Return to Dark Castle demo returns

by Zack Stern { Mar 1st 2008 at 3:30PM }

Mac gamers can finally play a new demo for Return to Dark Castle, the game that keeps ~~crying wolf about~~ delaying its release date. The delays have gone on for so long that Mac gamers might see this as their personal Duke Nukem Forever. Teases picked up again a month ago, and the game's website uses caps and italics to stress that it'll release "very, VERY soon."

Even if the game never ships, the just-released demo is worth a quick play. It feels almost identical to its Mac gaming canon ancestors, with the same sharp controls. The old sound effects we remember from 1986 and 1987 are back. And while we would have lightly updated some of the basics -- like rats that disappear after being hit with a rock -- the unchanged action holds up surprisingly well.

Look, Return to Dark Castle, stop being such a tease. Even after all these years, your demo makes us miss you again. Come back very VERY soon.

Tags: classic, dark-castle, darkcastle, delay, demo, mac, return-to-dark-castle, returntodarkcastle, tease

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

capt.strugglebunny @ Mar 1st 2008 3:34PM

Never heard of this one. Of course, my dad was an Atari computer guy back in the day...

NACHO @ Mar 1st 2008 3:58PM

Only 8 years late....

bripro @ Mar 1st 2008 4:28PM

Looks like the old Spider-man game for PC/Amiga. Is this a remake of an old game... and was Spider-man a take off of that game?

ChrisM @ Mar 1st 2008 6:34PM

OMG this game is freaking awesome. I remember playing the original 2 games on my Mac Plus at the time. My god has it really been almost 20 years? This definitely brings back some good old memories. Thanks for the update.

Billy @ Mar 1st 2008 6:48PM

Wow, blast from the past. My friend had this on his Mac back in the early 90's and we played it all the time. I hadn't even thought of it for 10 years until now, and I didn't know they were making a sequel. Does it really hold up to the test of time though?

Azrael4h @ Mar 1st 2008 8:17PM

I still have a PC version of the original Dark Castle. I originally played it on the Commodore 64 though.

While I doubt it'd set the world on fire, the Dark Castle concepts could be brought back to make an interesting game now, without anything like it. Then would come 3,000 clones, and it'd grow dull, but hey! At least it'd be on top for a bit.

bigsim @ Mar 1st 2008 11:52PM

Am I crap, or is this demo really hard?

bobartig @ Mar 2nd 2008 2:46AM

Um, you could be crap, but the Dark Castle series is also extremely difficult platform gaming with brutally unforgiving mechanics (i.e. running into walls dizzy's you for 6 seconds, ample time for a threat to 1-hit you).

Also, if you haven't died a dozen times on each level already, so that you have some inkling as to what to do... god help you! So more likely than not, you're just not familiar w/ the game yet.

Just played through most of the demo. Each time an opponent got near me I thought "dear GOD, can that thing 1-hit me?!?!" trying to think back to 20 years ago with the originals. That, and I'm playing with a trackpad, no less!