Stonekeep (MS-DOS)

Developer:

Interplay

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Release Date:

1995

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Systems:

MS-DOS, Mac

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This week on Super Adventures, I'm checking out Interplay's notorious first-person dungeon crawler RPG Stonekeep.

All this year I've been playing games the people have placed on a top ten list, and I found Stonekeep in Computer Gaming World issue 148. It made it to #10 in its '15 Top Vaporware Titles in Computer Game History" list. The game was a bit of a Duke Nukem Forever in its day as development dragged on for way longer than intended when feature creep took hold. It was supposed to cost $50,000 and take 9 months, it ended up costing $5,000,000 and taking 5 years. That's longer than Daikatana took to come out!

Sure 5 years seems like nothing compared to DNF's 15 years in development hell, but time worked differently back in the early 90s. 5 years was the difference between Ninja Gaiden and Doom, A Link to the Past and Final Fantasy VII, or Super Mario Kart and Gran Turismo. When the developers started work on Stonekeep the average PC was put to shame by an Amiga 500 and they couldn't assume that players would have a hard drive or a mouse. When it finally came out it was released on CD with live-action cutscenes and full voiced dialogue. They just kept working on it until PC hardware had caught up to their ambitions, even after main programmer Peter Oliphant quit because he'd had enough. Here's some trivia for you: he went on to work as an extra on the TV series Deadwood, and no I'm not getting him mixed up with Timothy Olyphant.

Okay I'm going to play the first hour or so of the game, and hopefully get far enough to understand the basics of what you're actually supposed to do in it. I haven't had the best track record with games like this, but I'll do my best.

WARNING: There's a jump scare coming up at some point. I'll let you know when.

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Before I start I have to mention how much I love the game's box, with its holographic cover. I ended up buying the game on GOG in the end, but I've been kicking myself for a decade or so for not buying a boxed copy when I saw it cheap.

In addition to a nice cover, the boxed version of the game also came with a 154 page cloth-bound novella. It came with my GOG version as well, but a PDF's just not the same. The game also comes with a recipe for chocolate chip pumpkin muffins if you're into them.

The game begins with the sound of wind and a shot of a 3D rendered castle high up in the clouds above a very pointy 3D rendered landscape. I'm not sure why they even bothered building those massive impregnable walls, as there's no bloody way an army's going to make it up there.

I'm guessing this is the Stonekeep of the title, as it's got a keep and it's made of stone, but I can't rule out the possibility that it's Camelot.

A moderately cheerful medieval tune starts playing as an actress with a basket of apples goes around handing them out to the workers. We're in 1995 right now so this chroma-keyed live-action intro wouldn't have been all that special, but it'll always be special to me. It's not exactly The Mandalorian, but they've done a good job with it I think; no one's got a blue fringe around them.

It's just a shame the resolution's so low and it's got a framerate of like 10 fps. I thought there was something wrong with DOSBox at first, but nope it's supposed to be this juddery. It's also fairly blocky, and stretched as well if you choose to play the videos in full screen instead of windowed.

The apple distributor waves a few of apples in front of this woodcutter's face, trying to find the perfect one to give him, and then throws one up to a kid in the window instead.

The kid's dressed like he's from the Middle Ages, but that hair is exactly 1995. Plus he's got a poster on his wall.

He raises his sword menacingly above his dog, but it turns out he's just using it to slice his new apple in twain. 

I love the woodcutter's reaction to the woman giving the kid an apple before him. He's absolutely furious that she was toying with him. C'mon man, you still got your free apple, chill out.

But then the music stops as a storm spreads darkness across the sky. People start running inside to take shelter, which was a good idea. Unfortunately the darkness starts seeping indoors!

No, dog, get away from the darkness coming through the window! It's clearly bad for you!

The kid yells at him to get down (I think he calls him 'Woof'... or maybe 'Worf'), but the dog's determined to scare the darkness out by barking it at it. Oh man, is this intro really going to kill the dog off?

The darkness turned the dog into a skeleton! Poor dog.

