Castle Master 2 The Crypt - A Walkthrough

Well, yesterday I took you on a tour of Castle Eternity as seen in Incentive Software's brilliant Castle Master from 1990.  Playing the game rekindled my love for it, and its equally brilliant sequel - The Crypt.

So now, one day later I bring you - Castle Master 2 - The Crypt.  A playthrough/walkthrough of the Commodore 64 version.

As with all Freescape games on the Commodore 64 (and most other 8 bit conversions), the solid vector graphics run incredibly slow, which is why I have had to speed the video up.  The slowness never bothered me, and I always thought it made the game more atmospheric when playing, but for a viewer it would probably bore the socks of you, so enjoy my 54 minute and 47 second walkthrough, compressed to just 10 minutes.

Castle Master - A Walkthrough

I love castles...  Wandering through ruins and taking in the history.  Well, today I've been revisiting one of my favourite castles from my childhood.  It was a place I loved to visit after a long day at school...  No tourists....   No entry fee....  And no pushy English Heritage representative trying to get you to sign up for a subscription.  Just spirits to destroy, and a twin sister to rescue.  Welcome to Castle Eternity, a virtual castle stored within 64kb of RAM as seen in the classic Commodore 64 computer game, Castle Master.

Now, I'm not going to talk about this game here - I've already done that in a previous post which you can view if you click here.  Instead, sit back and enjoy me playing through this wonderful game. 

 

 

Since it's the first time in awhile since I last played Castle Master, it took me a respectable 1 hour and 10 minutes to complete.  However, due to the slowness of Freescape on the Commodore 64 I have sped it up to a much faster frame rate.  Also, I completely forgot where the key to the Spirits Abode room was, hence why it took me a little longer than planned.  I remembered in the end though!

 

Still a great game.  I think I'm going to replay Castle Master 2 - The Crypt next.

Games that remind me of my childhood Number 27 : Mission Mars (Commodore Plus 4)

One of the (many) good things about spending a few days back home in Laindon is the opportunity to rummage through the family game collection and to reminisce on old Commodore Plus 4 classics.

So for this visit, I bring you Mission Mars, from 1985

Mission Mars...  The type of game where the box art makes the game look reasonably good (complete with a tagline saying that the game is 100% machine code!), but upon getting home and loading the game, you realise that you've just blown a good sum of money on a rather naff game.

That said, I do have fond memories playing this game which is why I have included it here.  The game is very simple and has you control a small space ship through vertical tunnels, avoiding various obstacles that get in the way.

That's it! 

Ok, the game description is as follows.

You have been sent on a mission to raid the caverns on Mars.  However, these caverns are known to be filled with booby traps.  Your task is to reach the centre of the caverns and land your ship.  Each cavern has 5 stages to survice and you will need a lot of skill to do so.

 

Hmmmm.  Basically the game has 5 stages which repeat over and over again once you reach the end of stage 5.

Stage 1 - Fly down the cavern, shooting enemy installations.

 

Stage 2 - Fly down the cavern, shooting randomly generated spaceships

Stage 3 - Fly down the cavern, avoiding randomly generated bouncing balls!

 

Stage 4 - Fly down the cavern, avoiding what I assume are comets.

 

Stage 5 - Fly down the very narrow cavern, avoiding the walls.

 

Sounds exciting eh?

 

Once you reach the end of Stage 5, you don't even need any skill to land the ship - just let it hit the wall at the end and then you're greeted with the following message...

 

!! MISSION COMPLETE !!
WELL DONE YOU HAVE
RAIDED THIS CAVERN

 

Once you press the fire button, you get to do it all over again!  No change in the game difficulty, no change in stage order.  You can literally finish this game in 5 minutes.

 

End of the game?

Oh yeah....  That was worth it!

 

Now, for the reason why I have included the game here....  I remember playing this game once on a little black and white portable television in the corner of our living room at my parents house, amassing a huge score just from playing the game from start to end, and restarting again with each completion on stage 5.  I wish I took a note of my final score

 

The box cover

The tape

 

Techie tip : Revocation Check Failed when adding a certificate to a Microsoft Exchange 2013 installation

One for me to refer back to in the future in case it ever happens again.  We had a new Microsoft Exchange 2013 server installed during the school summer holiday and due to the school changing its name to "The De Montfort School", I had to purchase a new wildcard certificate for the domain tdms.worcs.sch.uk.

Anyway, after applying for the certificate, and eventually installing it, I got the message "Revocation Check Failed"

To cut a long story short, when running the following from a command prompt, I received this.....

C:\>netsh winhttp show proxy
Current WinHTTP proxy settings:
Direct access (no proxy server).

Essentially, Exchange wasn't using my servers proxy settings, so therefore could not contact the Revocation servers at Comodo (the supplier of our certificate).

Running the following command imports the proxy settings from Internet Explorer.  Once done, the server could perform the Revocation checks, and all of my certificates are now showing as valid and working....

