Game 554: Castle of the Winds: Part One - A Question of Vengeance (1992)

I suspect I'm going to choose vengeance.

        

Castle of the Winds: Part One - A Question of Vengeance 

SaadaSoft (developer); Epic MegaGames (publisher, as shareware)

Released 1992 for Windows 3 

Date Started: 7 July 2025

Date Ended: 9 July 2025

Total Hours: 8

Difficulty: Moderate (3.0/5)
Final Rating: (to come later)

Ranking at time of posting: (to come later)  

         

Castle of the Winds was probably a lot of players' entry point into the roguelike (or, more appropriately, "roguelite") world. It isn't the first graphical roguelike, but it's one of the few that had any kind of widespread distribution. Because author Rick Saada worked at Microsoft, he was able to develop the game for Windows 3.1 long before the OS was released. It came out just as the average person started to access the Internet, and thus right as the shareware scene exploded. As such, if you Google the game today, you'll see that it has a lot more recognition than any of the titles that inspired it. Most of its players were probably unaware of those titles or of the larger roguelike genre.

        

Castle's clear origin point is Moria (1983); you see it in the town level, the types of inventory items, the spell list, the automap system, the way the "Return" spell creates a charge in the air around you and then makes you wait a few rounds before you actually teleport. It simplifies many of the mechanics, which I find too bad, and I normally wouldn't countenance such simplification in the name of a tile set and a few icons. But it also offers some significant improvements, including:

    

• A detailed, evolving story. I've never understood why other roguelike titles (as well as games in the Dungeon Master line) are so reluctant to occasionally interrupt the action with some bits of text. Here, you get regular plot updates and they're even somewhat interesting. You can review what you've already learned by choosing "Review Story" on the "File" menu.

• An improved interface. You know me: I like keyboards. How do you "improve" upon a classic roguelike interface like Moria's, where every action is mapped to its own key? The answer is, you keep that, and then you add the option do to certain things with a mouse, such as targeting enemies who aren't in your column or row, or dragging items from your pack to your various inventory slots, or right-clicking on an enemy to see how much damage he's taken. All of that is possible here.

• Excellent documentation. At any point in the game, you can click on the "Help" menu to get a list of commands, monster descriptions, spell descriptions, and weapon values.

       

This is the kind of weapon documentation every game should have.

       

Where the recently-covered Magus (1993) made me wish I could just play Moria instead, Castle is a game I would rather play than Moria. You'd think I could make that statement more often when we're talking about a ten-year gap, but alas. Ask me about The Ormus Saga II and Ultima III, for instance.

     

The PC is presented as an orphan raised by two kindly godparents. He knows nothing about his background except that he was found with an amulet. Around his 18th birthday, while he was away from home, marauders raided, pillaged, and burned his godparents' farm, stealing the amulet, leaving two charred corpses behind. Monstrous footprints led away from the scene towards some northern mountains.

     

Character creation begins that simplification process I talked about. All characters are the same fighter/mage/cleric/thief combo, although the player can set attributes (strength, intelligence, constitution, dexterity) to whatever he likes. He can upload his own icon and set a difficulty level from "easy" to "experts only." His first spell comes from a small list, with options like "Heal Minor Wounds," "Light," and "Magic Arrow."

          

Character creation. Since the author worked at Microsoft, I would have expected the option to label those columns with the actual values.

         

The character starts with around 5-10 hit points, 5-10 mana points, and 1500 copper pieces in a little hamlet south of the burned farmhouse. It has a couple of useless buildings and about half a dozen shops and services:

   

• Olaf's Junk Store, which will buy just about anything, including cursed items and rusted armor.

• Snorri the Sage, who will identify items until you get the "Identify" spell. You want to do this, as uncursing items is prohibitively expensive.

• Bjorn the Blacksmith, who buys and sells weapons. As you level up, the items sold get more advanced.

• Gunnhild's General Store, where you buy and sell cloaks, scrolls, potions, boots, belts, and packs.

• The Temple of Odin, where you can get healed and restored. You can also pay 1,000 copper pieces to get sent back to the lowest level of the dungeon that you've explored, at least until you get the "Rune of Return" spell on your own.

          

Buying my first belt.

      

As you can tell from some of these names, the game leans into a Norse theme, although until the end, it's mostly just names. Still, I suppose I prefer it to the constant regurgitation of Tolkien characters. 

     

North of town is a large screen with nothing to do but visit the burned-out homestead and walk north to the cave system where the monsters came from. This is where the game really "starts." My understanding is that the first level of these caves, and of the game's second dungeon, are fixed. The rest are randomly-generated when you arrive, but unlike Moria, they don't reset when you leave and return. The levels are full of traps, damaging runes, and secret doors, all of which can be found with a S)earch.

     

There are no enemies, and not much to do, in the outdoor areas.

       

The core gameplay is about exploring these dungeon levels, killing enemies, and collecting items to make your character stronger. There are multiple types of enemies—animals, humanoids, undead—and they get progressively harder as you go down. Some can attack from a distance—the manticore's barbs are particularly deadly—and some have status effects, like poison and temporary attribute drains. You fight with melee weapons and spells, but not missile weapons.