Everyone outside is getting skeletonised as well, it's not great.

Fortunately a mysterious cloaked figure sneaks in and grabs the kid, then uses a teleportation spell to get them (and the sword) out of there in the nick of time as darkness claims the room. If that wasn't bad enough, the ground gives way and the entire fortress falls into a pit. Intact. Man, they really built these things to last back then.

By the way this three minute intro apparently cost $500,000 to make. That's a tenth of the game's budget! The rest of the digitized footage couldn't have been cheap either as they had to reshoot it three times (turns out that you shouldn't film against a blue screen outdoors as it means the colour of the background isn't consistent).

Ten years later ...
Drake returns.

The kid returns 10 years later and finds himself at the edge of the giant hole where Stonekeep used to be. But he's brought his sword with him and he's ready for... something.

It's hard to know what Drake thought he'd find here, but he probably wasn't expecting to be met by a glowing woman who takes his hand and yanks his soul out of his body. They don't show the part where his body falls over and his head cracks open, but neither of them seem that bothered about it. They're just going to leave it lying there in the open, unprotected, it's fine. In fact it's probably for the best that he has to discard his physical form for this mission, seeing as he's apparently been wearing those same clothes for 10 years straight.

The woman turns out to be Thera, goddess of earth, and the music's really selling her divinity. She wants him to retrieve nine receptacles down there to set her and the city free, and I guess he really wants his castle back because he's going in.

Alright, it seems we're getting straight to it then. No character creation this time. It's in too much of a rush to even give me a main menu or an options screen, but I guess there was no risk of it starting up in the wrong resolution. We're in classic 320x200 here.

This place isn't an exact match for Drake's bedroom in the intro, the stones are much bigger and there are pillars everywhere with (working) lanterns attached to them, but there's always the possibility that it's just a different room.

Thera has turned into a sparkly lens flare for the time being, but she's still giving out advice, and gifts! I've been given the Mystic Mirror of Afri to aid my personal vision and Aquila's scroll to store my stuff. I hope Aquila won't be too pissed off when they find it's gone.

I like this mirror! It really does work like an actual mirror, reflecting the room behind me, but it also functions as the 'paper doll' to put my equipment onto.

Fortunately it turns out that Drake only had to leave his shirt behind with his corporeal body and he got to keep the trousers and boots. Though hang on, where's the sword? What's the point of giving the character a sword in the intro that's pretty much never out of his hand if he can't bring it into the game?

Anyway, I walked around a bit and picked up a rock off the ground. I've played games like this before, I know how crucial rocks can be. The twinkle met me at the door with some more advice, saying that I should arm myself quickly and find the stairs leading down. Okay cool, I've already got some goals:

• Arm myself quickly.
• Find stairs leading down.

I'm writing them here because I can't figure out how to bring up the journal. Or the map.

The hallway outside looks a lot like the room I just left, except with one big difference: there are giant ants wandering around! Not It Came from the Desert-sized, but big enough.

I haven't got a weapon, but Drake does come equipped with two fists, each mapped to a mouse button. I can click to throw a punch with the left hand, then throw a punch with the right hand while I'm waiting for the left to cool down. Or I can just hold both mouse buttons to make him rain down blows automatically.

Unfortunately I can't really weave around and dodge, as this is one of those old school Dungeon Master dungeon crawler blobber type of games, where I'm locked to a grid and I can only turn 90 degrees at a time. So I'm afraid you're going to have to get used to those pillars being in the exact same place in every screenshot.

I found another room and this one's way better than the one I started in, as it contains a treasure chest. Inside I found a dagger, a scroll, a blue potion, and five tufts of... sasquatch hair? There's no name or description on any of the items so I just have to guess.

The game's going for immersion, so the only bits of interface aside from the cursor are my scroll and mirror, and they're hidden most of the time. Also the cursor's transformed into a floating severed hand for a bit.

Eye of the Beholder III: Assault on Myth Drannor (MS-DOS)

Here's Eye of the Beholder III from 1993 for a comparison. It's got a nice looking interface but it takes up most of the damn screen.

