The Game

Welcome to the game...

This is the Time to end Time,
This is the Time out of Mind,
This is the Game out of Time,
And the game to blow your Mind!

I place you somewhere in time, in a land where strangers are not welcome. Search Damonia Castle for objects which may help free you from the clutches of the dark castle.

Your advisors are two oracles. One is good, and often gives correct clues. The bad oracle will do everything to throw the knight into danger, and death. The knight may consult the oracles, but only one will answer. By studying the contents of both oracles' statements, valuable clues may be learned.

Your life force is represented by a candle at the edge of the page. It will decrease throughout the game.

Certain inhabitants of the castle will ask you questions and give you problems to solve. Confirm your selection by pressing Fire.

To perform specific functions within the castle. You may use one or two word commands. Select the first word by pressing the first letter of that word. If the speech bubble at the top of the screen does not display the word you require, press the Shift key. This will show you the next available word.

When the speech bubble displays your required first word, press Enter. A second word will now appear - again, you may alter this word by pressing the first letter of the required second word of the Shift key to cycle through the available words. When both words are chosen, press Enter.

You may repeat your last command by pressing Enter twice. You may change the second word of your instruction before pressing the Enter key a second time if you wish. To view the available command words press the Shift key. To see your inventory (the things you are carrying) press the I key.

Spellcasting

Merlin's Magic. You'll have to work out how to gain these magical powers, but beware! Some of them are good, some of them bad.

We know very little about the spells available but old spell books tell us the following:

To use a spell, select the word SPELL as the first word, then the name of the spell as the second word, then press Enter or the Life button to execute that spell. Note: You first have to find the spells!

1. Anvil
   This is a large, cast-iron anvil, which hovers at the top of the screen, causing evils to be squashed into the ground.
2. Casper
   Casper the key. May be used on certain doors within the castle.
3. Alchemy
   Turns characters to a solid gold sphere. Most objects turned to gold may then be collected by the knight as treasure.
4. Ice
   A rain cloud will form and freeze everything. As soon as the cloud vapourizes, the character will come back to life.
5. Toad
   Turns characters into 'warty' toads.
6. Metamorph
   Turns characters into different characters.

Fighting

In order to fight, you need to find a weapon, then by moving next to the character you wish to fight and pressing fire repeatedly, you will engage in combat.

You may also throw bricks at other characters. You may either use the instructions to tell your knight to 'Throw Bricks' or you may set the first command word to 'Throw' and then fire to throw.

Saving And Loading

If you choose the command 'Save' this will save your current position for future usage; return to this position by selecting 'Load'. Please note, this is a RAMSAVE, and is not saved on cassette or diskette and so if you switch your computer off, you lose your original position.

Game Controls

< - Left, > - Right, ; - Up, ? - Down, = - Fire
SHIFT - View Words, ENTER - Enter Word

You may use a joystick if you wish.

F1/BREAK/ESC - Pause (= To resume)
Q then Y - Quit

C64 owners may use any C64-compatible joystick.

Loading

If using a C128, first select 64 mode.
SHIFT-RUN STOP