You have completed Castle Quest, Game 1. Somewhere beneath the castle lies a dungeon of many levels, and the greatest treasure of all. That is Game 2, still to come.
Somewhere in the wild lands stands a castle, its gates sealed by three keys of gold, silver and bronze. Find the keys, learn the order in which they must be turned, and open the gates. Many a traveller has tried. Most now lie in the heather.
You move one square at a time: north, south, east or west. The land around you is unknown until you draw near, and every step costs energy, according to the ground you cross:
| Plains, bridges, villages | 1 | Desert | 5 |
| Grassland | 2 | Swamp | 6 |
| Forest | 3 | Jungle | 7 |
| Hills | 5 | Mountains | 10 |
Rivers can only be crossed by boat, or by one of the few old bridges. As your energy runs low the sky turns to dusk, and the creatures of the night begin to stir.
When your energy is spent you must make camp. A night under the stars restores your energy, but uses a day and a day's food, and something may find you as you settle down. Go three days without food and you will die.
Only a bed at an inn restores your strength. Your strength is your life: if it falls to nothing, your quest is over.
Out in the wilds you may hunt for food. It costs energy and a little strength, and the hunt may fail: game is plentiful in forest, grassland and jungle, scarce in desert and mountains. A bow improves your chances, and the noise may draw something hungrier than you.
Step onto a village and you walk in through its gate. Walk up the street and step through a door to go inside. At the inn the innkeeper will give you a bed for the night, or a day's work; buy an ale and ask what gossip has reached the bar. The smithy sells weapons, armour, bows and arrows. The general store sells food, and boats for the rivers. The notice board by the well has jobs. Look out for hooded strangers in the corner of the inn.
Anyone may be asked about the magic keys, the castle or the news. Most know nothing. Some know something true. Some will tell you a tale. Choose what to say with the number keys, and walk out of the gate to leave.
No village can keep you for ever. After a few nights the inn is full, and after a few days the work dries up. Move on, and come back after a while away.
Everything you carry has a weight: food, armour, weapons, your boat, your lantern and oil. You can carry 70 lb, and a little more with every level. Heavy armour and a boat soon add up. The stats panel shows your load. Shops will not sell you more than you can carry. If you end up carrying too much, every step costs twice the energy until you leave something behind. Press I, or the Pack button, to see everything you carry and to leave things behind.
A donkey carries another 120 lb. Buy one at a general store, or more cheaply at a farm. A donkey must eat every night: it grazes on grassland and plains, it is fed in the stable when you sleep at an inn or a farm (the inn charges a little extra), and anywhere else it eats a bundle of hay from its pack. Three hungry nights and your donkey will wander off. Trolls charge half as much again to let a donkey over their bridge.
The wilds are full of monsters, from giant rats to trolls, ogres and worse. When one comes at you, you may fight, shoot it with your bow as it approaches, or run. Run, and it may give chase; then you must choose again. Running costs energy, and when you are exhausted you cannot run at all.
Armour takes the edge off every blow, but never more than half. Slain monsters may carry gold, and some carry old scrolls with clues about the keys.
Every monster you slay earns experience. Gain enough and you rise a level: your strength grows by ten, your aim improves, and your blows land harder. The greatest monsters, and the hardest jobs, only appear once you have proved yourself.
You can only rise a level in a village, where you can rest and train. Earn the experience out in the wilds and you will be told you are ready; the new level is yours as soon as you reach a village.
Strangers met on the road or in an inn may know where a key lies, where the castle stands, where treasure is buried, or something of the order of the keys. They will want gold for it. Make an offer: too low and they may walk away; otherwise they may name a new price. And remember, strangers sometimes lie. Scrolls found on monsters always tell the truth.
The three keys are hidden in the wilds. You will see a faint beam of light rising where one lies. At the castle gates you must turn all three in the right order. Turn a key in the wrong place and it will vanish back into the wilderness, and you must find it again.
Each clue tells you only which of two keys comes first, such as "the silver key must be turned before the gold". Gather enough true clues and only one order remains.
Villages pin jobs to their notice boards: wolves to hunt, letters to carry, lost hunters to find, bandits and warlords to defeat, and greater deeds for the bold. You may take on three at once. The places they send you are marked on your map with an orange mark, and a green one shows where to collect your reward.
Some bridges are held by trolls who demand a toll, and more if you bring a donkey. Pay, and you may cross freely for the rest of the day. Or fight, and free the bridge for everyone, at least until another troll moves in.
Farms stand here and there on the grassland. Help with the chores and the farmer will feed you and give you a bed of straw in the barn: your energy returns, and some of your strength. Farmers sell food cheaply. Some keep sheep, some cattle, pigs, hens or wheat, and each has its own troubles by night: bandits or rustlers, wolves after the sheep, a fox in the henhouse, rats in the grain store, or worse. Deal with them and the farmer will pay you well.
In the hills and mountains you will find cave mouths. From outside you can tell what each one is: a wild animal's den, a cave of winding tunnels, an ancient dungeon, or an old mine. Go in if you dare.
Underground, a lantern is everything. Buy one at the general store, and oil to fill it: each flask lights twenty steps. By lantern light you see what waits in the next tunnel, and may loose an arrow before it reaches you. Without light you see almost nothing, and monsters fall upon you before you know they are there.
Dungeons hide a terrible master and its treasure. Old mines hold forgotten strongboxes of gold, but some are still guarded by dwarves who do not take kindly to thieves.
Wolves, goblins, rats, bandits and dwarves often come in groups. You fight the one in front, but once they are upon you another will strike at you too, and a group is harder to run from.
Your journal keeps every clue, every rumour and every job. Your map marks what strangers have told you, and crosses out what proved false.
Choose Play with friends on the title screen to share a world, called a realm, with up to five adventurers. Each of you keeps your own strength, gold and gear, but there is only one set of keys. Whoever picks a key up first has it, and the first through the castle gates wins the realm. Meet another adventurer in the wilds and you may team up, and teammates on the same square fight together. Or challenge someone carrying a key to a duel and take it from them. Press T to chat. A private realm can only be joined with its code, shown in the menu. Your player code, also in the menu, lets you carry on from another computer: keep it to yourself.
The trees, buildings, castle, villagers, monsters and donkey are free models by Kenney (kenney.nl) and Quaternius (quaternius.com).
Your quest saves itself as you play. From the menu you may also save it to a file, to keep a copy or to carry on from another computer.
| W or Up | Step forward | S or Down | Step back |
| A or Left | Turn left | D or Right | Turn right |
| C | Make camp | U | Hunt for food |
| M | Full map | N | Show or hide the corner map |
| V | Read messages aloud | Esc | Menu |
| J | Journal | H | These rules |
| I | Your pack | ||
| L | Shrink messages | 1 to 9 | Choose what to say |
| F | Fight | B | Shoot your bow |
| R | Run | P | Pay a troll's toll |
Fortune favour you, traveller.