Dear readers, it's been a while. Today I have a special treat for you though.
Joe Williams, CEO of Delta Tao, one of the people that made the remake to the original Dark Castle, Color Dark Castle, in 1994.
Jon God: Hey you got a moment?
Joe Williams: Sure. What's up?
Jon God: I was curious on some dark castle history, if you have the time for a few questions.
Joe Williams: Sure. I'm not the biggest expert, but I'm game.
Jon God: What made you originally want to port Dark Castle to Color?
Joe Williams: We just thought it was a great game, and it was a shame to see it go out of print. And black and white games weren't marketable in 1992 any more.
Jon God: In the manual to Color Dark Castle, you said that Color Beyond Dark Castle was planned. Did it ever get beyond planning?
Joe Williams: Nope. Sales for CDC were disappointing, and it was more work than we expected. Return to Dark Castle includes all the BDC levels, though we gave it back to Mark before it was done.
Jon God: Any figure you can cite for the sales?
Joe Williams: I'd just be guessing. Maybe 10,000?
Jon God: The manual lists Howard Vives as credited to the artwork for Color Dark Castle, was he a part of Delta Tao or was he brought in to help?
Joe Williams: He was an employee. Our main artist for all our games.
Jon God: What made you go with different intro/main menu screens?
Joe Williams: Were they different? My memory has them nearly the same. We worked pretty hard to be true to the original.
Joe Williams: I just let Howard go nuts on those, and do what he wanted.
Jon God: Who's idea was it to include the new Secret Level?
Joe Williams: Timmer's.
Jon God: Was there a conscious decision on turning the Water from Fireball 2 and Fireball 3 into lava?
Joe Williams: Yeah -- it seemed more dangerous that way.
Jon God: In Color Dark Castle it was added that you could hit command Q to return to the great hall. This made it easy to skip the dungeon. It also could be used to avoid losing lives, was that something done on purpose?
Joe Williams: Yeah, I guess so. The whole "limited number of lives" thing was kind of dated by then.
Jon God: Was there any other extras added to Color Dark Castle besides the Secret Level? There were rumors of another date easter egg.
Joe Williams: Not that I remember, but it wouldn't surprise me.
Jon God: What convinced you to let the relatively new software company Z Sculpt start working on a Dark Castle Sequel?
Joe Williams: We weren't doing anything with it, and they seemed pretty fanatical.
Jon God: How much involvement did you have with the development of Return to Dark Castle?
Joe Williams: I was pretty involved in the early days, but we pretty much canceled the project years before it released. Zack got married, and the project fell impossibly behind schedule. I'm glad it did eventually get released.
Jon God: What do you think about Return to Dark Castle, now that it has finally been released? Did you play it?
Joe Williams: A bit. It was way too hard for me. I've got old-guy slow fingers.
Jon God: How much did the rights to Dark Castle cost originally?
Joe Williams: No cash. Aldus had bought Silicon Beach for its graphics stuff, and didn't want to be in the games business. We swapped them some graphics technology we had developed for Zeus. It may have eventually found its way into Photoshop when Adobe bought them.
Jon God: Small world. Dick Noel, who is he? In the Color Dark Castle manual, it says he voiced Fred Flintstone, but I've not been able to find out if it's true, or what. I asked Jonathan Gay, the original programer to Dark Castle, and Beyond Dark Castle, but he wasn't fully sure either.
Joe Williams: Yeah, I've never been able to validate it, either. He's in the credits, and that was in the notes, but I don't know the details.
Jon God: It was a shame, I always wished there'd be a Beyond Dark Castle Color, I thought you guys did a great job on Color Dark Castle. I made this at one point, not sure if I ever E-Mailed it to you.
Joe Williams: Did you like RTDC?
Jon God: I did indeed. Though, each game in the series has been a bit different than the previous in style. The first was mostly an arcade game, high scores, lives, ect. Beyond Dark Castle was more adventure-y, but still contained lives and high scores. RTDC is a straight up adventure game. I also would have loved to see Delta Tao's touch on BDC.
Joe Williams: My take on it would've been even more adventure-y.
Jon God: Aye, Color Dark Castle was more adventure-y than the original.
Joe Williams: Was it? I don't remember changing that much.
Jon God: It had a saving system, and when you beat the game on advanced it scrolled credits, making you unable to continue playing indefinitely until you ran out of lives.
Joe Williams: Oh, yeah. Saving was a big change, I guess. Not difficult, but it meant you could do it in pieces. With the original, we had to leave our Mac on all night and not do anything else with it until we finished the game. Not to mention all the dungeon runs to pile up lives... I always thought the high score was backwards -- it was harder to get a low score when winning the game than a high score.
Jon God: There was someone on the Dark Castle forums who beat the original on advanced with 13 rocks.
Joe Williams: LOL! Players can be amazing. I always thought of myself as an expert on Spaceward Ho!, but there are players who are much better than me.
Jon God: The same person beat all of BDC, starting on beginner and ending on Advanced, without dying or falling into the dungeon once.
Joe Williams: I never beat either game on advanced.
Jon God: There was a special ending for Beyond Dark Castle on Advanced.
Joe Williams: I told you they were fanatics.
Jon God: Did you ever get a chance to try the RTDC level editor?
Joe Williams: Yeah -- it seemed great!
Jon God: Awesome. thanks for your time.
PUZZLE & ANSWER:
Each week, I hope to have a puzzle for you to solve, which will somehow relate to Dark Castle. This week's puzzle is in the form of a description without the word it belongs to, relating to castles.
Description: I am the open area inclosed by the castle walls.
Answer for last "week's" puzzle: Quarrel
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Feel free to send in feedback, what you did/didn't like, what you'd like to see, ect, as I would love to hear it.
Each week, I hope to have a puzzle for you to solve, which will somehow relate to Dark Castle. This week's puzzle is in the form of a description without the word it belongs to, relating to castles.
Description: I am the open area inclosed by the castle walls.
Answer for last "week's" puzzle: Quarrel
--
Feel free to send in feedback, what you did/didn't like, what you'd like to see, ect, as I would love to hear it.
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