1987: PC, Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari ST 1989: Apple IIGS 1991: Sega Genesis 1992: CD-i Dark Castle is a 1986 platform game for Macintosh, originally published by Silicon Beach Software.

The game was designed and animated by Mark Pierce and programmed by Jonathan Gay, with Real Sound provided by Eric Zocher.

In Dark Castle, a young hero named Duncan attempts to reach the evil Black Knight while dodging various objects and solving occasional puzzles.

More rocks can be found in small bags along the way, as well as bottles of an elixir that provide a one-time antidote to bites from the many rats and bats encountered throughout the castle.

Duncan can easily become disoriented; when walking into a wall or falling a short distance without jumping, he will circle around for a moment, mumbling incoherently.

Falling into holes in the floor does not result in death, but instead leads to a dungeon ("Trouble 3"), from which escape requires some effort.

Easter egg: Playing Dark Castle (and its sequel) with the computer's clock set to December 25 or any Friday the 13th will result in the Great Hall or the throne room (respectively) being adorned with holiday decorations.

Pierce designed the animations using MacroMind's "VideoWorks" (the direct predecessor of Adobe Director) and then mailed the files on floppy disks to Gay, who coded the game in 68000 Assembly Language on an Apple Lisa.

He said Dark Castle "is filled with lots of little touches that show it's one of the first steps toward what Silicon Beach likes to call 'interactive cartoons'.

The magazine praised its "slick animation and realistic digitized sound," concluding that it "is a perfect way to fritter away those long winter evenings when you should be doing something productive.

praised the Amiga version's "brilliant graphics, sound, and atmosphere" but criticized the keyboard/mouse control system and gameplay as too difficult.

The magazine stated, "Dark Castle is at its core a shoot-'em-up, duck-'n'-run type of game, but one so finely crafted it deserves a new classification that reflects its fast-paced action as well as its superb animation, graphics, and sound.

Macworld summarized their review by listing the game's pros and cons, noting "Great graphics, sound, animation, and design" as positives and stating "None" for Dark Castle's negatives.

The orbs must then be returned to the Ante Chamber and placed on five pedestals for the gate to open, allowing Duncan to confront the Black Knight.

As with all versions of Dark Castle, if the player completed the game on the advanced difficulty, they were presented with a special ending.

Return to Dark Castle introduced new gameplay mechanics, such as the ability for players to keep weapons and store extra orbs in a designated room.

Although it was initially stated that the game would have a level editor allowing players to create custom quests, this feature was not included in the download.