Lord of the Dark Castle

Lord of the Dark Castle
Stable game
Developer	Christian Andersson, Craze Creative Studios
Theme	Fantasy
Influences	Angband, Daggerfall, Ultima 8, Diablo
Released	2014 Dec 18 ({{{relver}}})
Updated	2014 Dec 18 ({{{updver}}})
Licensing	Closed Source
P. Language	Java
Platforms	Windows, Linux, Mac
Interface	Graphics, Keyboard, Mouse
Game Length	2 hours
Official site of Lord of the Dark Castle

Lord of the Dark Castle

...is a casual turn-based retro style roguelike dungeon crawler with elements of strategy.Download Free Version here[1]
You can help this game to make it into Steam by voting at the Steam Greenlight Community here[2].

More screenshots here[3].

Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TImY0HgMPaY

Creator's Visions and Goals with the Game

• Casual, Fast & Easy to get started. Have 20 minutes? Give it a go and see how far you get, then Save & Quit. It is possible to beat the game within 1-2 hours!
• A STRATEGIC dungeon crawler - NOT a no-brain-dungeon-brawler! Casual does NOT mean easy! Normal mode is pretty difficult, and you may have to try many times before you win the game.
• Big replay value! Every new game is a new experience. Level randomness, monster spawns and different skill choices makes up for lots of variety.
• Flat Skill Tree where no skill is dependent on any other. Each skill provides an important strategic advantage on its own.
• Every hit counts! Making a move that ends next to a monster will let the monster hit first!
• All monsters have unique strengths. An "ordinary thief" may even be worse than a dragon! (Yes... you will see...*evil*)
• The majority of monsters can wear EXACTLY what YOU can wear. If you drop something, they might pick it up and use it against you!

Features

• 7 levels, all with their unique environments and graphics.
• Randomized level builder. Randomization gives each new game a completely new gaming experience, including random monster, treasure and item spawns.
• Additional "secret mini dungeons" with traps, harder monsters and better rewards.
• 45 Unique Skills (E.g. First Strike, Charge, Pick Lock, Giant Health, etc)
• 25 Achievements to be Unlocked, giving permanent rewards.
• 18 Unique Monsters + Elite versions
• 15 Unique Weapon types
• 3 Full Sets of Armor: Cloth / Leather / Plate
• 2 Jewely Pieces: Ring and Amulet
• 7 Effects/Spells (Poison, Disease, Fire, Cold, Life Drain, Fear, Web)
• Enchantments/Spells: Invisibilty, Regeneration, Speed, Freeze Time, Summon, etc...
• Enchanted items: weapons and armor can be enchanted with skills and spells.

History/About

Craze Creative Studios is a newly formed branch of Craze Productions, owned by Christian Andersson. Christian started to code games in the mid 1980s on C64 using assembly language and has since then created games on several platforms from Amiga 500 to modern PCs, now including the latest business models with licensing of sound and graphics. Very welcome visit the other branch of Craze Productions - Craze Music - where you can license music to use with your own projects.

Lord of the Dark Castle is basically a 1-man project, although graphics has been licensed from freelance artists and stock art sites (see Credits in the game). Programming, testing, music, level design and even some level graphics is all done by Christian Andersson at Craze Creative Studios. Initial game development started Q1 2013 as an educational project and has slowly accelerated from 5-10% allocation / week up to currently 100%. Around 6 full man months of work has been put into this project so far.

Developer's Thoughts

When I decided to go all the way with Lord of the Dark Castle, the goal was to create my own fun favorite RPG dungeon crawler game with lots of replay value. There are many RPG games with pixelated graphics, or cute looking big eyed Manga-styled heroes or cartoonish funny dwarf characters. Too cute and rough graphics for my taste. I wanted gothic darkness - Diablo style - with non-pixelated graphics. I also enjoy using the brain a bit, not just rushing into hack-n-slash action. When looking at turn-based board games with less but more important fights, I discovered that turn-based action can be just as fun. Another aspect has been to avoid the time consuming character creation process seen in many games. Having a family and a small child, there is no time for long gaming sessions and time consuming studies into game stats and optimal play styles. I wanted a "casual" game with minimum start-up time where it's possible to beat the whole game in a couple of hours... but of course still challenging and exciting! So with all this mixed together - Dark Gothic style, Turn Based, Casual and Challenging - I came up with Lord of the Dark Castle. Enjoy! ;-)

Offical Game Home Page

Very welcome to visit the Official Game Home Page[4].