Important News From la Porta:

Hey guys, Paul Pratt (the guy who made and maintains Mini vMac) has added a new page on the Mini vMac site for donations to the project in general, or towards new features. The page is located here:

LINK

I thought it would be nice if we sent in whatever we can to keep the development of Mini vMac up (especially with it being around christmas). We don't want Mini vMac to someday go to dust...then we couldn't play DC or BDC anymore! I think it is a good idea since Paul has kept the project going for the past few years. Without him, we would be pretty lost.

UPDATE: The link is fixed.

My first encounter with Zack Black, Chat saved, now posted

I've been meaning to post this for a while, it's the original chat I had with Zack Black, sometime before I started the forum I think. Keep in mind that this may be outdated as it is almost a year old.

It can be found here:

LINK

They are still working on it..

Now, due to people blowing their top over from news that ends up not being as soon as it sounds, take this with a warning attached: Don't get to hyped up, it will lead to disappointment.

Blah blah, now that that is overwith...

Zack Morris:

"we ran into a bit of a bug we are working on today

it's minor, but we can't reproduce it, so hafta send version to SHFF and get responses till it's fixed

there are literally like 2-3 bugs left

and we are in final talks now about distribution and payments and stuff

can't go into details tho, but feel free to tell the forum

and sorry about the web page, we'd update it, but just don't have anything new to report

zack talks to SHFF about every day no

the last month has basically been explaining bugs and gameplay decisions to SHFF and checking them off their beta testing system

there have been some holdups, mostly becase SHFF is more about marketing and we are more software engineers

I'm 90% sure it will come out this fall

if it were up to zack and I, I'd say 99.9%, but SHFF has the final say"

Best Birthday Present EVER.

I know my birthday was a while ago, but I finally had a party last weekend, and it lasted 2 and a half days. And on the second day I got the best present ever. It's so great in fact that I need to share it with you guys.

Return to Dark Castle Beta 12.

I FINALLY GOT IT! Here you guys go:

LINK

Beyond Dark Castle Wiki updated more.

I am still getting time to work on the Dark Castle Wiki, occasionally, I finally added the Beyond Dark Castle section though, let me know what you think.

LINK

Color Dark Castle Review

I finally review Color Dark Castle, give it a look:

LINK

Any and all feedback is welcome, that's right, let me know what you think.

More graphical tweaks to the forum.

I added some more graphical tweaks that I had been meaning to add for a while to the forum..

Opinions anyone?

New stuff!

I wrote a review for Beyond Dark Castle, which can be found here:

LINK

I did something interesting with photoshop, and Fireball 1 here:

LINK

The almost complete catalog of DC3 Demos/Betas:

LINK

Also, I added new emoticons from the forum, go check them out here:

LINK

Zack Black Speakith.

 SHFF closed out all the issues regarding the gameplay or graphics changes today except for a few small things I'll be looking at this week. If they're read, then we should have the intel build of the demo posted any day now.

:)

Slow news lately. Original Dark Castle review by Jon God

I finally got to writing a review for this game, after playing it for a good deal of my life, I was worried that it would be hard to review. It turned out that it really wasn't that hard.

LINK

I know I gave it that score, which is the first time I have ever given something that score, but I had a hard time thinking of ANYTHING that was bad about this game.

Return to Dark Castle Soundtrack

In the earlier demos if Return to Dark Castle, there was music, who knows if it will make it's way into the final game or not. Anyways, I collected all the music I could from the Dark Castle Demos.

They are not perfect, but as good as I could get, sorry.

Enjoy everyone! Leave a comment telling me what you think, Should DC3 keep Music?

LINK

More done to the Dark Castle wiki

I did a lot more work to the Dark Castle wiki, most noticeably, with the galleries, for levels, and versions of the games, and pages for each level and level path, go check it out!

Once again if anyone feels like it.. PLEASE DO HELP!

Link

Lastly, for anyone reading this, someone asked me "Any insider news?", My reply? "Oh little things here and there, but I heard something small but good recently"

Still, you're looking for better news, I would say look no farther then this forum topic(With quotes from Zack/s!):

Link

Started work on the Dark Castle Wiki

I gave a start to the Dark Castle Wiki tonight.

