The Castle

[Carles]

The Castle

Evil has taken over a small town. But a group of courageous adventurers has decided to organize an expedition to end the feared vampire.

Features:

• 
  Make a team of 3 adventurers of 7 candidates.
  
• 
  Each character has its abilities and defects with which it is easier or harder to finish the adventure. Some can be very clumsy ...
  
• 
  Watch with the castle guards, do not let yourself get caught!
  
• 
  5 different endings, some are easy and others are extremely difficult, find them all!
  
• 
  Point and click adventure
  
• 
  Originally written in Spanish and translated into English
  
• 
  Powerful last-generation graphics never seen.
  

Download  new version 1.0.05

Walkthrough

Characters:



Peter:
That's me, the one who discovered the castle and organized all the expedition. I'm a reporter and a writer for a mystery magazine, in addition to being an enthusiast of horror novels.

Sister Angela:
She left her convent to fight against dark and evil forces. Sister Angela is a senior demon and vampire hunter, since she was trained by the very same Vatican.

Roger:
The best student of his class, he's got two degrees, three master's degrees and speaks five languages. Now he aims to leave the classrooms and make use of his knowledge in an experience he wants to add to his curriculum.

Agent L:
Member of a highly secret organization who devoted his life to the search of paranormal activites. He's an expert and knows these cases better than anyone.

Gogo:
His father is the boss of a gang of yakuzas. She masters several martial arts and bladed weapons. She didn't think it twice when she was told about a castle inhabited by evil creatures.

Alice:
She spent all her life reading romantic novels and watching TV shows about vampires. Now it's her oportunity to be bitten on the neck by a vampire and live her own adventure. She got really dressed up for the occasion...

Bob:
This guy has nothing to do with all this, but he was passing by and decided to come and check what was going on.

Endings:

Spoiler

• Moon of Blood - easy
• Lovers - moderate
• Stealth Killer - moderate
• Infernal Punishment - hard
• Extermination - hard

[close]

Warning about dead ends:

Spoiler

You can get stuck if you have too adventurers catched or some dead... so watch out and learn from the mistakes.

[close]

Screenshots:

[Mandle]

This looks amazing!

[Frodo]

Played some of this, and I'm REALLY enjoying it!   

Excellent work.   

[SarahLiz]

WOW!  Am I getting Maniac Mansion flashbacks??  This looks amazing, downloading now!!

[Carles]

Thanks for your comments.

I am in love with the graphic adventures of LucasArts and this game is totally inspired by Maniac Mansion. The game uses the same color palette.

I think the puzzles are logical and coherent. But it is a difficult game, especially because of the possibility of ending up in a dead way.

For any problem that comes out I will be happy to help.

[SarahLiz]

I'm loving the game so far.  VERY gothy-maniac mansion style game.  I'm totally stuck though and will be putting up a post in hints and tips...


Any chance of a walkthrough?   

[Carles]

I'm glad you enjoy the game.

Ok, I will do a guide explaining all possible ways to get to the end of the game, as soon as possible...

[blur]

There seem to exist some problems with punctuation that is not included in the text font, mainly apostrophes, which there are many but only two kinds seem to really work, namely ' and '.

Spoiler

On another note: I had some trouble to identify some ingredients in the book of changes which could be solved by consulting a Spanish dictionary. Is this intended? Overall the English translation could benefit from being reviewed.

[close]

But the game is very good, nonetheless.

[Ian Aloser]

Congratulations to this great game !!!
Strangely, I cannot run it in full screen mode, is that intended ?


Cheers and keep up the good work

[Carles]

Yes, I have also noticed this. This is because the original game is in Spanish and you are right that it is necessary to review something of the translation. The ingredients of the book should be in English. I do not know why they are not translated ... in the inventory they are. I'll check it, thanks.

About the full screen mode, in the winsetup.exe you can change some settings.

[Ian Aloser]

Tried all Settings as well as changing the Resolution of my Laptop Display, but to no avail….
Anyway, the game is absolutely great so I can live with that

[Carles]

Upload a new version that fix the problem of the English translation in the ingredients of the recipes.

[Athanor]

@Carles
What a beautiful, quirky, funny and pleasurable experience! I'm not far into the game, but I absolutely love the different characters, the location and the overall crazy nature of the game. In this game even dying is a funny experience! The only thing that would also be great would be different comments, for example if the nun looks at the occult symbols at the beginning, I hoped for some more insight compared to, for example, Bob. Anyway, really well done!

[Carles]

Thanks for your comments!!

