Magic castle
| Magic castle | |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Market & technology |
| Senior Developer | Dennis Merbach |
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
1984 |
| platform | Atari 8-bit , C64 , Sinclair ZX Spectrum |
| genre | Text adventure |
| Game mode | Single player |
| control | keyboard |
| medium | Listing , floppy disk , cassette |
| language | German Dutch |
Zauberschloß is a German-language computer game from 1984. It belongs to the genre of text adventures and achieved a high degree of popularity and popularity in Germany in the 1980s.
action
The aim of the adventure is to steal the crown of the wizard who lives there in a magic castle and to bring it out of the castle. The player has the task of searching several rooms in the castle for the crown. He uses different objects, bypasses obstacles and avoids traps.
Game principle and technology
It is controlled via the keyboard. Words and two-word combinations are entered using a text parser (e.g. "Use stealth" or "Take note"). Navigation within the rooms of the castle takes place via direction inputs ("N" for north, "S" for south, etc.).
The simple ASCII graphics of Adventures magic castle consist mainly of characters of the C-64 - character set . Some sprites that represent objects or NPCs complement the images. The game was written by Dennis Merbach in the BASIC programming language .
Production notes
The adventure was originally programmed for the C 64. Further conversions were made for the Atari 8-bit (by Martin Krischik) and the Sinclair ZX Spectrum . Kai Hildebrandt has had a browser version since the 2000s that was based on the original and can be played on any platform. This online version was published under the free license “ Creative Commons Attribution 3.0” (CC-BY 3.0).
In 1984 the BASIC listing was first published in the computer magazine Happy Computer (issue 2/84). Later the magic lock listing was published again in two special volumes of the magazine 64'er (special issue 02/1985, 64'er special issue 42). In 1985 the game was also sold as cassette and diskette versions via the company " Happy Software " from the publisher Markt & Technik ( compact cassette at a price of 29.90 DM).
Under the title Toverslot one in is Dutch translated version available on several websites as a download.
In 1985 the publisher Markt & Technik published a successor called Zauberschloß 2 . The content of this game was linked to Zauberschloß and was based on the same technical framework, but was created by a different programmer.
reception
Despite its low complexity (simple two-word parser, low plot depth, short description texts), the text adventure "Zauberschloß" achieved a high level of popularity and popularity in Germany in the 1980s. The computer game genre of text adventures, which was popular at the time, was dominated by English-language titles (e.g. from Infocom ), which were usually considerably more complex and detailed. The "Zauberschloß" was - as far as can be seen - the first, widespread German-language text adventure alongside these English-language titles.
Web links
- Browser version of the magic lock
- Magic castle in the database Gamebase 64
- Magic castle in the Interactive Fiction Database
- Zauberschloß ( Memento from June 27, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) in the database TheLegacy
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c IFWizz.de: Zauberschloß (1984). Retrieved October 2, 2018 .
- ↑ See the entry Zauberschloß in World of Spectrum.
- ↑ The magic castle at www.kai-hildebrandt.de. Retrieved June 15, 2011.
- ↑ Toverslot on GB64.com (English). Retrieved June 15, 2011
- ↑ C64-Wiki.de: Zauberschloß II. Accessed April 7, 2018 .