Forbidden Castle FAQ/walkthrough(DOS/Windows/Apple game)
version 1.1.0
copyright 2004 by Andrew Schultz schultza@earthlink.net
Please do not reproduce for profit without my consent. If you wish to do
so then please write to me asking for specific games and addressing my
by my first name. Thanks!
**** AD SPACE ****
My web page:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Exhibit/2762
**** PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT, SORT OF ****
If you are interested in solving an old text adventure you are stuck
on(i.e. VERY old systems) check gamefaqs.com and Jacob Gunness's site
first(these sites between them have everything,) search "[game name]"
walkthrough on Google(put + by common words.)
If you want to write a more in-depth walkthrough(i.e. items, possible
words, etc.) drop me a line and I'll see if I can help.
Oh yeah--if you want to skip to the walkthrough just search for the decimal
number 7.1 until you get to the file's end.
================================
1. INTRODUCTION
1-1. ABOUT THE GAME
1-2. ABOUT MY EFFORTS TO SOLVE IT
2. WORDS AND SYNTAX
3. MAP
3-1. BEGINNING AREA
3-2. ACROSS THE RIVER
3-3. COLDOR'S CASTLE
3-4. BY AIR
3-5. FORBIDDEN CASTLE
3-6. MISCELLANEOUS SMALL AREAS
3-7. ANIMAL ROUTES
4. ITEMS
5. CHARACTERS
6. WAYS TO DIE/BE UNABLE TO FINISH THE GAME
7. WALKTHROUGH
7.1. GETTING THROUGH
7.2. LOGICAL/CLUE PROGRESSION
8. VERSIONS/CREDITS
================================
1. INTRODUCTION
1-1. ABOUT THE GAME
Forbidden Castle is a game set in a fantasy realm, and although it
does not have a huge number of rooms, it's very hard. Unfortunately much
of that difficulty is not related to the puzzles but to the parser and
inaccuracies. It is written(or at least conceived) by Mercer Mayer,
ostensibly the same Mercer Mayer who illustrated all those kids' books
including the wonderful Great Brain series and even wrote some
stuff(www.littlecritter.com for the whole deal.) While the fantasy
elements that appear in his drawings appear here, and you rely on a lot
of visual clues to complete the game, the Angelsoft parser causes
awkwardness some times. The game's complexity outstrips it a bit so it's
more likely to be remembered as scattered than eponymous. It's a pity
because the descriptions really give nice foreshadowing and the game
achieves a sort of internal logic although it tortures the player to
find it.
I couldn't find any copies of the Apple rom image, but www.the-
underdogs.org has this game available for download. I suspect there is
little difference in the Apple to Windows port. After all how much can
technology really soup up a text adventure?
1-2. ABOUT MY EFFORTS TO SOLVE IT
When I saw this promising game title as the only one on the Apple
GameFAQs request list I tried to track it down. I found it at the-
underdogs.org before the site grew a hyphen. The game had clever
locations but seemed very hard, and soon I was looking for a walkthrough
myself only to find others were just as stuck as I was. Eventually I
gave up trying to figure the game straight up and looked at the files.
The words aren't directly revealed but VOCAB contains a code that maps
bytes from 0x01 to 0x40 to letters. The program capitalizes, etc.
itself. So I had to decode that first, and once I did, I searched the
MESSAGE file for words compressed to six bytes per letter instead of the
usual eight. A simple program looked at all possible byte shifts and
gave me the script. After which I still needed a little help. But I
think the same method may work for any other unsolved AngelSoft games.
2. WORDS AND SYNTAX
The game recognizes words or word clumps. Below I've listed its entire
vocabulary in alphabetical order. Wasn't bothered to separate stuff by
noun/verb/location/item etc. Maybe later.