I did one new page:

Link

As well as start cleaning up the Original Dark Castle Page:

Link

Still, we're just getting started, and any help would be nice.

I'm back!

Although I forgot to mentioned to you guys reading my blog.

I had some personal issues I had to sort out, and I am finally back

Which means more blog posts... Hopefully :p

Hey everyone....

Man, The more I talk to the Zacks, the more I get the feeling that they are just waiting on SHFF got no good reason. Like SHFF just doesn't care, and is looking for some reason to delay the game longer, after all, the game has been finished since november, and here we are waiting for it still.

SuperHappyFunFun looks to be holding Return to Dark Castle back for no good reason. It seems like every time I talk to the Zacks, they are just waiting around, and they seem less and less enthusiastic about it, as it gets pushed farther and farther away.

Let them all know, let them know we have been waiting and er are getting impatient over pointless delays, let them know it all.

Here are their E-Mails:

whazup (at) superhappyfunfun.com

mpierce (at) shff.com

joe (at) deltatao.com

And even the Zacks, let them know how much we care, let them know how much you want it.

Their E-Mails:

zmorris (at) zsculpt.com

zblack (at) zsculpt.com

I'm as tired of all this as you are, let's try again to do something about it.

Public Secret - Good News! Shhh though.

What I am telling you is so secret, that I am not even allowed to tell you, so what I can tell you is:

Good News. Coming Soon.

You never heard, nor saw me.

Congratulations New Moderator! Guess who!

After the recent spam attack and the closing of the "Off Topic" section, and the ever approaching release of Return To Dark Castle, I knew I needed another Moderator, to help me keep things under control.

I held a Poll for people to vote on who they thought should be a mod, because after all, this is a community, and I will let them decide for themselves what they want. And so voting commenced.

And now that it's past midnight, so now we have our new Moderator, and I would like everyone to give a hand to our, and you newest Moderator:

gruz!

I know, NO one saw THIS coming :P seriously though, may he help for a long time to come, and be there to help out those in need.

In following, if you missed them before, here are some of the recent additions to the forum:

• Users can now find this board through invisionfree's database under 'Macintosh'.

• 'User browsing this forum' section, and 'users browsing this topic' added.

• Users must now verify their E-Mail addresses manually, which hopefully will cut down on spam

• Behind the scenes prepping for new Moderator.

I still have some aces up my sleeves, so expect some other cool additions over the coming months :) I know, I'm too good to you.. jk.

Another thing to note, is that the "Off-Topic" is opened again, it may be a feeding ground for spam bots for a little while, so be careful, but feel free to use it now.

And lastly! There's one more thing, as a present to this forum, and blog, I spent some hours today working on this, and I think I will share it with you check it out here:

LINK

Forum Troubles and other news...

First off, I know that there have been recent porn-spam-bot attacks, and I have been working on the situation, and have temporarily closed the "off-topic" section. I also have started a topic, fir I realize now that I really do need another moderator, for my forum. If you think you can be of some assistance, don't hesitate to tell me right here:

LINK

In other news, I beta tested Khufu with Zack Morris, and some other people I did not know, it was really fun, and helped Zack out a lot, I plan to keep helping him as much as I can, and you know what? you can too! I would personally suggest trying this game out, it's really fun online, and they need all the help they can get.. I know it's not Dark Castle, but it's nice to be able to help Z Sculpt Entertainment in anyway we can. For more information check here:

LINK

Until next time!

According to Zack Morris, "SHFF has the final say, we are waiting till everything is ironed out and they give the go ahead"

It's time that we show them our support and gratitude for this sure to be great game! We need everyone to email SHFF at whazup@superhappyfunfun.com

Let them know that you are a member of the Dark Castle Forum (if you are), and that we understand that RTDC is near to being released, and that we are offering our support and thanks for working on this great game, and that we are highly anticipating it's release.

 -Izdale

What we know so far....

I finally got around to making the 'What we know so far' topic I have been meaning to start forever...

It will basically be a topic will all the information we know so far (no, really?), which will be helped along by you guys, telling me everything I have forgotten so far.

LINK

I think we have found the best Dark Castle player...

For a while I thought Action Jack was the best DC player, but along came this fellow, who has done the impossible, and claimed the throne of best Dark Castle player... for now... Action may contest it when he gets his computer back, but for now I think we should give KING RICHARD a round of applause.