           

A gelatinous cube chases me through a dungeon room with a rune and a gas trap.

      

In contrast to most roguelikes, I found that I really couldn't survive without offensive spells. Some enemies just grind your hit points down so fast, you don't want to get anywhere near them. I had a lot of trouble with Level 1 characters until I created a new one with "Magic Arrow" as his first spell. Even late in the game, I was avoiding a lot of enemies by blasting them with "Lightning Bolt" and then escaping with "Phase Door" when they got too close.

     

Hit points restore at a pretty good clip as you walk around, but magic points are very slow to recharge. You need to find safe spaces to rest, which can be difficult, especially since enemies continually spawn. The overall challenge is well-balanced. One thing that makes the game a "roguelite" rather than a "roguelike," however, is that death isn't permanent. You can save and reload from anywhere. There's also no food system, which was mostly a waste of time in Moria anyway, and although there's a clock, there's no time limit.

       

Not the problem that this would be in a lot of roguelikes.

       

I like the inventory system a lot. Encumbrance depends on both weight and size of objects, and it slows down your movement speed when you get particularly laden. It's worth paying to have new items identified before trying them on; most of my early-game gold went to this expense. It was a relief when I finally got "Identify" for myself and could save my money for some of the tantalizing items the stores were starting to offer. I found plenty of upgrades in the dungeon itself, of course, and soon my small wooden shield became a medium steel shield and then an enchanted steel shield. There are "enchanted" versions of just about everything. With slots for weapons, armor, necklace, helmet, cape, shield, bracers, gauntlets, belt, boots, pack, purse, and two rings, you're almost always getting some kind of upgrade.

 

I found usable items less useful. Potions, wands, and spell scrolls all take time to use, opening yourself up to a couple of free hits in combat. If you save them for when you're desperate, you can easily get killed trying to use them.

       

The intuitive inventory interface.

      

Leveling is a somewhat lesser part of character development, occurring only about once per game hour (more frequently towards the beginning) and conferring extra health, mana, and one spell per level. You also get spells permanently from spellbooks and temporarily from scrolls. They're all very useful, although I've never understood Moria's system of applying "Light" to the room rather than the character.

        

Learning a new spell upon leveling up.

     

The spellbook can hold as many spells as you want, but you can select 10 to be hotkeyed from the "Spell" menu and to appear on the upper-right icon bar. Again, I usually give the keyboard the prize when it comes to efficiency, but I admit that clicking on a single icon is easier than hitting C)ast, then having to ? the spellbook because I don't remember the order of the spells, then hit the number associated with the spell.  

     

The game offers no sound. The graphics are mostly utilitarian and not terribly evocative. Every once in a while, the author places something like a statue or a fountain in a dungeon room to give it some character. 

       

Oh, that's so cute. Some of the little kobolds are still tucked in their little beds.

        

One such place was Level 4 of the first dungeon (the "mine"), where I found a bunch of kobolds sleeping on straw mats. A scrap of paper on their floor hit the first plot beat. It was signed with an "S." and told the receiver to "return to the fortress north of Bjarnarhaven" once his target was dead.

   

When I left the dungeon after finding this message, I found to my horror that the raiders had returned, this time burning down the entire town. This led my character to realize that he, specifically, was being targeted. "You swear once again to exact vengeance against those responsible."

        

Well, sorry everyone.

      

At this point, the player can travel west from the mines (via a road closed off earlier) to the village of Bjarnarhaven. It has the same services as the opening village, although wearable items and magic items are now split into two shops. There's a bank, and a neat aspect of the game is that deposited money remains available to spend, as if it were still in your pockets. The idea is that you're basically writing checks on your account.

       

I'm sure you folks will be okay, though.

      

There is indeed a fortress north of the city, a small fixed first floor giving way to 10 more lower floors. Gameplay remains the same as before, with the enemies getting harder. Fortunately, by this point I had the "Rune of Return" spell and could go back and forth from town as necessary. 

         

The automap of the fortress's first level. The levels below this one are larger and random.

       

On Level 5 of this fortress, I found a note ordering its recipient to patrol the fortress carefully, as "Hrungnir fears we have missed our quarry," and Hrungnir had already reported to his boss that he had completed the mission.  

     

After a lot more fighting, leveling, and so forth, I found the next plot point in a room on Level 11. Hrungnir turned out to be a Jotun (giant). He confirmed that I was his target. "My lord need never know of my initial failure." He attacked me with a squad of ogres and was capable of hurling boulders from a distance. I only won the battle using hit and run tactics (via "Phase Door").

       

Shooting a lightning bolt at the Jotun.

       

When Hrungnir falls dead, the character has a moment of satisfaction but is then racked by questions: "Who sent this Hrungnir? To whom or what did he report? Why were you selected to receive his malign attentions?" The character recovers his birthright amulet from the giant's body. This shows up in the inventory as the "Enchanted Amulet of Kings." 

