New to Silvern Castle
magnusfalkirk
I downloaded Silvern Castle about 6 months ago and looked at it a
little on an Apple IIGS emulator I have installed on my Mac Mini. I
just recently acquired a ROM1 Apple IIGS through Ebay so I can play
Silvern Castle, and a few other games, on 3.5 disks on the real
hardware instead of on an emulator.
Over the weekend I transferred Silvern Castle to the GS using ADTPro.
I also installed Prodos on the disk so I could just turn the computer
on and boot it up. Today was my first time running the game with the
group of six characters I created. My party is all human and consists
of 3 fighters, a thief, a cleric and a mage.
I have a question about mages and clerics. In Wizardry, and Bard's
Tale, etc, the cleric and mage class know at least some first level
spells from the start. With Silvern Castle it appears, at least to me,
that the only spell they know is read magic, which does absolutely no
good in battle. Am I doing something wrong or do I have to find/buy
scrolls and then have the mage/cleric add the spell to their spellbook/
holy item?
Another thing that surprised me was that my 1st level cleric started
out with 1 hit point! The mage started out with 4. I'm glad that the
resurrection spell in the temple is fairly reasonably priced as I've
lost characters several times so far.
I also really like the automap feature. I can remember having to
either have someone sit next to me to draw the maps for Wizardry as I
progressed through the levels, or take twice as long as I'd like by
having to draw as I played. This is much easier. Another feature I
like is being able to pick up additional weapons and such when my
party defeats a group of monsters in the dungeon.
I can easily see spending many long hours playing this great game.
Keep up the good work. Any idea if you'll put out another version or
is this the final one?
Apple II forever,
Dean
Jeff
On May 8, 7:54 pm, magnusfalkirk <dean.pha...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Greetings,
>
> I downloaded Silvern Castle about 6 months ago and looked at it a
> little on an Apple IIGS emulator I have installed on my Mac Mini. I
> just recently acquired a ROM1 Apple IIGS through Ebay so I can play
> Silvern Castle, and a few other games, on 3.5 disks on the real
> hardware instead of on an emulator.
>
> Over the weekend I transferred Silvern Castle to the GS using ADTPro.
> I also installed Prodos on the disk so I could just turn the computer
> on and boot it up. Today was my first time running the game with the
> group of six characters I created. My party is all human and consists
> of 3 fighters, a thief, a cleric and a mage.
>
> I have a question about mages and clerics. In Wizardry, and Bard's
> Tale, etc, the cleric and mage class know at least some first level
> spells from the start. With Silvern Castle it appears, at least to me,
> that the only spell they know is read magic, which does absolutely no
> good in battle. Am I doing something wrong or do I have to find/buy
> scrolls and then have the mage/cleric add the spell to their spellbook/
> holy item?
>
You are correct. You must buy or find scrolls and add them to your
spellbook or holy item.
I implemented it this way so you can acquire the spells you want (at
least if you have the gold!), instead of hoping you learn them upon
advancing levels. Of course, it's possible many of the higher-level
spells may be too expensive-or plain out of stock, requiring a little
quest to find them in the maze. Luckily, spells are fairly common loot
items so you should eventually find all of them.
> Another thing that surprised me was that my 1st level cleric started
> out with 1 hit point! The mage started out with 4. I'm glad that the
> resurrection spell in the temple is fairly reasonably priced as I've
> lost characters several times so far.
>
The starting hit points are determined somewhat by race, but more so
by class and vitality (and some randomness too as you're discovered).
The best bet is to beef-up on vitality initially when creating your
characters, then acquire experience points in the maze to increase
level and other skills later on-i.e. survival is more important when
starting out then anything else!
Some people like to start out with all or some demi-human characters
(as they usually start with more hit points) and then add human
characters later on since demi-human progress is limited after some
point.
Another technique is to use the proving grounds (located at the
tavern) to trade skills for hit points.
Be careful! Multiple resurrection impose a severe penalty on your
character's longevity and abilities.
> I also really like the automap feature. I can remember having to
> either have someone sit next to me to draw the maps for Wizardry as I
> progressed through the levels, or take twice as long as I'd like by
> having to draw as I played. This is much easier. Another feature I
> like is being able to pick up additional weapons and such when my
> party defeats a group of monsters in the dungeon.
>
> I can easily see spending many long hours playing this great game.
> Keep up the good work. Any idea if you'll put out another version or
> is this the final one?
>
> Apple II forever,
> Dean
The automap feature is fairly new-I added in response to a user
request. So if anyone has any other good suggestions or bugs to
report, I'll release another version as long as there's interest.
-Jeff
Bruce Baker
your mage a magic missle and your cleric a heal light (or whatever it is
called). I don't think I would have "kept" a guy with only 1 HP. If you
try again you might get a guy/gal with 5 or 6. But yeah after they move
up a level or two they may be safe.
I always preferred keeping my own hard copy maps. I still have them.
Ressurection, as you may have guessed, is more expensive for higher level
characters with more HP's.
Good luck and keep us posted how you are doing.
Bruce Baker homepage: www.hal-pc.org/~bbaker/
blog: www.xanga.com/brb4311
The lord is my shepherd I shall not want.