C:\>netsh winhttp import proxy ie
Current WinHTTP proxy settings:
Proxy Server(s) :  10.0.0.27:3128
Bypass List     :  (none)

Easy when you know how!!!!!!

Diary of a stressed Network Manager.... Part 2

It's been one hell of a stressful and busy six weeks, but the school summer holiday will shortly be over and the start of a new academic year will be upon us once more.

A few weeks ago I was stressing, worrying and having sleepiness nights about getting both Evesham High School's and Simon de Montfort Middle School's networks merged in time ready for September when the school becomes an entirely new school called The De Montfort School.

I'm relieved to say we did it!  Ok, I managed one day off during the whole time, I'm knackered and exhausted, but both schools are now on one network and I can once again sleep at night....  For the time being at least.  Of course, that's not all we've done.

• New Aruba Networks wireless system comprising of 65 access points (to replace an aging Netgear managed system) installed at the High School to cope with a larger number of mobile devices connecting to the network.  These allow increased wireless speed AND better coverage across the site.
• Upgrade from Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 to Microsoft Exchange 2013 on an entirely new HP Proliant ML350p Gen 8 server with 2 x Intel Xeon 2.30Ghz (12 Cores), 80GB Ram and 5x 600GB drives (Raid 5 configuration so it gives us about 2TB of usable space).
• Nice new intel i5 computers set up in one classroom to replace some god-awful Apple iMacs.

Plus lots of little upgrades here and there to computers and user profiles. 

My newly decorated office - Still a mess!

Of course, I suspect they'll be a few issues to begin with (it wouldn't be the start of a new year without them) and it's going to take some time getting use to not having some of the old IT teachers there now that they have moved on to other schools, but I look forward to working with a new team of teachers and a new technician.  I imagine some people will be quick to criticise certain things but hey ho....  That's just an average day working at EHS... ahem, sorry... TDMS.  Quick to criticise but slow to praise.

Nope - I didn't do anything with this room this year - I just like it hence why I have a picture of it here!

Am I still looking at other jobs or a career change?  YES and YES, but I'll wait and see how this year pans out first.  Things may be different now that we have a new Headteacher joining us...  or perhaps maybe not?

Additionally - the Summer season is nearly over and my favourite time of the year is about to begin. The temperatures are dropping and the nights are getting darker and cooler.  I'm actually feeling quite good - I don't expect it to last, but I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts.

New PC's in newly upgraded DU5 classroom

New PC's in newly upgraded DU5 classroom

New PC's in newly upgraded DU5 classroom

New PC's in newly upgraded DU5 classroom

Games that remind me of my childhood Number 26 : Skate Rock (Commodore 64)

Lately I've been going through several boxes of my old games in storage and have selected a few to keep me going for quite a few future "GTRMOMC" posts, but for this one I'm going to talk about a nice little game I purchased as a re-release for £1.99 - Skate Rock. 

Originally released at full price by Bubble Bus software, it was later re-released by Mastertronic on their "Ricochet" label and this is the version I have.  The game featured the player riding their skateboard across 10 courses, avoiding the numerous obstacles that appeared on the way.  There were 8 flags that needed to be collected along each course - if you missed one, you would need to go back and get it because you couldn't complete the course without them all.  You also had a limited amount of time to compete the courses.

Doing a little spin at the end of course 1

Don't forget to collect all the flags, or you won't be able to finish the course

The courses were made up from several areas including a rural street, a town and a bridge/construction area.  Obstacles to avoid usually consisted of walking pedestrians, dogs, cars/lorries, workmen, cones and other skateboarders.  Occasionally you would need to use a ramp to jump over an obstacle to get further along the course.

"Get outta way!"

Sometimes you need to use ramps to progress further.

Don't fall of the bridge!

The game played horizontally and you used the joystick to control your skateboard.  Up made you accelerate, down to slow down, and left and right rotated your board.  If you held the fire button and pushed left and right you could also do kick turns that rotated your board quickly for sharp turns.

Those patches slow you down, and makes it harder to move.

Each course got progressively harder to the point where I think it became impossible to complete without cheating but I had great fun trying to get further.  The only thing that really got me about this game were the naff, blocky sprites (especially the cars).  Come on, the Commodore 64 was capable of so much better.  Other than that, it was a great game that came out in the late 80s during a skateboarding craze and when other skateboard games such as 720° and Skate or Die were populating the games charts.  Skate Rock also had a nice soundtrack by C64 music legend Ben Daglish. 

 

And this is what you get when you finish all 10 courses. "You've completed all then courses....."

"...  You're now a member of the Slime Rat Skaters".  Aren't you glad you finished the game for that monumental ending?

 

The cover.  Spot the cock up in the instructions!

The back of the cover.  A great space for writing some POKES for cheating perhaps?

The tape!

 

A nice addition to any C64 gamers collection.