Well I've finished step 1: arm myself quickly. Now I need to move to step 2: find the stairs leading down.

A lever, a door... I think I've solved this one. I'm not sure why this particular door needs a lever when the others can be activated directly, but it obeyed its wall-mounted control arm and slid open, revealing stairs. So now I can cross 'find the steps leading down' off my to-do list as well.

This screenshot gives you a rare glimpse at what the world looks like in a grid-based dungeon crawler when it's not locked at 90 degrees, as unlike classics such as Dungeon Master or Eye of the Beholder, the game has animated transitions for when you turn around or step forwards (I haven't found a sidestep button yet).

The game came out at the end of 1995, so first person shooters like Doom, Heretic and Star Wars: Dark Forces had been out for a while at this point, never mind Ultima Underworld, Legends of Valor and Elder Scrolls: Arena. People had gotten pretty used to being able to walk around a 3D environment by this point. But this is all pre-rendered, so I've got no idea how they did these transitions.

LEVEL 2

Oh no, Khull-Khuum the Shadowking was waiting to ambush us at the bottom of the stairs, and he's trapped the earth spirit inside a tiny Earth-like globe!

Khull-Khuum is basically Darth Vader dressed up like a knight with floating Rayman hands, and I can't take him seriously at all. He even says "I have you now" - he's ripping off Vader's lines! He's not going to wipe the floor with me while I'm at level 1 though. Instead he's going to wait until 'the appointed time'. Though I do need to tread lightly until then, because his "wrath is legion".

What the hell does that even mean? His anger is numerous? Is he referring to his legion of monsters as being his wrath?

Floor 2 is much the same as floor 1 so far except much bigger, and with more ants. They're patrolling the hallways, so I could hide and wait for them to walk by, but that's not going to get me a level up. And I really do need a level up as it's taking forever to kill any of them, even with my new dagger.

It seems like combat is basically about pointing the cursor in the right place, and stepping backwards and forwards to avoid getting hit too much, but I'm really bad at the second part. Fortunately it turns out that spaghetti I found in the chest earlier is a healing item. A really terrible one.

I started off with 60 hp, and it seems like you get about 10 hp back for every one you eat. There doesn't seem to be a hunger meter in this at least, so I can save them until I'm injured. But I'm injured all the time, as I'm crap at fighting.

SOON, A FEW STEP FURTHER ON

The place gets a bit samey at times. That graininess isn't due to GIF compression by the way, this is exactly what the game looks like. It's pretty weird how a hallway with lanterns on every wall can disappear into pitch black darkness like that, though I suppose it's creepier when I can hear the ants scurrying around but not see them.

I found a bag for my rocks at least! That's its only purpose, it's a rock bag only for rocks, but that's good because now I can stick it into one of his hands and keep launching rocks by holding the button down. Though I do have to stop and pick them all up again afterwards.

I've been stabbing all the rags on the floor because I half-remember getting treasure from them the last time I played the game, and I just found an arrow! Just a single arrow, no bow. I'll hold onto it anyway, in case I find a problem that only a single arrow can solve.

Oh crap there are two enemies standing over there! It's so murky over there I didn't even notice them at first. I don't think they've seen me either though, so I'll just back away slowly. I'll return and kick their asses once I've found some armour. Maybe I'll even find Drake's old bedroom down here so I can pick up that apple-slicing sword from the intro. Wait, Drake teleported out with it didn't he? Crap!

Hang on, I can't back up. I can't escape and they're going to spot me any moment! Oh right, I came in here through a door and it's shut behind me, that's why. I just need to turn around 180 degrees and walk forward to automatically open it and step through to safety.

I found another of them waiting to ambush me behind a different door! Fortunately it doesn't seem like enemies can step through doorways, so I just pelted him with rocks from outside. Now I've finally picked up a damn sword! (And maybe some XP too, I have no idea how to check.) Also it looks like there might be something else on the floor down there. Oh damn, it's a key and a coin! The game didn't go out of its way to make them obvious.