A SMALL COURTYARD, ALTAR, A**, BACK HALL, BAG, BANK, BEACH, BEAR, BEARD
BELT, BEAUTIFUL, BEDROOM, BITCH, BLOCKED ROAD, BLUE FAERIE, BOARD, BOAT,
BOOK, BREAK, BRIDGE, BRONZE DOOR, BY, CAPE, CAREFULLY, CARVING, CASE,
CASTLE, CASTLE ENTRANCE, CAVE, CHALICE, CHAPEL, CHEST, CLOSE, CLOSELY,
COURTYARD, CRATE, CROSS, CROSSROADS, D, DAGGER, DAMN, DAMNIT, DARKNESS,
DEEP, DESERT ROAD, DESOLATION, DESTROY, DO YOU HAVE, DOG, DOOR, DOWN,
DRAGON, DRAGON TOOTH, DRAW, DRAWBRIDGE, DRINK, DROP, E, EAST, EDGE,
ELOWYND, ENCHANTED FOREST, END, ENTER, ENTRANCE, EX, EXAMINE, EXIT,
FAERIE, FEATHER, FINALE, FINDOLWYR, FLAT MOUNTAIN, FLOOR CARVING, FOG,
FOOTPATH, FOR, FORBIDDEN HILLS, FOREST, FOREST DEEP, FOREST EDGE,
FOUNTAIN, FRIDAY, FROG, F***, F***ER, F***ING, GARDEN, GARDEN PATH,
GATE, GET, GET ON, GIVE, GO, GOLDEN DOOR, GORGE, GRAB, GRASSLAND, GREAT
HALL, GREETING, GREETINGS, GREY STONE, GRIFFIN, HALL, HAVE YOU, H***,
HELLO, HI, HIGHNESS, HILLS, HORRIBLE LAND, HOW, IN, INTO, INV,
INVENTORY, IRON DOOR, IRON GATE, IT, JUMP, KEY, KILL, KING, L, LAND,
LEATHER BAG, LEATHER BOOK, LEAVE, LID, LIQUID, LOCK, LOCKET, LOOK, LOOK
AT, LOOK IN, LOOK INTO, MAIN COURTYARD, MAJESTY, MANKIN, METHWYR,
MONDAY, MOUNT, MOUNTAIN, MURDER, N, NARROW COURTYARD, NORTH, NORTH
BEDROOM, OAK DOOR, OGRE, ON, OPEN, OVERLOOK, PAGE, PASSAGEWAY, PATH,
PATH OF THORNS, PATH'S END, PEGASUS, PICK UP, PILLAR, PITCH, PLACE,
PLEASE, POOL, POUR, PRT, PUT, PUT DOWN, PUT ON, PUT ON TOP, QUIT, RAVEN,
READ, REMOVE, RESTART, RESTORE, RIDE, RING, RING OF STONES, RIVER PATH,
ROAD, ROOM, ROSE, S, SANDY BEACH, SATURDAY, SAVE, SCRATCH, S***, SHUT,
SIR, SMALL BOAT, SMALL CAVE, SMALL POOL, SORRY, SOUTH, SOUTH BEDROOM,
STAB, STONE, STONE BRIDGE, STONES, SUNDAY, SWAMP, SWAP, SWORD, TAKE,
TAKE OFF, TAKE OFF OF, TAKE OUT OF, THORN, THORN MOUNTAIN, THORNS,
THRONE ROOM, THROW, THURSDAY, TO, TOOTH, TOSS, TOWER, TOWER ROOM, TRADE,
TRAP DOOR, TREASURE ROOM, TUESDAY, TYNWYN, U, UNLOCK, UP, UPPER HALL,
VALLEY, VASE, W, WAIT, WANT, WASTED LAND, WAY, WEAR, WEDNESDAY, WEST,
WEST BANK, WEST WAY, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, WHERE IS, WHITE DRAGON, WHO,
WHY, WITH, WIZARD, WYR, WYRMOG, X, ZY
You can throw words together in any old order and even forget
prepositions but particular tricks to look out for are as follows:
'trade' with NPC's. Don't try to trade items; the NPC's decide what will
be traded.
If you say 'Open door' and it asks 'with what?' you can't follow up with
'with key' or whatever. Type the whole sentence out.
TALK GRIFFIN FEATHER is a good way to ask someone about something.
