The Level Editor is LIVE!!!!

http://z6.invisionfree.com/Dark_Castle_Forum/index.php?showtopic=1851

Not a hoax, so jump in, enjoy yourself, and try out the first levelset:

http://z6.invisionfree.com/Dark_Castle_Forum/index.php?showtopic=1853


Happy weekend!

Dark Castle Blog "WEEKLY!?? Update (9/3/10)

Welcome back, dear readers, I am guessing you didn't expect to hear from me again so soon. Well, this week, we will be chatting with someone from Super Happy Fun Fun, Bill LaCoste, the producer of Return to Dark Castle.

Jon God: Can you tell me when you first got involved with Return to Dark Castle?

Bill LaCoste: I got involved with Dark Castle way back in April of 2008.

Jon God: Had you ever heard of, or played any of the original games before then?

Bill LaCoste: I had heard of Dark Castle before then, but never played it. My last Apple computer was an Apple IIe, which I had when I was in middle school and high school. After that it was straight PC gaming for me. I certainly loved it when I had it and was excited about games like Karateka, Wasteland, Haunted House, and many other text adventures. But that's not DC related, so feel free to do what you want with that info.

Jon God: What is interesting having worked on cell phone games up till then, suddenly working on a computer game?

Bill LaCoste: Well, my career spans farther back than that. I began my career in 92 working at Origin on PC games and some Mac ones, then moved over to Iguana in 95 working on consoles, and then finally over to SHFF in late 2005 to work in mobile. To me, it was just another product on a different platform and I was perfectly comfortable in getting it developed and out to the market.

Jon God: Is there anything specifically you had to do differently with this game over any previous games?

Bill LaCoste: In relation to my previous PC/Mac experience, no. I took the same approach in looking at the available operating systems, their specs, and made sure that we covered a good range of operating systems, graphics cards, and input devices. As you know, though, it's impossible to catch every single combination, so we do what we can and work with the developers to fix issues when they arise.

Jon God: What is Super Happy Fun Fun's decision, as to when the Level Editor will be released?

Bill LaCoste: Right now, it's on hold until all of the issues and have been addressed. We realize this has been an ongoing issue and that people are excited about seeing it, but with a product like this it's very important that the UI is solid and informative, and that the game is not adversely effected by the creation of new levels. I also should mention that both SHFF and Z-Sculpt have had limited and resources to make this happen. I certainly hope that we'll be able to make this happen soon.

Jon God: What is your opinion on porting Return to Dark Castle to other platforms, such as the Playstation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, Playstation Portable, or Nintendo DS?

Bill LaCoste: I think in some ways, it would be a welcome product on the PSP and the DS, but a lot of design and prototype work would need to be done at the beginning, because you have to design for the device. The challenge is doing that and maintaining the same unique, challenging, and classic gameplay that the game is known for.

Jon God: Have you ever visited the Dark Castle Forums?

Bill LaCoste: Yes, many times. I think it's important that we see feedback from our customers who have been so loyal to the product for many years.

Jon God: Will there ever be a chance, for those who missed it, to play Dark Castle Mobile (The original cell phone Dark Castle by Super Happy Fun Fun)?

Bill LaCoste: Not unless you have one of those really old phones. For mobile devices, I feel the right way to go is forward with a new story/product built for modern devices.

Jon God: Did you request any large changes to Return to Dark Castle after becoming the publisher?

Bill LaCoste: Nothing major because I understood the game and the market we were going after. Most of the changes were just aesthetic and under the hood.

Jon God: What made you suddenly go with a new type of DRM near the release of the game?

Bill LaCoste: DRM is always a nasty subject. A lot of customers hate it, but it's sometimes necessary for developers and publishers to implement a system so that the end user has to make a conscious decision of whether or not to steal the product or buy the product. It's that simple. Many people on forums will argue that it can be cracked easily, and I truly understand that, but we need that line to protect the product. The developers work VERY hard on these products and deserve to be paid for that work. The original DC titles had well over 1 million people play the game, but only a fraction of those people actually purchased it. I think that's sad and there's a lot of hypocrisy there.

Jon God: What is Mark Steven Pierce like as a (boss)Co-Worker?

Bill LaCoste: I enjoy working with Mark. I think he's passionate about making games, has a long history of successful titles, and cares about the people he works with.