I've discovered that I can right click on objects to instantly pick them up, so I don't have to drag them into my scroll one by one anymore. This is a big help when I'm recovering my throwing stone collection from the floor. I also found a shield in a another room, but I think I'll stick with the rocks, as they keep me out of danger.

You know what I haven't found yet? Torches. Everywhere's too well lit to need them.

Oh, some of these guys are innocent NPCs? Damn I need to be more careful about who I stab. I managed to make it out of the room, but he kicked my ass a bit while I was rotating and waiting for the door to open. It really does seem like they can't follow me through doors though.

I went exploring elsewhere for a bit but I'm hitting a lot of dead ends now along with locked doors my key won't open. Also I'm getting sick of not being able to access my journal and map. I'm absolutely certain this game has a map, I just don't remember how to access it! I'm going to have to look this up online.

Well, it turns out that I have to pick up the journal first... and it's sitting on the table behind this dude. I guess the game actually wants me to kill him then! Uh, maybe I'll come back to that after I've found some more healing items, because I don't think much of my chances right now.

Awesome, I've found another rock for the bag… wait, what's that brown shape in the debris? It's a pair of leather pants! Finally some bloody armour.

Stuff on the floor is often obscured like this, so I've gotten into the habit of sweeping the cursor across the floor to see if it changes into the 'pick up' hand. This kind of pixel hunting isn't ideal, but it's manageable. Fortunately it doesn't seem like there's any encumbrance in this, so I can load up on everything I want and not have to worry about it.

Though it would be nice if I could load up on a few more of those healing items. I take damage in every fight and I'm not sure I'll survive another battle. I feel like I've really messed this run up but I don't know what I did wrong.

FLOOR 1

 

Oh shit it's a health fountain! I can get all my health back! Now that I know about this I don't have to immediately shovel every bit of food I find directly into my face anymore. I can start hoarding healing items for use during tough fights, and run back over to this to get all my health back afterwards.

Right, time to go back to that room and fight the guy to claim my damn journal.

FLOOR 2

 

Wow, how did I get so good at stealth? I suppose the red dots must indicate my improvement since the last time I checked this page of my journal (which is never). I wonder if they only go up to five dots.

Ah, I have to check the journal if I want to see the description for an item stored in my inventory scroll. Well that's awkward, but okay then.

It gets worse: I have to actually equip an item to check its stats!

I appreciate the effort they put in to make the game immersive, but this is just a pain in the ass. There's no reason why the inventory scroll can't contain this information as well. I mean it's a scroll, you'd expect to find writing on it.

And here's the map! I love filling in a map in games like this, and by that I mean I love walking around and letting the automap do its thing. It even lets me add notes to it, which is pretty useful seeing how samey everything is. Trouble is that puts the text I type onto a separate page so I can't see both the map and my notes at once. C'mon Stonekeep, Ultima Underworld showed you how to do this right three years ago!

Each of the towers around the outside have an upper floor accessible by its own staircase. I started the game in the upper floor of the bottom left tower, and I found the fountain of life up the stairs in the bottom right. So I have make a bit of hike right now if I want to heal. Lots of 'right turn, right turn, left turn, right turn, left turn, right turn', there and back. Maybe I'll go do that later.

Alright, I've explored the outside of this floor, now I need to fill in the middle of the map.

SOON

Turns out I should've backtracked to the fountain to get my health back, as these guys came over and cut me up in seconds. There's no death cutscene it just goes straight to the menu to let me pick a save game to load. Fortunately I've been saving all the time, so I reloaded and now I'm taking a different approach.

The second battle lasted approximately 48 seconds. My rocks ran out after 32 seconds, but I just walked over and finished them off with my sword. I feel like I've reached the point where I'm making steady progress, now that I'm in no danger of running out of healing items, but it's not speedy progress. Especially as I have to pick all these bloody rocks up again now.

On the plus side, the rock sound effects are epic. Way more dramatic than your typical video game stones.
 