If two NPC's are in the same location you want to type TRADE GRIFFIN or
TALK FAERIE VASE.
Note that the extra words can make a difference; 'talk raven grey stone'
gets a different response from 'talk raven stone.'
3. MAP
?item? = item an NPC may take
*item* = item in the room
<-> = transport between areas
\-U-\ = up/down to move
& = special puzzle solving needed to get here
3-1. BEGINNING AREA
[to
forbidden
castle]
&
&
Thorn Forbidden
Mountain Hills
& | \-U-\
& | \-D-\ (take boat)
Enchanted--Valley West Bank<-->[across the river]
Forest
3-2. ACROSS THE RIVER
(via
boat) Path--Garden to-West-Cross
begin End Path castle Way Roads
area | area |
\ | |
Small River Tower Forest Foot
Cave Path \ / Deep Path
& | d-u | |
& | | |
Wasted--Sandy--Grass--Forest--Gorge
Land Beach Land Land
?vase?
3-3. COLDOR'S CASTLE
?sword?
*crate*
Tower *book*
Room North
\ Bedroom--Darkness
u-d & *feather*
*locket* \ &
Garden--Back Upper Hall
Hall / &
| u-d & *cape*
| / South Bedroom
Great--Castle
Hall Entrance
3-4. BY AIR
'By air' refers to the side place you can go via dragon or Pegasus.
Fog--Path of&&[forbidden castle]
| Thorns
|
Horrible--Desert--Stone --Overlook
Land Road Bridge
{raven} *stone*
3-5. FORBIDDEN CASTLE
Cellar
\
u-d
\
(By Air area)--Small Courtyard
|
Stone |
--Passageway--Courtyard
|
|
(To beginning area)
3-6. MISCELLANEOUS SMALL AREAS
Ring Desolation [only via White Dragon]
of *chalice*
Stones
|
| Swamp [only via Pegasus]
Flat
Mountain
3-7. ANIMAL ROUTES
The white dragon: gorge -> wasted land -> horrible land -> desolation ->
gorge
Pegasus: path end -> swamp -> overlook -> [if you are worthy] flat mountain -
> path end
They seem to take random amounts of time between each move but if you stand
around and hit Z they always come back.
You can always get on Pegasus but you need to be wearing or holding the tooth
to get on the dragon. Also if you have the sword the dragon will be VERY
nasty to you.
4. ITEMS
I only refer to moveable items here. Actually due to a quirk in the
programming, you can, by sector editing edit in many items you can't carry or
even locations(bytes 01-05 in the save file SAVE1 through SAVE9) or actually
wear them(futz with bytes 09-0d.) You'll probably want to have a backup copy
of your save file if you do this though.
You can carry up to four items, but you can wear as many as you like,
and that does not count as carrying them, although if you have your
hands full and remove an item you're wearing, it will fall to the
ground. The faerie or mankin won't ask for an item you are wearing. They
also seem to notice some items first such as the treasure chest.
Asterisks denote wearable items below.
-book: tells you something about the king as well as three important
items. Watch out; if you try to take it out of the castle, a dog blocks
your way. (Some hero you are, but I guess bookworms can't really be
heroes!)
*cape: seems like wool but is really a good cape of protection. Stops
you from talking to the raven.
-chalice: with tooth, makes the ogre respect you and needed to win the
game
-chest: small and can only fit worthless items until you figure how to
grow it
-crate: holds chest inside, but how to open it?
*dragon tooth: magic properties allow access to certain areas(?) and
also with the chalice gets you by the ogre
*feather: one of the treasures, also allows you to talk to animals. It's
also needed to go up from the Wasted Land.
-grey stone: reveals magic properties of other items and also can be
placed somewhere
-key: unlocks castle door
-leather bag: try to see what's in it. It's still useful after that for
trading.
*locket: allows you to go north of the enchanted forest. There's a thorn
inside you can't get until very late in the game.
*ring: one of the treasures
*sword: not necessary for fighting and dragons don't like it, but a good
extra item to barter. When the sword is worn, you cannot use it.
