My Pico-8 remake of the glorious Thunder Castle by INTV Corporation (1985) for Intellivision, with some quality-of-life improvements.
Manual
The vintage game manual is available as PDF file in the Thunder Castle Itch.io page here
TL;DR
⬆️⬇️⬅️➡️ move
⭕️/❎ [Z,X,C,V] Action button
Touch the flashing creatures (bats, rat and skull) to energize your knight in order to slay all the guardians (Dragon, Sorcerers and Demons). Collect and use at your advantage the magic objects that appear (details in the manual above or in the Pause/Enter menu choose "CHEAT SHEET" for a quick in-game help).
Thanks to:
@solar for his work on the tunes for a 2016 WIP on this game that unfortunately has been abandoned long ago; a precious reference for note sequences in two of the fanfares and life-lost tune.
thisismypassword for creating Shrinko8;
@Cowirrie and @morningtoast for testing and feedback
you for playing the game!
This game and its music is fantastic! Bravo. Thanks for introducing me to a game from a vintage computer I have not spent much time with!
Thank you so much for having made this happen. I was dreaming of someone someday
would make a Thunder Castle remake.
Brilliant work as always and not to forget the new/old manual, love it.
Kudos to you!
@Rayne_72 Ah I'm so glad to read that and by someone who know/played the original game! I've actually changed a few things here and there (including fixed advantages for the knight, like he can't remain trapped inside gates, you start Dungeon stage with a ring...) I was a bit hesitant at first, then I focused on reducing the initial impact of difficulty the original had, so everything becomes gradually more challenging in this version.
Thank you for playing!
Impressively thoughtful game. Every level from 8 onwards, I was convinced the red enemies were unbeatable, but then I realised that if I just paid attention, collected items and watched the walls, I could still get past them, all the way to level 18.
That's where they finally got the better of me.
One request - could the Necklace be just a bit more powerful in speed and/or duration? In later levels I near-optimal use of (using it immediately after getting energised, with an enemy close by) still didn't help me catch up with them before it wore off.
@Cowirrie first of all, wow that's a great score, you're so good at it (did you know the original game by chance?).
Now the Necklace, actually I've already overpowered it quite a lot, compared to the original that just lasted 2 secs and wasn't even that faster, the current powers for Necklace are:
- knight speed * 1.5
- duration: FIVE seconds which -when energized- makes it one of the most powerful just after the chalice/grail (which still becomes trickier at high levels on reds)
Let's say that currently the worst case when you activate necklace is finding yourself a gate obstructing your chase (which happens to me quite often :/ ) but it is already very powerful.
Anyway yes adding one more second could work I think, a duration of 6 secs.
Also one detail I forgot to add is recording the final Level reached in the last attempt.
So in your case it would show:
Last Attempt
Lvl 18 6780 Pts
(especially when it's not the best run)
This is a lot of fun. I never played the original but I caught myself playing this for almost an hour struggling to catch all the baddies. I got up to Level 10 or so before I just ran out of time to play. But I'll kinda echo some of the struggle others have in the knight feeling just a bit under-powered when charged...or maybe the baddies are too smart? Dunno...but the frustration does build as I follow a baddie and he's the same speed as me, I can never catch up! I often ends up feeling like I just need to get lucky.
You should make a sequel that follows the same gist but adds some new/original mechanics or features. Thunder Castle: Cursed Knight - lol
But all the same, a great game that I'll keep coming back to.
Thanks for your precious feedback!
I've updated the cart to version 1, changes are:
- Necklace duration is now 6 seconds
- Added level reached in the last attempt
- Implemented anti-leeching: if you exceed in leeching on items for points in a level the game switches to 'caught red-handed' mode. The score colour turns orange and your hand is -yes- reddish. Not that bad though, the items will still be usable you just don't get points out of them, Coins will not spawn but you have one more chance to get Candlestick if you're low on lives.
Updated to revision 2:
- Avoids guardians full overlap: in the previous version you often had a couple guardians fused in one, taking she same path, now they will split up as soon as possible)
- Increased difficulty ramp to shorten length of runs (I previously had a run to lvl 30! 3h35:10 👀 unacceptable!). It still starts off way easier than the original but gets hard sooner e.g. lvl 12 in 1 hour, a typical good run on the original). Cartdata has been reset.
Finally published on Itchio as well!
Updated cart to revision 3:
- Tweaked anti-leeching/'caught red-handed' mode: to discourage further waste of time on a level, in red-handed mode Candlesticks (+1 life) cease to appear when you have 5+ lives;
- Updated manual.
@Antikx thanks! Have you played the original Intellivision game by chance? I'm so curious to know from such players.
@Heracleum No, I didn't really have a console when I was growing up. I had a Tandy Color Computer when I was a kid and that's what I did my gaming on. :)
That being said I have come to appreciate and play vintage console games.
Be sure to close the Pico-8 after update the game. Nothing is wrong with the graphics. Pico-8 bug. Load the Pico-8 and then load the game again. Graphics is fine after that. :)
Deleted my reply. Here is the screenshots. https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=145216
I marked this as Pico-8 bug.
@Dunard I've seen the screenshots, crazy! You might want to add more information on your OS, how you started the cart, if it only happens once the very first time?
I post the info on the link above. The one I posted the screenshots. I think the problem is the saving when the cart first loaded.
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