotate his arm with a button. This exhausting control scheme is the primary reason for the poor reception of the Sega Mega Drive port.

Gameplay

Rooms

	Great Hall
	Trouble 1
	Trouble 2
	Trouble 3
	Fireball 1
	Fireball 2
	Fireball 3
	Fireball 4
	Black Knight 1
	Black Knight 2
	Black Knight 3
	Shield 1
	Shield 2
	Shield 3
	Shield 4

History

Legacy

Most versions of Dark Castle were critically panned on release, with the Mega Drive being no exception. Having originally been designed for high resolution monochrome graphics and mouse controls, the move to the Mega Drive, as with other ports, saw the game run in a smaller screen resolution with slower d-pad controls. While most ports add colour, many choose to recycle as many of the original Macintosh assets as possible, leading to very mixed results, where it can be difficult to see what is happening on-screen.

Dark Castle was quite popular among Macintosh fans, however, gaining sequels such as Beyond Dark Castle and remakes such as Color Dark Castle.

Production credits

• Producer: Keith Francart
• Product Manager: David Bamberger
• Programming, Music, and Sounds: Artek Digital Productions
• Documentation Layout: Jennie Maruyama
• Quality Assurance: Jonathan Skolnick

Source:

US manual

Magazine articles

Main article: Dark Castle/Magazine articles.

Physical scans

Sega Retro Average
Publication Score Source

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Based on 0 review

Sega Retro Average

Publication Version Score 1700 igr dlya Sega (RU) 66 Console XS (UK) PAL 52 Cool Gamer (RU) 10 Mean Machines: The Essential Sega Guide (UK) 13 Gamers (DE) 7 Games-X (UK) 30 Joypad (FR) PAL 41 Joystick (FR) 55 Sega Mega Drive Advanced Gaming (UK) PAL 38 Mega (UK) 44 Mega Force (FR) PAL 55 Mean Machines (UK) 23 Mean Machines Sega (UK) 23 Player One (FR) 19 Sega Power (UK) 69 Sega Pro (UK) PAL 49 Sega Pro (UK) PAL 52 Supergame (BR) 87 Tricks 16 bit (RU) 38 Video Games (DE) 25

	40
Based on 20 reviews

Dark Castle

Mega Drive, US
Cover
Cart Manual

Mega Drive, EU
Cover
Cart

Mega Drive, AU

Mega Drive, BR
Cover
Cart

Technical information

ROM dump status

System	Hash	Size	Build Date	Source	Comments
✔	CRC32 0464aca4 MD5 56965eb7dde9bc22d16ffa72331c0e09 SHA-1 23e1ad9822338362113e55087d60fb9a1674bf8a	512kB	1991-09	Cartridge (US/EU)