It is true that in many parts of the game all the characters say the same thing in the hotspots or inventory objects. But in some places the comments are different.

Writing a different comment in each hotspot for the 7 characters is a titanic job ...

I thank you very much for your suggestions and your support!

I've updated the walkthrough with the ending 2.

[Athanor]

Yes, I fully understand that it would have been an almost herculean task to put in different reactions for every character. Thank you for the walkthrough, I'm sure I'll need it sooner or later. But for now I'll experiment with the different characters, it's just too much fun.

[AnaMoon]

I really like it so far, nice work!

[marinagf37]

It's an amazing game. When you play, you can see there's a lot of effort put in it. The graphics and all of the sounds are incredible. Very fun game to play, I really recommend it

[Elvis Tanner]

I've played it for about an hour now and I love it!    A great homage to Maniac Mansion with beautiful graphics and outstanding characters.

[Mandle]

This game is amazing!!!

All the different routes to unlock and puzzles depending on team effort are dizzying to just imagine how intricately this was developed!!!

I've figured out how not to get caught mostly but, save often!!!

[Carles]

Updated to a new version that corrects the problems of apostrophes in the English translation.

[AnaMoon]

Updated to a new version that corrects the problems of apostrophes in the English translation.

In the Spanish version I'm finding some spelling mistakes too. By the way, I'm new here so I don't know if I can link my youtube gameplay to help you reaching out more players.

[Carles]

AnaMoon, for me there is no problem in linking the gameplay.

In the latest version, some errors have also been corrected in the Spanish text, but if you find any new ones, you can send me an email.

Thank you!

[Mandle]

Updated to a new version that corrects the problems of apostrophes in the English translation.

With a little more work on the English translation by a native speaker you have a sellable game! I'd say people would gladly pay $5-$10 for a game of this quality.

[marinagf37]

I did most of the endings, and I had a lot of fun. I really recommend trying to achieve all of the different endings because some of them are really funny and unexpected.

[xtrex]

this graphic adventure is amazing because it has many endings and each of them very different.
despite the difficulty it is very fun to play. Although there are some endings that are easier than others.
congratulations !!!!

[FireFlower]

Looks old school and cool. 

[Durq]

Is this game going to be commercial now? Is someone fixing the English translation first?

[Athanor]

Just wanted to download the new version and was sent to the new Steam page. While I would absolutely support this game financially with some of my hard earned coppers, I'd suggest to offer the game DRM-free. Will the Steam-version be free of further DRM (can I start the game without the client running)? Or even better: Will the game be offered on itch.io too?

[Carles]

Hi Durq, Athanor,

Yes, that is. And I think those who have followed the previous releases at AGS deserve an explanation. The castle will be officially launched on Steam on August 26. The reason to hang it there is to protect the game and its authorship. In the latest updates, the apostrophe errors and the potions texts in the English version have already been corrected. The rest of new versions and improvements will be hanging by this platform. The game will be sold at a very low price to pay the costs of uploading it to the platform and the headaches that some days have taken me during its development.

I hope that people who have already been able to play it in AGS understand the reason for launching it on another platform.

I can only truly thank people for their interest in the game and positive reception. I will continue working on some improvements and thanks for the support.

[Athanor]

Thank you for your reply @Carles. I say it again: I'd be glad to pay money to such a fine made game. Alas my main concern is still the question about Steamworks-DRM: Will you implement it - or do you use Steam simply as a distribution platform (that's the way many independent developers go - thankfully)?

[Carles]

Hi Athanor,

I have not implemented anything about the DRM in the application upload in Steamworks. I do not want to annoy the players. Before a developer, I am also a player.

If there is any problem write me.

[Athanor]

Hi Athanor,

I have not implemented anything about the DRM in the application upload in Steamworks. I do not want to annoy the players. Before a developer, I am also a player.

If there is any problem write me.

That's just wonderful, exactly what I wanted to hear. Then count me in!
By the way: I find the title a little bit too unobtrusive and would recommend to add something to it ("The Castle [of something]"), just to make it clearly distinct from other games on the plaftorm. The reason is because when I enter "the Castle" in Steam, there is a giant amount of games popping up and your game appears only on the second page. But that's just my two cents. Anyway, I wish you godspeed and look forward to the 26th!

[Carles]

You are right that maybe the title is a bit discreet. When I put it on I didn't think about all this .. Change it now I think it could create confusion. 

I hope that thanks to your visits it will go up to the first page of Steam. 

[Athanor]

I don't think it would create much confusion. But you could also only add a subtitle, like "The Castle: Night of Blood" (incredibly cheesy and stupid example, but I'm not very creative ). Thus the main title "The Castle" would stay while the game's name as a whole would be more distinct.