For those who might doubt his greatness, or are just curious on how he proved himself, look no farther, for Richard has done thus: Starting on Beginner in Beyond Dark Castle, he beat the game, continued on Intermediate, beat the game, then through advanced.... WITHOUT DYING/SAVING/LOADING! The full run clocks, 1 hour, 11 minutes, and 1 second, which in itself is incredible!

Link to the video HERE

EDIT: This is not to say the permanent champion, feel free to try and surpass him, we'd love to see your skills!

Also, Richard as awarded the label of "Current Dark Castle Campion" on the forum

Zack Answered out prayers... er.. Questions...

Zack took the time to answer a lot of questions that had piled up in the forums, and once again I am really excited for Dark Castle 3.

Link

We all know it, and even the best of us fear it...

I am of course talking about the West Tower Wall, Featured in Beyond Dark Castle, and Return To Dark Castle, that level that had you shouting about how unfair it was that you fell in the dungeon on your 83rd try. But what is this level, and what makes this level so feared?

Looking at it right off the bat, we notice that most of the level is above a large pit to the dungeon, and there are many chances to fall into that pit. 

There is a mutant, that is willing to come out at just the wrong time to ruin your day.

Ah, yes the birds, they plague the other half of the level, making it difficult to jump from platform to platform, and impossible to beat the level without killing them.

Looking at all this one might say that this level is a nightmare, but looking upon it, I think that this level is ingenious, with many different skills needed to beat it, and a nice background to go with it.

I think that, despite the level being so darned hard, it was one of the best levels in all of Dark Castle So far...

Do people think that DC3 might have even harder levels?

Do people agree with what I said?

Please, post comments!

Online Soreboards

I started an online scoreboard for speed runs of Dark castle and Beyond Dark Castle, be aware though, you'll need video proof of your feat to have it accepted.

Link

Positive and Negative Beta User Reviews Episode 2

The second episode on this topic, this time targeting Macupdate, which has less reviews..

Pros:

4.5/5

There's a lot lacking here, as people have mentioned - various bugs with screen and control handling (still can't change my controls from the defaults, even after the download), and it took some patience to figure out what the controls even were (documentation sucks). However, gameplay is smooth and it's so nice the play DC again, even a little bit.

Good enough for a teaser release, but thus needs to come together soon. There are still some basic gameplay bugs in this demo (death is sometimes cancelled by falling down a chute, for example), and it is ANNOYING to go back to the main hall every time you stumble into a level that is not part of the demo. Just put me back where I was, please :(

 -Alden Stradling

(Macupdate)

4/5

wot the hell us up with you moaning mo fo's!!

Sure there are a lot of problems and nothing is 100% complete, but it ain't even at v1 yet!! :(

To the author, great release and thank you - appreciated over here. :)

 -Anonymous

(Macupdate)

5/5

Its like being in a time machine going back to the set of a black and whie film, very eerie. I love the attention to detail in this version, no other game has ever had as many bricks! You still need skill to play this game too. Please can we have an OSX release of Solaris II next.

The weirdest thing is the price of a mac has dropped since the game was first released in 1991, $5,000 dollars bought you a 20 mhz Mac IIsi with 5 megs of RAM 40MB hardrive and 13" of glorious 256 color.

 -Anonymous

(Macupdate)

5/5

I know the game as i played it on the mac plus, but the beta 11 wouldn't start up, it complains about a "NewpixMap" Does anyone now what that means. I did play beta 6, and i loved it!

 -Darcastler

(Macupdate)

3.5/5

This game isn't to good yet but by the time it's finished it should be really cool. I hope it has customizable keys.

 -Zoolander

(Macupdate)

4.5/5

This us a great game, as was the original. Everything is looking good so far. It has all of the excitement of the original ad then some (yes, I'm old enough to remember playing  DC and BDC for hours on my old Mac SE). The only problem is it will occasionally crash for no reason, but that's to be expected as it is only a beta

 -Anonymous

(Macupdate)

4/5

As a veteran Macgamer, I cans still remember playing te original Dark Castle and Beyond Dark Castle on my dad's SE. I had nightmares about swinging around on a shap pendulum. The atmosphere of the old games and the good old rock chuckin' fun has been flawlessly reproduced and enhanced. The stars are give are JUST for the beta demo. I have high hopes for the finished project, as it would be difficult to screw up such a great game.