Jon God: Have you thought of sequels, or expansion packs to Return to Dark Castle?

Bill LaCoste: Absolutely. I think the product has a great community, following, and history. I would like to see it move forward as a whole, though. Advancements in graphics, technology, and gameplay, while still remaining true to the original titles. I think that can be done and we'll see what the future holds for DC.

Jon God: Have you thought of rereleasing the original Dark Castle titles at some point?

Bill LaCoste: I think there has been some discussion here and there, but nothing in stone. The focus for Z-Sculpt has been on RtDC.

Jon God: What are the chances for a open, or closed beta for the level editor?

Bill LaCoste: Those chances are high, I just don't know when. I know a lot of people would like to help out with this and it would give us a much better chance of catching bugs and improving the editor before final release. Beta testing with the community has been discussed and I'm 100% in favor of it.

Jon God: Alright, thank you for your time, and work on Return to Dark Castle.

Bill LaCoste: No problem, my pleasure.

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 a tiny cell where prisoners were left to die.


Answer for last "week's" puzzle: Bailey


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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.

Dark Castle Blog "WEEKLY!?" update

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.

Jon God: Dark Castle, Color Dark Castle, Main Menus.

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.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Wpxvlt_iC8

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.

Minor update, that could put a smile on your face. :)

Straight from the mouth of Mark Steven Pierce himself, from the facebook group:

Hey, Been busy but trying to get the Zsculpt guys to get the level editor wrapped. Will get back with news as this develops.

That's what I like to hear! Now that I have more time after finishing the Myth II project I've been working on.

Keep your eyes on this space, as I will keep you updated on all Dark Castle related news

Mark Steven Pierce talks again

Another quote from the Dark Castle Facebook group:

Thanks for the interest.

We are just know starting to begin to advertise more. I have begun with ads on Facebook and look to expand with other service.

SHFF is mostly a developer and we have lots of projects that help keep the lights on and have limited resources for big ad campaigns.

We were hoping to get the Zsculpt guys to get the PC version along with the level editor done but there have been some delays. The Zack's were not far off before X-mas so i am hopeful they can get back on it.

Ideally we could get a Mac/PC with level editor DVD out there by the fall.

The iPhone version woudl ideally be at the same time and then we could justify a bigger push.

I am just happy to have got the rights back to a game I am proud to have made and to have folks like Zsculpt who have done the most faithful version one could hope for and folks like you ant the others here who appreciate it as well.

MSP

I believe he's talking Fall for a boxed release, hopefully the Level Editor will be out before then. Still, it gives us hoping for a boxed release something to look forward to. Here's hoping it has less strict copy protection!

MSP reveals some info on Facebook page

Here are some quotes of MSP on the Dark Castle Facebook page linked earlier:

Thinking about controls for DC on the iPhone. The game is an action puzzle solver but with two handfuls of controls how do we make the jump and keep the soul?



Nice bump in people today! I am digging up the original art I did in the 80's to make the game. Trying to hunt down Jonathan Gay (programmer) as well.



The level editor does need to be finished. We got to a beta state but never got to finalize with ZScculpt. The team at SHFF who is likely to do the iPhone version is a seperate resource.



We have a bunch of stories developed for a 3D version. Right now the iPhone intrigues me most. Thinking about an auto run that you tap the destination. Finger strokes for the rock direction.

It's interesting to hear his stance on the iPhone version, along with the level editor. The fact that he brought up future Dark Castle games gives me hope for the future. :)

My advice is to join up, perhaps we will find out more in the coming days!

Weekly Update

I am going to try and start a weekly update, which will give us a look into Z Sculpt, and what goes into developing and porting Return to Dark Castle. This week, will focus on the rumroed PC port, and development of Return to Dark Castle, via an interview with Zack Morris.


Jon God: So, when was it decided that there would be a PC port of Return to Dark Castle?

Zack Morris: Well, I can't say anything conclusive about this, because nothing is set in stone and SHFF is not sure about the ramifications of doing a port, but I can say that it is something we considered soon after finishing the Mac version. Before that, the prospect was just too ominous.

Jon God: Does that mean you've given up on Mac gaming?