   

I wasn't sure what to do at this point, and I spent some time bumbling about the dungeon and town before I realized I could use the amulet from the "activate" menu. The text related that it enveloped me in a warm glow and showed me a vision of my father. He introduced himself as "Prince Arvi," and said that the amulet's power let us meet somewhere between the nether realm and Midgard. He said that 18 years ago, the royal family got "enmeshed in a great conflict between the Aesir Thor and the trickster Loki." As a part of this conflict, the fire giant Surtur has come to Midgard, which wasn't supposed to happen until Ragnarok. Surtur is Hrungnir's master. My destiny, my father said, is to "thwart Surtur's designs on Midgard" and "reclaim our fallen Castle of the Winds!" I appreciate that because I was wondering what the title was about.  

      

My heritage becomes clear.

        

Finally, Arvi said that if I used the amulet again, it would teleport me to a town near the castle. At the castle, I will be able to confer with the ghost of my grandfather, King Lifthransir. I suspect he's going to tell me about the bane, as the subtitle of Castle of the Winds: Part Two is Lifthransir's Bane—although at one point, it must have been The Fall of Surtur.

         

No Y2K problems in this game.

        

In a GIMLET, I give the game:

        

• 5 points for the game world. I enjoyed the plot and the use of Norse themes.

 

Some well-written text describes my meeting with Hrungnir.

        

• 2 points for character creation and development. There isn't enough personalization of the character, alas, and I would have liked more variety in character classes.

          

My mid-game character sheet.

        

• 0 points for no NPC interaction. The author missed an opportunity to really flesh out the world.

• 3 points for encounters and foes. The foes are pretty standard, but with a decent variety of special attacks. I give a point here for the detailed descriptions in the manual. There are no non-combat encounters or puzzles except for the contextual encounter before the last battle.

      

I admittedly already had a pretty good handle on what "goblin" was, but I still love reading paragraphs like this.

        

• 4 points for magic and combat. It has a well-balanced magic system and encourages you not to ignore it. I wouldn't have minded some missile weapon options.

• 6 points for equipment. There are a lot of equipment slots and a decent variety of things to put in them. More important, it's always clear when you have an upgrade.

      

My endgame equipment.

      

• 6 points for the economy. Not terribly complex, but rewarding, especially at the beginning of the game. 

• 2 points for a main quest. There are, alas, no side-quests or choices.

• 3 points for graphics, sound, and interface. The graphics are nothing special, but they don't interfere. As I reported, the interface works well, although I think it could have been a bit easier to use an item (you have to drag it to a belt slot or your free hand, then click "Activate," then choose the item).

• 5 points for gameplay. It's linear and not very replayable, but I found the difficulty and length both pitched exactly right.

   

That's a final score of 36. That's very close to the 38 I gave Moria, and if you look at the scores, you can see how the simplifications that Castle makes just about equal out its innovations. But as I said, I'd rather play another round of Castle than Moria (although not overwhelmingly so), so go figure. 

      

I'd like to get vengeance on this cover artist.

       

Computer Gaming World introduced a column on shareware gaming, written by Chuck Miller, in its December 1992 issue. This was just in time for Miller to review Castle of the Winds in 1993. Reading his column, I'm surprised to see him recognize its Moria roots, and even more surprised that he drops Moria's name with no explanation, as if the average reader could be expected to know what it was. I somehow didn't think that freeware roguelikes were as prominent in the average reader's vocabulary in 1993. Anyway, he liked the game, praised the interface, but criticized the lack of sound effects.

      

Author Rick Saada was a Cleveland native and Princeton University graduate who spent eight years at Microsoft during the company's formative years. He would have been in his late 20s when he put the finishing touches on Castle. Later in the 1990s, he moved to Flying Lab software and worked on Rails Across America (2001) and the MMO Pirates of the Burning Sea (2008). He ran his own company called Holospark from 2015-2019; its primary output was an action game called Earthfall (2017). Since 2019, Saada has served as the CEO for Earthfall's publisher, Nimble.

         

I like Lifthransir's Bane better. The Fall of Surtur feels like a spoiler.

        

Dating Castle of the Winds is difficult, and even now I'm not sure of the precise timeline. I believe the copyright date of 1989 is when Saada began working on it. A couple of sites online have the date as 1992, which seems possible given Computer Gaming World's January 1993 coverage, but I cannot find any mentions of the game in pre-1993 media. In any event, Part One was distributed as freeware. Those who paid the $25 registration fee received Part Two. There's no suggestion that this took a year, so I cannot countenance the opinion of many sites that Part Two is a 1994 game. It is, however, a completely different set of files, so I have to regard it as a unique title. I'll give it a try after an Ormus Saga break.

 

Edit from a day later: Based on this site that Busca linked to, which offers several early version of the game, it appears that the author was circulating versions of the game around his co-workers at Microsoft as early as 1990. It also appears that Epic MegaGames was offering it for sale by mid-1992, so I have changed the date accordingly.