 -Lester

(Macupdate)

5/5

this game is stupid just kidding it is so good I play it every day butt I want the hole game please tell me where to buy it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 -JAMESON

(Macupdate)

5/5

the best game I have ever plade. the music rules.graphicks are good

 -john

(macupdate)

CONS:

2.5/5

Would be a decent little game is a) there weren't so many bugs (major ones that make game play impossible), b) the demo didn't crash, c) the "training" area worked in the demo and e) if there was some clear way to learn the controls. It's got the graphics and sound, it's just missing in the details department something fierce

 -John

(Macupdate)

2/5

Poor Default controls. And it requires you to download and instal extra drives so you can configure the controls! Just plain lame. Apple has API for this stuff, even a cross compiling library lets you access keyboard and mouse events. It's not that hard.

It defaults to a low resolution, low color full screen mode. Switching to window mode causes the game to crash.

Level exits are poorly defined; I have to walk offscreen instead of going through one of the doors? That isn't intuitively obvious, there are other side scrolling games that have done this better.

So it's essentially a side scrolling game circa 1995. It's been done before, and they couldn't even be bothered to do it well apparently

 -Tomis

(Macgamefiles)

2/5

shite

 -ben

(Macupdate)

3/5

This game is too unfinished to give a correct score, but it is looking good. I like the idea of developers releasing unfinished "demo betas" of their products, so that people will know weather or no to anticipate the product.

 -Hugh

(Macupdate)

And there you have Macupdate.com, it seems to be filled with more varied responses, but highly positive ones.

Final Take: A lot of people still bash it due to the beta state it is in.

More episodes will be on the way later.

Dark Castle Mobile Screens

I finally got around to making a "Dark Castle Mobile Screenshot Gallery", it can be found:

HERE

In other news I gave Izdale and tbone, much needed badges to show that they were my original 2 members.

Blurry Graphics fix.

I noticed how the graphics for the test demo of Return to Dark Castle, were washed out, and blurry, and remembered something the Zacks said, the game is emulating a 640x480 monitor, so it still works, otherwise they would have to redo the game completely.

Thus, if you launch the game at 640x480 already, the game looks really good.

Forum Avatars

I realize that people on my forum are doing fine making and finding their own avatars, but I have been trying to make my forum more "new-user" friendly, so I spent a few hours making avatars, which I put in a new topic:

Avatar Gallery

In other news, I finally got to using a new signature, as to make it easier for other people, who had previously complained.

Positive and Negative Beta User Reviews Episode 1

After that ridiculously long name, Anything I say will sound way to serious, or silly. Anyways, I decided to collect user reviews of the beta from around the web, to see what people think of it, I am starting with the popular Mac Gaming site 'Macgamefiles.com', so here it goes:

Positive:

5/5

good. That's it. Good.

 -A

(Macgamefiles)

5/5

keep it real

 -joney

(Macgamefiles)

4/5

isent there allready a color version of dark castle?

 -Kamahawk

(Macgamefiles)

4/5

I like this game... but why is the remake taking 3-4 years?!?!? It's not very complicated...

 -David

(Macgamefiles)

5/5

"this game is really cool, i've played it before and i would give it a 5, but now when i try and d/l it and play it, it says it is expired" set your computer date back,  THIS GAME RULES!

 -Some Guy Who Likes dark castle

(Macgamefiles)

5/5

Fun Game

 -Chris Arthur

(Macgamefiles)

5/5

It's about time I can play this game in color

 -Pete

(Macgamefiles)

5/5

The first version - Beyond Dark Castle - runned quite smoothly on my SE-30 Mac. Although it was B&W, not so many levels, ect ect ect, the concept behind this game was quite impressive for the time. I just wish I could download this version to check it out on my home iMac.

 -Static Beast

(Macgamefiles)

5/5

Great but still needs work. When it is finished it should be totally awesome :-)

 -Nai

(Macgamefiles)

5/5

That great Beyond Dark castle game in color, the cool sounds..

