Dark Castle Hands-on

A refrain you'll hear constantly in the mobile games business is: "Everything old is new again." A rapidly increasing number of classic games are being remade for mobile platforms. However, some critics might say that as time passes, less and less thought is being devoted to determining which old games are capable of generating any interest or that even merit a comeback in the first place. Dark Castle, a classic platform action game that dates back to a time when the Mac was a viable gaming system, doesn't have either of these problems. The creator of the original game bought back the rights earlier this year and has been working on creating a new Dark Castle for mobile. It's still early in the process, but what we've seen so far looks good.

When it's completed early next year, Dark Castle may be one of the most completely animated mobile platformers available. According to the game's developer, your rock-chucking protagonist will have dozens of separate behaviors, including old standbys, like rope-climbing, dizzying wall collisions, and pratfalls off of platforms. However, this game will not be a straight port of the original. Although Dark Castle will have 12 large screens of gameplay--just like the first Mac adventure--these levels are actually being assembled from both Dark Castle and its sequel, Beyond Dark Castle. In addition, Super Happy Fun Fun is implementing an auto-aiming feature for the hero's rocks, so you won't need to dig out your old Mac mouse to defend yourself against the game's myriad bats, rats, and henchmen.

We were very impressed by how well the game's controls have translated to mobile platforms. Precision jumping is no problem, because this all-important action has been assigned to the action key. The auto-aim also makes a huge difference in terms of playability, although getting your rock's trajectory just right was part of the fun of the original game. Dark Castle's color graphics preserve the gloomy, cartoonlike atmosphere of the castle to a great degree on the LG VX7000, although the game is still missing some important animations, like your character's flaming death after falling into lava.

Dark Castle is getting ready for a release in early Q1 2005. We'll have more details for you as we get them.