Zack Morris: Definitely not. The Mac is a bigger market now than ever before. Lately we've given up on limiting ourselves to just the Mac, because the market is fairly small compared to the vast ocean of all platforms combined. The iPhone store has been a big surprise, so if something like that was implemented (either through the iTunes store or otherwise), we'd see the Mac market more closely approach its actual size of maybe 10% of PC games.

Jon God: I recently brought up to you Mac Game Arcade a similar system to Steam, but for mac, which falls in line with what you were just saying, does that mean we can look forward to seeing your older games, or newer games from you on this or similar systems?

Zack Morris: The other Zack and I are busy making our game engine compatible with the iPhone and other platforms so that we can "write once and run anywhere". This is comparable to the workload we faced when we ported Dark Castle from OS 9 to OS X. After the engine is updated, we are going to recompile all of our games under it so that they can be rolled out under other portals. We'd very much like to get modernized versions of all of our games into as many venues as possible, especially the low end since they might find new appeal there.

Jon God: Have you been watching the success of the retro acrade games on Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, and Wiiware?

Zack Morris: More like being blinded by it. Those platforms are revolutionary, as big a paradigm shift as the internet was for shareware back in 1995. The difficulty lies in being in the right place at the right time to anticipate new markets. It's apparently much easier for a Flash developer to get on Xbox Live Arcade than it is for the typical baggage-laden Mac or PC developer. That's why we're updating our engine to be not quite so Mac-centric. I correspond daily with a guy making a tidy sum from his iPhone game, and he has big plans for the Wii.

Jon God: Looking at the success, of say, Jonathan Mak (Creator of the PlayStation Network game, Everyday Shooter) does it seem like a path you might want to follow? For clarification, Jonathan Mak was a independent game developer, who was found by Sony, and now has a mutli-game deal with them, and they give him breathing room to make whatever he wants.

Zack Morris: That's what I would call a path to stardom. Not everyone can be a Jonathan Mak (back in my day I aspired to be John Carmack, hah), but we can all aspire to be better artists, designers and creators. My hat's off to him, but I think perhaps we are too far down a different trail. Success for us will be having a stable presence on the web and developing markets, and make enough from that to be an independent studio. Shareware games were somewhat of a means to an end for me, so I don't see myself as having the passion to be in the spotlight, so to speak.

Jon God: I know your hands are tied in terms of what you can say about the future of Return to Dark Castle due to SHFF. However, if it were up to you, would you want to port Return to Dark Castle to some of these services? (Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, WiiWare, iPhone games library)

Zack Morris: I would very much like to port Dark Castle, but truth be told, I'd like to see our engine ported so that we have a full cross-platform library. Then we get all of the rest of our games ported for free, like people using SDL or other libs.

Jon God: I know you cannot talk numbers about the sales of Return to Dark Castle, but compared to your expectations, how is it doing?

Zack Morris: It's doing far better than any of our other games ever did. We've been able to work fairly independently now for 6 months, and I've paid down my student loans and other debts substantially. The problem is that the Mac market is not so much limited as it is remote. The signal to noise ratio is enormous. We'd probably see 10 times the sales on the iPhone, not so much because it's a bigger market, but because it's more convenient than anything that's come before, once you pay your "iPhone entry fee". The total sales are perhaps a little lower than our original expectations, but the possibilities that have opened up because of it, far exceeded our expectations.

Jon God: Moving back to the development, what were some problems that came as a surprise when original developing Return to Dark Castle?

Zack Morris: The long duration of the final push from release candidate to final was unexpected for sure. Also, memory management became a non-issue in OS X, so much of our optimized OS 9 code to get DC3 running in 20 megs of ram became cumbersome. Zack did all of the actual game programming, and I remember he spent the most time fine-tuning the level engine and sprite management. I spent the most time making optimized blitters and 16 bit color code for PowerPC, which surprisingly became slower than plain loops when Apple move to Intel. So the biggest surprise of all was Apple constantly changing their code base. We just never saw that coming when we thought we were done back in 1999. When we came to terms with that, I suppose I was surprised how easily we adopted OpenGL or moved from 8 to 16 bit color. I'm still surprised how cumbersome input devices and force feedback are on all platforms. So there are hurdles we ran into by using the wrong approach. For example, Quicktime is a tremendously complicated API that does things that Flash does trivially. So at first glance, something that DC3 does that looks simple was actually very complicated. The swinging ropes use a complex blitter that's a few lines of code in OpenGL. In a way, all of DC3 came as a surprise, both in complexity and time required, but at each step of the process, I can't see how we could have done anything differently. It was a perfect storm of setbacks, but we learned a lot of what not to do. And, I am grateful every day that we aren't the Duke Nukem Forever guys!