Poor Genk, he tried to warn them but these fantasy people didn't believe in monsters and that was their downfall. Well getting turned into skeletons by darkness and then being dropped down a pit was their downfall really, but they could've at least gone out without leaving documentation chronicling their ignorance.

Everything's voiced in this, so Drake reads out every note I find and every sign I look at. It kind of makes these letters feel like audio diaries.

Crap, why are these two so much tougher than the other Shargas I've been fighting? They all look the damn same!

Time pauses when you have the inventory open so I was able to shovel food into Drake's mouth mid-fight, but it didn't help this time. I feel completely outmatched here, it's not even close. So that was death #2. I tried luring them to the doorway to pelt them with rocks, but they're cleverer than the average Sharga too and just ran out of range when they got hit, and you've seen what it's like fighting the regular guys.

Okay I've tried using the mystery potion I picked up, I've tried throwing my oil flasks at them, I've tried everything I can think of and nothing's killing them. I suppose I haven't tried throwing my single arrow at them yet... no, screw it, I give up! I'm going to have to check a walkthrough and find out where all the secret items are hidden. I clearly need better gear.
 

It turns out that most of the secrets are hidden behind bricks like this. They look a little different and you can find them just by sweeping the mouse over the screen, but the catch is that you have to be looking directly at the wall first. It's not much fun to stop and turn to look directly at every bit of wall along the way... that's why I've turned the grid coordinates on so I can go straight to where the guide tells me to go.

The guide also mentioned that there's a great weapon hidden near the start, but it seems I've already messed up getting it, so I'll have to live without it.

Alright, now that I've got my leather armour and my broadsword I'm ready to give those elite Sharga another go.

The fight went... poorly.

At least it did at first. With a bit of reloading I managed to get a couple of my explosive oil flasks to land on target, then I pelted them with rocks from the doorway, smacked the last one with a hammer, and that was it. It was the same strategy I tried last time, it just worked better this time around. I didn't even use all that secret gear I just collected!

They were carrying the key I need to move on, so I can finally start making progress again now. I also found a model of the planet Saturn, which reminds me of the old Interplay logo.

Hey it projects a map when I place it down! That's pretty cool

Anyway, screw this place, I'm using my key to finally descend to floor 3... which is called the 2nd level on the map, but whatever.

FLOOR 3 (Ruins of Stonekeep 2nd Level)

 

Right at the start I ran into a friendly goblin walled Wahooka. At least I think he's friendly. It's nice to meet someone I can actually talk to for a change, though he's doing most of the talking and I don't get to pick any dialogue options.

I'm not sure how the developers created this guy, but he looks more like a dude in a rubber mask than a puppet to me. He's definitely got the blue fringe of someone who's been chroma-keyed in. Wahooka claims to be the King of all Goblins and Faeries but Drake's basically tells the guy he's never heard of him...

HANG ON A MOMENT


HERE'S THAT JUMP SCARE I WARNED YOU ABOUT


KEEP SCROLLING PAST IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE IT

Bloody wizards, man.

Anyway Wahooka just wants me to hand him something precious next time I see him, in exchange for some of his infinite knowledge. Man, that magic teleportation trick would be nice to have.

Wait, could this be the mysterious cloaked figure who saved Kid Drake from the darkness during the intro? The cloak looks similar but the magic effect is different.

Oh good, floor three looks just like the other two floors. If I'd actually gotten a change of scenery the shock might have given me a heart attack.

This time I'm fighting slimes instead of ants and the little bastards have a habit of splitting up into more slimes when I hit them. I suppose I could throw my oil flasks at them and burn them up, but they're extremely finite.

I really should've gotten some healing before coming down here, as now I have to backtrack two floors up to reach the fountain. That's a 1 minute 20 second trip. Both ways. Longer if I get lost or forget the way and need to check the map (and with all these identical corridors that's not uncommon).

It reminds me of how I had to keep running back to the healing machine in System Shock. Though at least that had shortcuts I could open up.

