The Eternal Castle

[JohnM]

Hello. The Eternal Castle is in my opinion one of the best games I've ever played as I was a kid. The story was very surreal, the atmosphere unique, and the gameplay was also not bad for the time. I don't know many that know about this game unfortunately, but many should be aware of it since it was definitely one of the precursors of most of the next generation cinematic sidescrollers such as prince of persia, another world, and flashback.
I was currently able to play only the first part of the game since it was originally split into 4 or 5 floppy disks. I highly recommend uploading and sharing at least the first part so that in case others find the rest of it we can keep putting the pieces together. I'm linking a few screenshots, and the zip file of the first part of the game. Hopefully this masterpiece can be shared with all of the true dos game fans out there.

[laserghost]

I wonder how is this game supposed to work if all the .dat files are empty. The crack for Star Control II doesn't seem to help. I wonder where are you going with it.

[deadmousebruteforce]

Please upload a working copy I want to play this again so badly!!!!

[juliano82]

Verry nice game, except the game never existed in the first place.

[Malvineous]

The SETUP.EXE the OP attached seems "interesting" - both files are compiled with QuickBASIC, and the install has these strings in it:

Code: Select all

The Eternal Castle v1.2
Welcome to The Eternal Castle installation setup0
V_Init: Starting installation...
md INSTALL1
md INSTALL2
md INSTALL3
md INSTALL4
M_LoadDefaults: Load system defaults.W
rd INSTALL1
rd INSTALL2
rd INSTALL3
rd INSTALL4
Z_Init: Init zone memory allocation...
md INSTALL5
md INSTALL6
DPMI memory: 0xdd3000, 0x800000 allocated for zone
rd INSTALL5
rd INSTALL6D
Checking installation files...
md INSTALL7
md INSTALL8
rd INSTALL7
rd INSTALL8
Please insert disk 2 to continue:
Checking...X,
Disk not found or disk error. R retry Q quit
THE ETERNAL CASTLE installation was aborted by user.

So looks like a fake?

The README says the game is too large to run from a floppy disk and must be installed on a hard disk, but who had one of those in 1987...! The download is only 42 kB which can fit on an old 5.25" floppy many times over...