Jon God: Has the delay of the level editor surprised you?

Zack Morris: Yes and no. The editor itself was essentially done the day we finished DC3 in-house. Unfortunately, we didn't anticipate how much effort would be required to actually ship DC3. It took us many months of testing and bug fixes. So you multiply that amount of loose end cleanup, with the potential for people to really shoot themselves in the foot with the editor, and I can see why SHFF is hesitant to release it. That said, at some point you just have to let people run with it. Now that the initial sales of DC3 have run their course, I'm hopeful that SHFF will release the editor. Its release is tied into some other decisions that I won't go into, but there is a big support workload involved, similar to the one we faced and continue to manage, involving the Replay system.

Jon God: When do you expect we will hear about Z Sculpt's next projects?

Zack Morris: Well, Zack and I just started a new schedule at our day jobs that has me working 3 days per week and him 2. Before that, we were working too much overtime, which left us just 2 days per week to meet and write code. We should release an iPhone app in a few weeks, then an update to DC3 to fix the graphical bugs people have been experiencing on the newest Macs, and then our engine should be updated enough to release updated versions of some of our games. We are constantly diligent, which is hard to demonstrate to the public, so it's mostly a matter of finalizing our engine. I would say that just 10% of our time goes into actual game design. The techniques I learned for internet play in Khufu are going into the engine, and Zack and I each have a new game planned for early spring, which we will announce on zsculpt.com.

Jon God: Just a few more questions.

Zack Morris: Ok.

Jon God: How was it to finally release something you had been working on for so long?

Zack Morris: It was a huge weight off our shoulders. We don't want to go through that long of a development cycle again. Luckily we won't have to, because computers are finally starting to stabilize. There really is a best way to do most anything, which wasn't reflected in the underlying code of OS 9, which is what DC3 was based in. Now we can use modern techniques for a much faster turn around time. We have converted our engine to OpenGL, OpenAL and have rewritten some of the cryptic Apple file management and input device code using the standard c++ libraries and HID. We are still going to do 2D games, but they will have a much richer feel to them, more like a Flash game, except without the performance penalty.

I've personally started talking with more Mac developers, so have learned volumes about lua scripting and other rapid application development tools. If you base a game off of standard libraries, you don't have to worry about Apple changing them. That means that probably over half our workload just disappears for the next game. Which doubles our productivity and potential for success.

Jon God: What have you thought of the fan reaction to Return to Dark Castle?

Zack Morris: It's pretty overwhelming, but not so much so that I can't still be a part of it. *Smiles* We don't get flooded with emails or constant IM requests. I think the DC fan base is quite savvy and down to earth. Many of the fans have helped us with Khufu beta testing and I consider their comments invaluable. For the most part, feedback has been positive, but it's hard sometimes when people criticize bugs, because they simply don't understand how big the DC3 code is, or how many other projects we juggle. I often wish we only developed for a single console, like the Super Nintendo, because support would be a non-issue. I hope they aren't too disappointed with the setbacks, because honestly I think I would be in their place. For example, I'm no fan of DRM, and sometimes I wonder if we arrived at an acceptable compromise with eSellerate. The iTunes and iPhone stores seem to have found a middle ground. We have fixes in the works for inconveniences people have faced, and I really think that this stuff is getting better over time, albeit slowly. Hopefully the level editor will spark a renewed interest in DC3. We go through these long periods of inactivity and then a burst of new releases, so if people are still around when that happens, they won't be disappointed.

Jon God: Any closing comments?

Zack Morris: Just that, we are grateful to everyone for hanging in there, and never give up hope. Look at what's happened in the world in the last couple of months. Anything is possible, and I may not remember the years 2001-2008 very fondly, but they were pivotal years in my life. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, that sort of thing. After a decade of working on DC3, we hadn't really stopped to think what life would be like when it was done. But now, we're starting to think in new ways we hadn't anticipated. Zack and I feel like we've reached about 5% of our creative potential. We want to try making some tools and games to just make life a lot more pleasurable. Success doesn't have to involve great struggle to still be sweet. There are other ways of working and living. Thank you for the questions, I hope I answered them satisfactorily. And thanx for running such a great forum, I think I've enjoyed your community more than I've actually played DC3

Jon God: Alright, thank you for your time, and thank you for helping deliver a wonderful game to all those who've long been waiting for it.