OVER 2 MINUTES AND 40 SECONDS LATER

Nice ladder! Shame it's only here so I can climb out of the pit I just dropped myself into. I tried fighting a Sharga but it was another tough bastard, so I ran past them instead and fell into a giant obvious hole.

I climbed out with the ladder, but now I'm somewhere else on the map, cut off from my healing fountain, and there's another slime monster up here burning through my pitiful HP. My max health has gone up a lot since I started, but that means that healing items are becoming even more pathetic. It feels like I have to eat a dozen healing roots to get back to full health and the Shargas don't drop that many!

Drake is still alive though, barely, so I'm going to go exploring and make sure I only start fights in doorways so they can't get me. I'm in survival horror mode now... except I can just save anywhere and keep loading if I screw up. I'll be wasting my time though if I've trapped myself in an unwinnable situation. Is it even possible for me to survive long enough to find a way to a fountain?

Oh damn I've met another friendly NPC! It feels like forever since I met Wahooka (I never did get back to him with those precious things he wanted).

Wait, could this guy be joining my team? Oh damn he actually is! I've finally got a sidekick!

Maybe this is what I've been missing. I've been right on the edge of 'fuck this game, it's way too hard!' this whole third floor, but perhaps the trick to winning fights is to double my damage and half the chance that it's Drake the enemies are hitting. Once I find my way back to the fountain and get our health back I'm going try regular combat again.

Fortunately my dwarf buddy can spot fake walls, so he got us through the secret passage back to the stairs at the start of the level, and I was able to make the long hike back to health. Then I walked all the way back and got back to opening up locked doors. Including one leading to a new set of stairs.

FLOOR 4

Whoa, I guess I found the way out of the castle. The game's called Stonekeep so I just assumed I'd be stuck there for most/all of it, but nope it's only the top three levels. And now I'm in a sewer. Eww.

I met another Sharga down here, but I couldn't be sure if he was an easy one or a tough one. I decided to bravely face him in melee combat... then bravely ran away when he took most of my life.

So I switched to plan B: throwing all my rocks at him. It worked great, until I ran out of rocks. That's fine, I only throw the rocks first because they're convenient, I've actually been collecting throwing daggers, throwing darts... even a throwing axe!

I dragged each of them from my inventory in turn and right clicked to throw them. The enemy stubbornly remained standing even after my bombardment. There has got to be something else stashed in my scroll I can throw, something that will actually finish him off...

I can't believe that just happened.

What other RPG lets you just throw an arrow at enemies without using a bow? And what other RPG makes you fish around in water for all the stuff you just threw? Half my inventory's hidden under that water right now! I've got a lot of cursor sweeping to do.

Anyway, I got my stuff back, wandered around for a bit, then met Wahooka again. This time he wanted skulls, so I gave him three of them and he gave me a red triangle. So... that's good, I guess.

I went exploring on the bottom floor of the castle again and I found a second fountain of health! It's a miracle. So now that I have full health I decided to go pick a proper fight with someone. No stones, just swords.

FLOOR 3

Hey, I said no stones, what the fuck guys?

I managed to beat them in a fair fight, but man it took a lot of my health. I know I'm supposed to be moving around, not letting them hit me, however it took something like 30 seconds to hack away at them when all my hits were on target. Moving around would've made it take even longer!

I can't control my buddy Farli at all, but you can see his axe automatically joining in occasionally. I could give him other weapons (and I did steal his armour), but the axe is so iconic so I'll let him keep it. Plus I can't be bothered to equip it on Drake and then check the journal to compare its stats.

Hah, I was wondering if this game was ever going to introduce some good old fashioned dungeon crawler pressure plates. Free arrows!

The path led right to a locked door I didn't have the key for, but I've been finding some other great treasure around. Like a key ring to put all my keys on so I don't have cycle through my inventory to find them and then try each of them on every lock individually anymore! And a wineskin I can use on the fountain to stock up on a few heals. Who knows how many of the game's other annoyances can be fixed with items you find lying around?