 -Chiky

(Macgamefiles)

5/5

I am very excited for the full version of this game to be released. The levels in the demo are great, and the gameplay is just as great as the older games.

 -jst

(Macgamefiles)

5/5

Ahhhh.... I *loved* this game when I played it on my Mac+... It rocked back then, and it rocks now! I just hope it wont be long until I can play "Return to the pyramid of RA" =)

 -The Tiny Toad

(Macgamefiles)

5/5

Yes! The original Dark Castle had a richness and variety to the game play that you can't find these days, and this  re captures that. It also is true to the dark but fun to the original - only now with beautiful color graphics.

 -Corneilius

(Macgamefiles)

5/5

If there ever was a remake and/or sequel to the original Dark Castles, this is the best it could possibly be.

 -cap'n bishop™

(Macgamefiles)

5/5

Wow!

 -Zarek

(Macgamefiles)

5/5

Looks extremely promising. I'm already addicted. :-)

 -Pual A.

(Macgamefiles)

4/5

The levels themselves are identical to the ones I played 1989 on my old Mac SE. But it certainly shows quite a bit of potential. If the new levels they design are good, this will certainly be a worthwhile game.

 -Matthew Wendorf

(macgamefiles)

4/5

Seems promising

 -Vick

(macgamefiles)

Negatives:

2/5

They should just give up...by the time it is finally released we'll all probably be dead.

 -HellsBell

(Macgamefiles)

3/5

I gotta agree woth fast-sammy.  Open  source the code or something. Maybe the open source geeks can do something with this. It's taking waaaay too long.

 -A

(Macgamefiles)

2/5

It has potential, but nearly 8 freaking years in development? Release it or give it up.

 -fast-sammy

(Macgamefiles)

1/5

Um...what? This game has been on macgamefiles.com for years, LITERTALLY. Every so often the publisher remembers  "Oh shit! I was making a game, wasn't I ?!" and then makes some minimal update to this barely finished piece of junk. Why doesn't he either give up or just release the freakin' final version already? I think it's pretty insane that this title has been in the "demo" stages for over 3 years. This "demo" is hardly even playable. I'd call it more of a "demo of a demo" since there is more replay value in a game of Pong. Don't waste your time on this POS, since the final version obviously will never be released.

 -The Joker

(Macgamefiles)

3/5

I can't wait to see the full final version... but at this pace... this game  won't be 'finished' until late 2009. I second  the statement: WTF  if  taking so long!!!

 -Rob

(Macgamefiles)

1/5

wow this game sucks...who else is tired of seeing this popping up every so often on macgamefiles? i think people who like this r trying  far to hard to enjoy retro gmaing :-)

 -jim

(Macgamefiles)

3/5

WTF is taking them so long!?

 -Tom

(Macgamefiles)

1/5

Yes, do keep it real and don't download this piece of crap.

 -Red XIII

(Macgamefiles)

3/5

Pretty good, but feels too outdated and boring. BTW What's wrong with 2d Graphics? Some of the best games ever made are of 2D graphics... and some great GBA games are jolly good fun even thought they are 2D. And many of Ambrosia's games are great even thought almost every one of them are 2D.

 -MineMi

(Macgamefiles)

2/5

Fun...when it works. I got a type one error after playing for a bit. My machine then froze. I tried again, and it crashed out, currupting my monitor prefs, requiring an extensions off reboot, pref trashing and PRAM zapping... They aren't kidding calling this a beta.

 -Ben

1/5

This game is total squirrel shit.

 -=(

(Macgamefiles)

1/5

This game is realy cool, i've played it before and i would give it a 5, but now when i try and d/l it and play it, it says it's expired.

 -Yoda

(Macgamefiles)

1/5

it's a shit game

 -immi

(Mcagamefiles)

1/5

After reading yer reviews think I will download something else for my amusement...

 -Dunno

(macgamefiles)

1/5

You are an idiot if you download this piece of junk.

 -Pathetic

(Macgamefiles)

1/5

It's no wonder it was made in 1985.I don't see why 2D graphics is suddenly a good things. I wonder what they were smoking when they made this game.

 -Matt

(Macgamefiles)

3/5

Matt, if this game was made in 1985? Why is it getting so much hype 16 years later? PLEASE TELL ME WHY? don't i have some right to be frustrated? I mean...what am I suppose to do when I play this game? Dance I...I...words can't describe what I am feeling for this game.

