Here is a complete, step-by-step walkthrough of every level of Dark Castle.

Dark Castle Walkthrough

I already tried emailing the author about the forum, but the email is no good anymore.

Ha ha, he called the last rooms 'Dark Knight' and he keeps referring to the :BKstand: as 'the knight.'

Richard, you would find end funny:

I am also interested to hear your take on what he wrote about Black Knight 3.

It's for the PC version, huh?

he's describing PC beginner mode. The single hardest thing about the PC version is the dire control setup. The answer to this is remap your keyboard so the normal layout of the mac keys works (i.e. remap arrows to w/s/a/d duck-> e, action->1 etc


The next most difficult thing to deal with is the way the game pauses every time a sound is played. This is just tedious, but you can get used to it.

A close third is that it is very difficult to do running jumps like you can in DC, usually (especially in shield 4) you need to take a couple of steps first to stop it doing a standing jump. Practice makes perfect - it appears that there are only a couple of split seconds between the computer registering the key and then allowing you to register another.

The final initial joke is the shield (as he describes in black knight 3) - the fact that it always activates for a constant (and far too long) period of time time. Answer to this is just never to use it.

:)

There are many other infuriations (like ducking and standing afterwards being way too slow), but they are less so than the above lot. Once you get used to it, the game's difficulty is actually much less than the Mac version due to the atrocious frame rate. In the end I could beat it on 3xAdvanced without dying more often then Mac DC...

Man, I had forgotten how horrid that port was. Ew..

Ah, whoops. I hadn't realized the walkthrough was for the PC port. But I think it would still be useful for any port of Dark Castle.

Yup, just ignore the controls and such.

Ermm... no, because there are a few different game mechanics. Ducking is different, using the shield is different, and I mean mechanically, not just controls. Getting up from ducking takes longer and using the shield is a press once a wait sort of deal. You tap the shield button and it freezes you and protects you for a set amount of time. Releasing the button does not remove the shield effect. This can lead to some very tricky timing, especially in BK3.

Indeed, as I said :) The physics of the world is different and takes a lot of getting used to, but overall if you can re-map the keys and play long enough; it's easier overall.

If you can ace the Mac version, the same learnt timings will generally see you through the PC clone, once you allow for the world-stalling sound effects.

...actually, the weirdest thing was coming back to the mac version afterwards, and expecting the game to pause every time the lightning struck or the dragon breathed...

I totally know that feeling, though with other games..