Castle Blackstar by SCR

[daelectron]

I bought this - for £40! - from retrogames.co.uk a few months ago. Curiously, the tape and inlay are for the Spectrum, with "Dragon 32" printed out on a dot-matrix printer and then pritt-sticked over the Spectrum moniker. It's difficult to tell whether the game is a labour of love project undertaken by someone in their home and then saved over an original Spectrum tape or an official version put out by the company SCR.

Anyway, I have uploaded it to the following link:

http://www.acornelectron.co.uk/Castle_Blackstar.zip

Again, it's in WAV format. If someone would like to convert it to CAS and upload it here, that would be great.

[zephyr]

Here is the .CAS file for this game.

Introduction
A text style adventure for the Dragon

Imagine...

As you awaken from a sleep troubled by strange dreams and visions you find yourself in a luxurious room furnished in silver and glass. The ceiling is high and arched with a huge relief map of the moon hanging overhead.

The most striking feature of the room is the woman speaking to you. She is tall and willowy with hair like spun silver. She carries easily an air of authority and wisdom.

She speaks again, "...finally when you locate the orb you must return it to me. You may keep any mortal treasures you find after I have cleansed them of their evil."

She pauses then, "Go forth and do my bidding."

You bend and bow, saying "My Lady Artemis..."

Darkness enfolds you, until suddenly you find yourself awake in the sunlight of the vale of Castle Blackstar. Your quest has begun...

Running The Program
To give the game a command, just type in the words of the action and finish with the ENTER key. If you make a mistake then pressing the zero (0) will rub out the last character while one (1) will rub out the entire line.

Some typical commands are:

TAKE LAMP AND LIGHT IT
DOWN THE WELL
DROP SWORD AND LOOK
LOOK AT SWORD

Here is a short list of some useful words:

TAKE, DROP, WEAR, LAUNCH, LOOK, PUSH, READ

There are also a number of commands you can use:
GOES ... number of turns you have taken so far
SCORE ... current points score
VERBOSE ... gives full location description (this is the default setting)
QUIET ... only give full description for new locations
SAVE ... save current position to tape
LOAD ... reload previously saved position
QUIT ... leaves the game
FREEZE ... save a copy of the current position in memory
UNFREEZE ... restore the above saved game
RESTART ... restart the game from the initial position

A selection of common commands can be input with abbreviations including N, NW, W, SW, S, SE, E, NE, U, D for directions. I for inventory of objects carried and L for look.

Occasionally on long messages the words [[MORE]] will appear at the screen bottom. This pauses the printing to allow you to read it. To restart output, press any key.

Hints on Play
Try to keep your commands fairly simple.
Look at every clue that you are given.
Avoid the forest until you are ready to map it. The maximum score is 250 points. You score for finding treasure, performing certain actions, returning your treasures to be cleansed and, of course, for attaining the true objective of your quest, the return of the power orb to Artemis.

It only remains for us to wish you the best of luck exploring the world of CASTLE BLACKSTAR.

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CLOADM (ENTER)