Castle of the Winds (1994)
Genres:Role-playing (RPG)
Themes:Action, Fantasy
Game modes:Single player
Story:Castle of the Winds is a two part graphical adventure game, loosely based on fantasy role playing games, and drawing much inspiration from Norse mythology. Part one concerns the character's efforts to avenge the deaths of his or her godparents, who were foully murdered by unknown agents. Along the way, you will do battle with evil monsters, brave deadly traps, and collect the money and magical treasures guarded by dangerous foes. As the story unfolds, the character will also learn of his or her mysterious past, and the legacy left by the character's long dead father.Show more
Vote to bring this game to GOG and help preserve it.234
Oh man! I can picture the half torso man now weaving through randomly generated dungeons and collecting sweet sweet loot while running into a room full of monsters or attempting to rest and getting attacked. I think I owe my love of Diablo and DnD to Castle of the Winds
This is a super simple, but incredibly fun VERY early dungeon crawl. There's a bit of a story to get you going into the castle, and the non shareware part 2 actually had some more, but very few people probably ever experienced it. But this game was on a ton of game collection disks, and if you are of a certain (old) age, this will hit that nostalgia bell in your brain. Playing it now, you have to set your expectations to what this is: A top down view of a 2D dungeon, tiny icons of monsters without animation, collect the gear to get stronger, find the spells that make you god like, and hack your way through to the end.
Is this a game of the year candidate or an experience that will change your gaming life in 2025? No, absolutely not. But it's a much loved classic from decades ago, nearly impossible to play now without a ton of hoop jumping, and a snapshot of a moment in time. And really, isn't that why the whole preservation program exists? This game doesn't need a graphics overhaul, high res textures, a resolution change, or much work at all. It needs a launcher for a Win3.11 environment and easy way to play. Please consider helping bring back games from a time before there were millions of players with nostalgia that would vote for it to come back.
For anyone who is curious, both 1 and 2 are available for free. The guy who created them made them freeware. The only catch is its a nightmare to get it to run correctly on modern hardware. At least it is for me.
Awesome game by the way!
Oh man... I could never get enough of "You crushed the Goblin's spine into useless pulp." That and trying to see how long I could scam the store keeper into buying cursed items.
What a fantastic old game.
When my wife and I first started dating over 20 years ago, she had an old copy of this game lying around and insisted that I play it. I cut my gaming teeth on roguelikes way too many years ago, and this was a really fun one that we could share. Time moved on, though, and we upgraded computers and switched to Macs and lost our ability to play it...
...until now. Our new multi-cade cabinet supports GOG DOS/Windows games, and we'd love to be able to play this one again. Everywhere I've looked for a way to play this one that isn't in a web emulator, I've seen comments from people with fond memories of it. It's Old, and it's really Good, so it belongs here.
This was my first experience with anything that nearly resembled D&D (before I even knew D&D as anything other than a Saturday-morning cartoon). I remember playing a warrior/healer build, that allowed me to cast Cure Wounds on myself while doing a lot of melee damage. That was my most successful character and I ended the first adventure thanks to him. The idea of a dungeon that changed everytime I made a new run blew my mind as a kid. There was even a "credit card" system once you moved to the larger town near the castle. Getting a cursed item because I didn't wait until I could identify a piece of armor was a valuable lesson. I liked everything about the game so much.
Moving from DOS and into Windows, this felt like the equivalent step up in graphics and gameplay from the original Rogue. I know the game is technically available for free from the original creator. But jumping through all the hoops to make it run is something else. Having GoG work their magic so it can run on modern systems through a standard executable would make my day.
One of my absolute favorite classic games, and it is incredibly hard to run and play because of it's Windows 32 (I think?) requirements. If GoG could preserve this, then it would truly be an act of preservation against changing technology of an admittedly niche/cult classic yet very much beloved game from the childhoods of many.
As for my memories, lol. It turned out to be a perfectly decent level grinding/dungeon crawling game. Difficult in the beginning, and then more or less a quest to achieve character perfection in the end. And it was one of the first stories that introduced me to Norse mythology (beyond the constant repetition of the name Thor in other games and stories).
Oh, and the language. So much cooler and funnier than most RPGs. I've only ever seen battle language repeated in Fallout, as far as I can recall. Maybe Earthbound. Castle of the Winds is a creative masterpiece from the good old game world.
Back in the early days of Windows 95, I found the disk versions of this and its sequel in the Walmart clearance section. For five bucks a pop, I had to give them a try since I had a brand new Toshiba laptop and needed a game or two to play on it. I cannot count the number of hours I spent grinding through dungeons, looting treasure, going back to town, and repeating.
Not the earliest Rogue-like I ever played, but one which kept me entertained for way longer than an awful lot of more expensive and flashier titles. Given it was programmed for Windows 3.x, it's completely unplayable on any modern OS, which is a shame because it still runs just fine on my old laptop. I'd love the opportunity to play this, and its sequel, again on current hardware.
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