Game 542: The Wizard's Castle (1985)

 

Sounds easy enough.

      

The Wizard's Castle

Also known as Wizard's Den

United Kingdom

Independently developed; published as type-in code in the June 1985 Your Computer

Original code for the ZX Spectrum

Date Started: 27 February 2025

Date Ended: 27 February 2025

Total Hours: 1

Difficulty: Very Easy-Easy (1.5/5)
Final Rating: (to come later)

Ranking at time of posting: (to come later)  

    

Playing a type-in game for the ZX Spectrum is like multiplying zeroes. There wasn't much chance I was going to have anything positive to say about it. Type-in games for any platform are more programming exercises than real games. I'm sure that the readers of Your Computer who got through all c. 350 lines of code learned a lot, but it's hard to imagine that even in 1985, anyone spent more than an hour playing the final result.

   

There have been times that I've considered rejecting all type-in games, but the problem is that they tend to spawn commercial games. The Devil's Dungeon (1978), The Wizard's Castle (1980), Quest 1 (1981), and The Valley (1982) are among those type-in games that were adapted-cum-plagiarized into commercial titles later on. I don't know that such is the case for this Wizard's Castle, but if I do encounter a game based on it, it will be nice to have seen the original so I can recognize it.

     

The game begins.

        

This Wizard's Castle shares some commonalities with Joseph Powers' 1980 Apple II game, in that it takes place on a grid of squares, and you have a two-part goal: find something and get to the exit. But this game uses a first-person interface and has different commands and encounters than Powers' much-copied title. I wouldn't be surprised if the author, David Hamilton, had played Powers' game, but I equally would not be surprised if he said he never heard of it.

       

My guess is that they couldn't fit "Castle" on the page.

     

Meanwhile, this game can't decide on its own name. In the magazine's text, it's called Wizard's Den, but the code clearly instructs the user to type Wizard's Castle on the title screen.

     

After an option to see some basic instructions, the game thrusts you into the southwest corner of a 10 x 10 dungeon with 12 strength and 12 combat ability. Your goal is to find the evil wizard, defeat him, take his key, and find the exit to the dungeon. I'm not sure how randomized everything is, but I found the wizard twice near the southeast corner and the exit twice near the northwest corner.

  

Fighting a snake.

       

Each room is seeded with a chest, a hidden treasure (revealed with the "Look" command), or a monster (who may or may not have treasure). Chests and hidden treasures can be:

   

• Weapons, which add directly to your combat ability.
• Gold or gems, which add to your "treasure" statistic.
• Food or wine, which add to your "strength" statistic.
• Spells. These are very rare.
• Traps. These are also very rare but deadly. They reduce both strength and combat to 1.

   

When you meet enemies, your only options are to F)ight or cast a M)agic spell if you have one. Spells basically instantly kill the enemy. Fighting requires you to spend several rounds watching enemy strength, your strength, and your combat ability slowly deplete. Naturally, if strength gets to 0, you die. You can still fight with combat ability at 0, though. There is no fleeing from enemies, and any square with an enemy automatically respawns when you leave and return.

        

Blasting a goblin with a spell.

       

That's about all there is to it. A string of bad luck, with multiple enemies in a row, will probably end you. You need good luck to make it to the wizard with sufficient strength and combat ability (or a spell) to whittle away his 50 points of strength.

      

As you can see, I had plenty.

      

Ah, but here's the thing that makes the game easy: any square without an enemy never spawns an enemy, yet still has a random chance of spawning a treasure chest or a hidden treasure every time you enter. So if you can find two such squares adjacent to each other, you can just dance back and forth between them, gathering all the treasure, weapons, food, and spells that you want until you're satisfied with your numbers. You can also R)est in each new room to restore some strength. Using such methods, I didn't even need save states to win the game in about 15 minutes.

     

The death screen, before I figured out how the game worked.

     

When you reach the exit with the key, the game gives you a colorful congratulations screen but doesn't even try to give you a final score based on your treasure. Treasure is collected for nothing, it seems.

          

I escaped to freedom in more ways than one.

       

A GIMLET for such a game is pointless. It gets 1s in a few categories for a total of 5. If I could give half scores for some of those categories (character development, encounters, combat), I would. But if we see a 1987 ZX Spectrum game with the same approach but a slightly more interesting title screen, we'll know where it came from.