[Carles]

Thanks Athanor for the help. I will think about it and if I see it feasible I will do it.

As soon as I can I will also finish the walkthrough to leave it as complete as possible.

[Nor Treblig]

Hi Carles!
I've found your game thanks to Seguso and the blog of Ana Moon.
I really love the EGA-look of the game and that it's very much like Maniac Mansion!

Will you release the game on something like itch.io for people who don't want to use Steam (like me)?
itch.io is easy to use for creators and you set a minimum price, i.e. I can pay you even more for the game :-)

---
Btw. I agree with Athanor to add something like a subtitle to the main title. Or what about "Maniac Castle"

Searching for the castle on Steam finds all kind of other stuff (default sort is by "Relevance").
Even searching for "the castle" only shows the game on 10th place.
Adding something to make it more unique and searchable sounds like a good idea.

[Carles]

Hi Nor Treblig,

Many people are asking me to hang it on itch.io, so I will surely try to upload it in the next few days.

About changing the game title, I was analyzing this idea, but it is a bit complicated to make this change now since it is everywhere like "The Castle". It would give many problems to change the title or add a subtitle. Before on Steam it appeared on the second page, now it already appears on the first

Thanks for your advice, the game has good reviews. I just hope more people enjoy it.

[Nor Treblig]

Many people are asking me to hang it on itch.io, so I will surely try to upload it in the next few days.

That would be great!

About the title: Yeah I guess it's too late now.
It's a hit and miss. Searching for the castle steam works well on Google (2nd result).
Searching for the castle video game on Google finds all kind of other old and new games with similar titles.

[ZakMcKracken]

Hello,

I just came here to congratulate to the author of The Castle.
I'm playing it, it really brings back memories to the first Maniac Mansion, you did a good job.

I think your game will become more popular than you can imagine. Am I wrong, dear Nor Treblig? ;-)

SEE YA!

[Carles]

Many thanks!

I appreciate your messages. I am very happy that people enjoy the game. 

[Durq]

How are sales going on Steam?

[SarahLiz]

I've played it through on AGS and gotten one ending...but I'm happy to support you and buy it on Steam as well.  I need to get to the other endings anyway. 

[Carles]

Hi!

Thanks guys 

In Steam it has been positively received. All reviews are good. I invite you, if you have played, to write one even if it is bad 

Many people have asked me to hang it on itch.io, so here it is:

https://faldorn88.itch.io/the-castle

Do not hesitate to write or comment on anything you think.

[ZakMcKracken]

In Steam it has been positively received. All reviews are good. I invite you, if you have played, to write one even if it is bad 

We are discussing your game (and exchanging gameplay information as well) in a dedicated topic on the Thimbleweed Parkâ,,¢ forum.
Thimbleweed Park is the latest adventure game released by Ron Gilbert, David Fox and Gary Winnick -- you should be familiar with them :-)

If you want to join in, you are welcome of course!
https://forums.thimbleweedpark.com/t/the-castle-game-inspired-by-maniac-mansion

[Nor Treblig]

Many people have asked me to hang it on itch.io, so here it is:

https://faldorn88.itch.io/the-castle

That's so great, thanks, and bought!

[Athanor]

Hi @Carles
I purchased your game right on day 1. I really enjoy the exploration of the castle so far. There are still some translation issues unfortunately, alabeit tiny ones.

Spoiler

If you allow: The first few are right in the start screen, where you choose your team:
Gogo: "His father" => "Her father"
Alice:  "oportunity" => "opportunity" , "bitten on the neck" => "bitten in the neck"

[close]

Congratulations to the release!

[Carles]

Hi!

@ZakMcKracken, yes, I've played Thimbleweed Park, of course 

Right now I will join the forum 

Thanks to you, @Nor Treblig, I didn't know itch.io

You have the same version and manuals on both platforms.

Thanks @Athanor, I write down the issues you have found, along with a bug that a player has passed me. I hope to be able to release a new version to correct it.

[The Last To Know]

Do you plan to support more languages? With a german translation I'm sure you would sell lots of copies. 

[Carles]

Initially I had only planned Spanish and English. But now there are players who are going to translate it into Italian, and I promise to collaborate in the translation of other languages †‹†‹if they ask me to.

[Ramorama]

Hi Carles, a friend of mine give me The Castle in Steam as a present! It is a pleasure to play! 
I'm interested to translate your game in German, if you want a German translation.

[Carles]

Hi RayManiac,

Great!

I contact you via email