 -Pbeentje

(Macgamefiles)

2/5

what...the hell is this?

 -OMG~!!!!

(Macgamefiles)

1/5

I DO N T like this demo!!!!!

 -helen

(Macgamefiles)

2/5

Q3 is better! Ok, for a low price.

 -Michel

(Macgamefiles)

2/5

lol Wired...

 -Dev

(Macgamefiles)

2/5

am I stupid (or a bug) but cannot get through any doors ?(can open them though). Training area stops half way through. Looks a bit retro

 -bagman

(Macgamefiles)

3/5

Seems to have all of the joys and frustrations of the original black and white  Dark Castle 2

 -AHGamer

(Macgamefiles)

1/5

really bad. the movement and action is really bad for an arcade game. the game play is bad. boring. I played  it for about  five minutes. then I threw it in the trash. cant wait till warcraft III comes out.

 -nathan

(Macgamefiles)

2/5

No way to change the keys in the game so lefties are s.o.l. at this stage. Game looks  interesting, but not much more then a colour version of the last one. The training area is a nice touch at least.

 -Lagwolf

(Macgamefiles)

And we are done, this is not all the reviews from macgamefiles.com, as I didn't post some non sensical ones, and some ones that just make people look stupid.

EDIT:

My stance on what people think now: I think that most of the people that gave it bad reviews were because of the following reasons A. They ran into a glitch. B. they don't like 2D games. C. the expiration date stopped them from trying it. and then the number one reason: D. It's taking to long/it will never be released.

Do you think people's minds will change when they the full game comes out? what do you think people will think? Leave some comments telling me what you think.

I'll do a few more of these episodes at some point.

Short Evolution of DC3

I made a short evolution of Dark Castle 3 topic, showing how some of the levels matured, and how the graphics changed, throw a look at it over here:

LINK

In response the the "help" post.

I now only need the 12th Beta, if ANYONE has it, please, please share..

For those that missed it the first time around..

I while back, 2001, If I recall correctly, IMG had a preview for Return To Dark Castle, to me this was the greatest thing in the world, and i reread it for years to come, now if any of you missed it the first time, here it is again:

Link

Help, if you can.

I am currently trying to get a hold of Return To Dark Castle Betas, 1, 2, 3, 11, and 12. And if anyone has the 1.1 (which I doubt), it would also be welcome. Anyways, if you DO happen to have them please upload them somewhere for me, like megaupload.com

Thanks in advance to anyone who even reads this :)

EDIT: I managed to acquire most of them, and I am only missing betas 1, and 12 (I got 1.1!!), so if anyone has em...

Old Zack Black interview

Izdale pointed out an old Zack Black interview, so I thought I'd share it

HERE

Well, I was bored and stuck at home today...

So I decided to spend some hours working on making the forum more interesting, by the way of new content. So I went around thinking "What does my forum NOT have?" So I made some new topics, pinned some, unpinned some, and added a lot more content, which can be found at the following links:

First off we now have pictures, and descriptions of all the levels in the hacked teaser demo, which can be found here:

Link

I finally got around to making a topic with all the 'interesting topics' linked to in it. it can be found here:

Link

I know new users are often worried about how many topics are already in the forum, and don't feel like digging through all the topics to find the real gems, so I did the 'interesting topics' post, but I also added a link to it, and the FAQ in the 'new users post here' section:

Link

Another thing I've done, is add a catalog of all the funny pictures I've made for different occasions, such as 1,000 posts, ect:

Link

I've been saving the best for last. When I was thinking about what for forum needed, I though, "Hey, Why don't I compile all the levels we know of so far" which I did, there is a picture of every level so far shown in DC3:

Link

Hours of time spent, I hope everyone enjoys the new content!

Welcome All to the Dark Castle BLOG!!

Like the title suggests, I finally got around to making a Dark Castle blog, following the newest Dark Castle news, and mostly, pointing to Dark Castle news articles, and new posts on my forum, and perhaps some cool 'New' info.

Thanks for watching!

-Jon God

For those who just stumbled upon this page, and are looking for the forum, it can be found here:

Dark Castle Forum