Zack Morris: Thanks, 'till next time!


There you have it, I would keep your fingers crossed for more info from SHFF on the level editor.


PUZZLE:

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: The Arrow loops in the Merlons.

What am I?


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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.

Dark Castle Level Editor news update straight from SHFF

Dear Customers and loyal Dark Castle fans,


SHFF would like to apologize for the delay in the release of the Return to Dark Castle Level Editor and we greatly appreciate the enthusiasm that the community has expressed regarding it.

With any software that we release, we strive to ensure that it meets with our quality standards. Once those standards have been met and we feel the product is ready for public release, it will be available from the SHFF website and all RTDC customers will be notified of its availability.

While we have your attention, we would like to also dispel the rumor that SHFF will be charging for the level editor. It has always been our intention to release the level editor as a FREE download and our position on this has not changed.

Again, we apologize for the delay and appreciate your continued patience.

Thank you for your support,

Mark Stephen Pierce
Super Happy Fun Fun, Inc.

http://www.superhappyfunfun.com/games/gam_returntodc_leveleditor.html

Beat the game? Want another 5 minutes of Content?

Zack Black has given us a test level set made with the level editor for an example. It contains very little content, and can be beaten fairly quickly, but hey! It's an example, just something for us to look forward to.

If you'd like to grab a copy, just right click this link, and save file:

LINK

To instal it, simply drag it to the "DC3 Custom Levels" folder in the "Dark Castle 3 ƒ" folder, then enter the level: Laboratory, and pull a chain, it will ask you for a level set, select "Test Levels" and then walk below the tube next to the switch and hit W.

Enjoy!

NEWS! Straight from the source

First off, the picture is a custom level made by Zack Black to show off the level editor.

Also, Zack Black was left us all with some news, so, I will go straight to the quotes.

GAME NEWS:

Here's the latest news: SHFF has very thorough beta testers. DC3 is, and has been, extremely stable for about the last 6 months to a year. SHFF is finding little things like, say you use a morning star in the training to defeat the henchmen then die by running into a wall and restart the training while patting your head and rubbing your tummy AND you're playing on a Friday the 13th, then the training stops working and you have to quit back to the main screen, lol. I'm not knocking them for their hard work, it's great to have people who can find these weird little edge cases we never thought of, but that is what is actually delaying the game at this point. Let me be clear that MSP wants to release ASAP, as in today if it were possible. But they are going to continue to experiment and stress test until they are completely satisfied with it. In the supposed "final" build that was sent to them around the time the trailer was released, they found 13 of these little quirks. I fixed all of them and sent another build a few days ago, in which they uncovered 5 more. All of which were quickly dealt with. I sent them another build last night with all issues solved. They will test it on Monday at the latest.

The release is very close. It's NOT going to take another year. SHFF wants it out as badly as we (you) do. Stay cool all.

Level Editor news:

The level editor will likely be made available as a free download shortly after the game is released. Price is yet to be determined, but likely in the $20 - $30 range. Distribution is initially going to be download only, but SHFF is looking at boxed copies down the road if it sells well.

I think most of you expect that I never answer any of these because I've been hiding in a crack in the Dungeon for the last couple of years. I'm making an effort to play a more active role now.

You can customize wall / floor textures, stairs, backgrounds, just about anything except for items and enemies.

So, I'm sure everyone will be happy with this news. I know I was. :)

Now, as promised, a shout out to everyone that left comments before!

Thayne, you are stoked for Return to Dark Castle. Thanks for leaving a comment!

Izdale, I know you go to the forums and such, but I said I would give a shout out to everyone who left a comment, Thanks!

Freed, I'm right there with you, I can't see how anyone wouldn't be excited for DC3! Tahnks for the comment!

Anonymous, You may not have put a named down, but I'm glad you read this blog, and I'm sorry there isn't more news to share. Thanks for the comment!

Hamishi, Thank you! I'm glad some people are reading this, and Thanks for the comment!