The Geek Address

It was 1987. A time when men were real men, women were real women and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small, furry creatures from Alpha Centauri.  It was also the year Beyond Dark Castle debuted on the Macintosh. For a nine-year-old boy, Beyond Dark Castle was the ultimate gaming experience, sufficiently addictive and challenging to capture my attention for hours on end. After grappling with emulators and archaic chunks of software, the game finally booted and the opening screen flickered to life. Lightning flashed and thunderclouds rolled behind the ominous parapets of Dark Castle. This was going to be so cool.  

For those who came in late (or, presumably, grew up in a less-than-cool decade) here is an outline of the basic storyline: “At the end of Dark Castle we left our hero, Prince Duncan, in the Black Knight’s Throne Room. He was grabbed by a gargoyle and thrown into the dungeon. Since that time our resourceful hero has found his way to the Ante Room behind the Throne Room and is ready to finish off the Black Knight once and for all! But there are a few things you, as Prince Duncan, must do first…Merlin the magician, who has been known to be helpful in the past, has told you the secret of unlocking the gate into the Black Knight’s chambers. The five Magic Orbs must be retrieved and returned to their proper and rightful places on the five pedestals in the Ante Room. Your mission is to find and replace all the Magic Orbs, in order to gain access to the Black Knight’s chambers. once there, you can match blows in the final battle in hopes of capturing Dark Castle. However, almost certain failure awaits you if you enter into the Black Knight’s Showdown without the Fireball, Shield and lots of rocks and elixirs. “

It’d been a long time since I’d faced off against the Black Knight. Back then, my gaming experience consisted entirely of clocking Arkanoid and CrystalQuest. Surely now, with years of gaming experience, I’d be able to hand the Black Knight his ass on a platter.

Dark Castle is infested with all manner of nasties: bats, rats, snakes, robotic guards, evil henchmen, gargoyles and enormous mosquitoes. Assuming you make it past the horde of bad guys, you have to face off against the Black Knight. Things started off easily enough. I decided to head towards the swamp. From memory, it featured a really cool helicopter that you could fly around (don’t ask me why there are helicopters and gasoline lying about in a medieval game).

I found myself in the Ante Room where I fumbled around with the controls for a while and knocked myself out several times by running into walls. Eventually, I worked out how to open a door. Black Knight…you’re in for an ass kickin’!

Shortly after entering the first room, I plummeted down a hole in the floor and ended up in The Dungeon. 

Crap.

The Dungeon is part of the game that I remember vividly (probably because I spent a lot of my time falling down holes and ending up stuck there). Once inside the dungeon, you have to beat one of the guards senseless with a mace, deactivate a razor sharp pendulum, fight your way past another guard, grab keys (it’s a good idea to pay attention to the prisoners because they’ll prevent you from being crushed by an enormous anvil), fighting your way through some more guards and escaping back to the Ante Room.

Although Beyond Dark Castle doesn’t compare to contemporary games, it’s got enough retro charm to keep you occupied for a couple of hours.