Castles and Keys

Information

Genre

Arcade - Miscellaneous

Language

Machine Language

Controls

Joystick

Players

1

Programmer(s)

Meier, Marlan

Graphic Artist(s)

Meier, Marlan

Sound

Meier, Marlan

Cover Artist(s)

[n/a]

Year

1983

Publisher

Romox

Developer

RS Publishing

Country

USA

License

Commercial

Medium

Cartridge

Rarity

8

Serial

13023

Votes / Statistics

Rating: 5.9/10 · Votes: 10 · Downloads: 2,228 · Hits: 7,143

Additional Comments

Screenshots (9)

Comments (4)

• the big m — 28 Jul 2023

  Apparently, ROMOX customers would buy their games and place them in a reusable cartridge. Games were generally arcade style with simple graphics. In Castles and Keys, find the key and find the entrance to the castle while avoiding the obstacles. I enjoyed the challenges for a few tries. Unfortunately, it doesn't have a high replay value.

• Larry Hastings — 18 Feb 2021

  The programmer isn't "unknown"--you can see his name clearly in the screenshot. His name was Marlan Meier. He was in high school when he wrote this game, as was his younger brother Myron when *he* wrote Topper! I knew both of them back in high school. Trivia: The game has four difficulty levels, which internally the game thinks of as difficulty A (the easiest) through D (the hardest). He had a tweaked version where he allowed up through difficulty K, level 11, which was impossible for humans to play ;-)

• Scott Stilphen — 11 Feb 2021

  Imagine taking SwordQuest EarthWorld and removing all the walking around and inventory/objects stuff, and leaving just the insipid skill and action tests, and that's basically what you have with this game. Whoever the (currently) unknown programmer is, they clearly copied EarthWorld. Even your character looks similar! And some of the screens are straight up knockoffs. The 2nd screen (arrow dodging) is the same as the charging Tarus horns and Sagittarius spears sequences, the 4th screen (running through gaps in vertical walls) is Leo waterfall sequence (but far more unforgiving), and the 6th screen (jumping from block to block) is the rafts in the Aquarian rapids sequence. The 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 7th screens are all variations of the same objective, and the 8th screen is pretty unique. And it's not enough to complete all 8 screens - you have to complete all of them 3 times to win the game! And the payoff is not worth it.

• Muffy St. Bernard — 6 Apr 2010

  Why write one good game when you can write ten bad ones? Poor design, random instadeaths, and an inability to move diagonally leads to plain annoyance. Plus they spelled "moat" incorrectly in their documentation, which might explain something about their quality control department.