FLOOR 4

Man there's a lot of serpent things in these sewers. They can kill me in seconds, but I'm actually able to dodge them a lot of the time, so I'm doing fairly well here. At least I was until the game crashed on me!

Well I'm done with that then.

LATER

I put the game back on for a bit, because I don't even know why, and look I've found a magic stick! I'm a mage now, or at least I will be once I've figured it out. Right now it's set up to let me spray fireballs from the cursor, which seems handy. Doesn't last long though.

Seems like I'm collecting runes in my book and I can add a pair of them to the staff so that it can cast different spells until it runs out of juice. Then I have to go backtrack to the manna circle to recharge. Actually, maybe I'll just stick with my sword.


CONCLUSION

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Something about Stonekeep has always fascinated me and I have no idea what it is. Well, aside from the hologram on the box I mean. It's a fairly unimportant game in a genre I don't even enjoy much, and it's not like I ever got anywhere in it, so I don't get how it could've left such a big impression on me. It's completely inexplicable.

I wish I could say that I enjoyed playing it this time, but I never felt like I was playing it right. It was like I was always a few levels too low, just getting by with cheesy strategies instead of doing it properly. In fact I was often on the verge of giving up on it because a certain group of enemies was like a brick wall I just couldn't get past, though I always somehow managed it in the end. Then I walked back through two floors to heal at a fountain and came back again for the next fight.

The backtracking got kind of tedious, as did picking up all my rocks after a fight, finding stuff in the massive inventory scroll, comparing weapon stats, fighting enemies... basically everything really. Maybe you get to pick up teleportation magic later, and I hope so, because it could seriously do with it. Just having the option to rest would be nice!

One annoyance the game doesn't have is survival meters, like hunger, thirst or sleep, though you might consider that a negative. I definitely didn't miss suffering from a limited inventory or encumbrance; you can just grab whatever you want in this, carry everything you find, it doesn't matter. The trouble is that they end up as a long line of unsorted items with no names, descriptions or stats. Well, unless you look them up in the separate journal. It's great how much thought went into making the game feel immersive, but I feel like they needed to think it through just a little bit more. Of course it's easy for me to sit here in the future, 10 years after Skyrim, and talk about what an RPG from 1995 could've done better... so I'm going to keep doing that.

In fact the gameplay's right out of 1987, though fans of series like Legend of Grimrock and Etrian Odyssey would argue that there's nothing wrong with that. The trouble is that the technique they came up with to have animated pre-rendered visuals apparently put real limits on how varied each floor can be. Every wall is the same! Every single one, everywhere on the entire floor, and probably the one underneath as well. It's a maze with no landmarks! Though like I said, something about the visuals fascinates me, it's almost like it was meant to be a 3DO game, and I can't say I hated zigzagging around those corridors.

In fact I decided to start a new game, just to double check some things at first, though that changed once I got that secret Dagger of Penetration hidden near the start of the game. It's the second best dagger in the game apparently, and I can believe it. Fights that used to drag on were now ending in just a few hits, and I was walking away from them with some health left! I could pretty much get by on just the healing roots I was picking up without having to run back to the fountain all the time! The secret dagger basically turns the game into a normal RPG, at least for the floors I played. A normal RPG except for the fact that every fight is about moving backwards and forwards a lot.

I can actually see myself playing more of this so I'm going to give it a shiny star, though I'm not exactly recommending it.


Interplay apparently learned a lesson from Stonekeep: that spending five years working on a game is awesome and they should do it more often, because that's how long they spent working on the sequel... before it was cancelled. Though Stonekeep did finally get a sequel in 2012 on the Nintendo Wii, called Stonekeep: Bones of the Ancestors, and it's apparently fucking terrible. So if you're ever forced to play one of these games, I'd suggest playing this one instead.

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Thanks for dropping by! If you've got anything you want to say about Stonekeep you should type it into the comment box underneath.

Next week's game is going to be the final one this year, so this is going to be your last opportunity for a while to take a guess at what it'll be. No one guessed Stonekeep so I've made it a little easier this time. Good luck!