-vase: the faerie may pick it up if you don't get to the right place,
but it's needed to win the game(thanks to Jason Palopoli for pointing
out the faerie doesn't always have it)
5. CHARACTERS
--The blue faerie may take an item but may trade as well. Respond 'N/N' to
complete a trade. You also need to compliment her some times or she
won't do anything useful.
--The frog requires a special item to talk to. (S)he can tell you about the
griffin if you know who to ask about.
--The griffin requires proper introduction but has a critical clue to tell
you.
--The king, King Coldor, may trade with you, or if he hasn't picked up the
sword yet, you can take it and not worry. You must greet him correctly
at times if he doesn't want to trade.
--The mankin can help you out if you tell him his name. However, he may
also take items from you.
--The ogre will attack you unless you have a certain item. He also holds
an item for you. He may knock an item out of your hands or steal stuff
as well.
--Pegasus can transport you, but if you aren't worthy, it won't take you
somewhere specific you need to go, and it's your only ticket there.
--If you have a special item, the raven will not talk to you. But it has
little to say.
--The white dragon can take you in an impressive loop, but don't bring
your sword along for the ride.
Each character has a selection of random phrases he/she will babble.
Don't worry about that; if they seem uninformative or combative, they
really are meaningless.
6. WAYS TO DIE/BE UNABLE TO FINISH THE GAME
--use too much profanity(stopping at your final warning, after nine
curses, allows a new way to restart easily. The tenth displays some
magic)
--get brained by the ogre, who is tough to flee from
--let the mankin or ogre take an item
--trade the wrong items(chest) to the blue faerie, who won't give it
back
--walk E or S from the gorge(a particular problem of mine after I get
off the dragon--I confuse it with the wasted land.)
--jump or go N at the castle bridge
--hang around after Pegasus takes you to the swamp
--walk onto the road east of the horrible land--or west of the stone bridge--
without the cape
--go north of the horrible land without the cape
--destroy the vase or chalice in the chapel[not sure how but it's in the
game data]
--outlaws south of the grasslands kill you. They also kill you north and
east of the crossroads.
--drink the liquid in the chalice
--enter the chapel while you still have the sword(Jason Palopoli)
--get on the dragon with the sword
7. WALKTHROUGH
7.1. GETTING THROUGH
Note that anywhere you cross bridge, get boat, get pegasus, or get dragon, if
the entity is not there yet, you just type z(this or any unrecognized verb
passes a move without you doing anything) until it does show up.
There's a bit of randomization here so I tried to put comments where it
seemed necessary. Although there is some advice you don't need to hear from
NPC's, and I largely skipped that, there are other questions you need to ask
to become worthy, and those are in here.
West Way is a good place to drop items so they won't get taken. It's
slightly out of the way, but then this game never tried to be easy.
This walkthrough has been touched up a few times and is subject to some
randomness, but it is about as fast as you could hope to get through.
Part 1: get inside Coldor's castle
get bag.[you must get the bag right away] e. n. d. open bag. get boat.
s*. w. get vase**. get tooth. wear tooth. e. e. e***. e.
[*Note: anywhere you see the mankin, say BEARD BELT to save some time.]
[**Note: the vase should be available--getting it quickly was a finesse
suggested to me by Jason Palopoli--but if it is not I have a guide on
how to trade with the faerie, who'd have taken it, below, anyway.]
[***Note: while going east you may want to go back and forth west/east to get
the faerie to trade with you. She will ask for the bag--I've tried a few
times and this is not random--which you can trade for the key.]
[If the faerie is angry, type BEAUTIFUL FAERIE. Then TRADE FAERIE and NO if
she asks if you want the key and NO if she says she'll trade for the leather
bag. If all else fails you can drop a bunch of items in the West Way or
Crossroads and come back so the only item she can ask for is the bag.]
n. n. w. cross bridge[note: you may have to type 'z' or some nonsense a
few times to wait for the bridge to come down. I'll assume you follow
this pattern in the future.] open door. w
The faerie and mankin are usually on the strip from the wasted land to
the gorge; don't leave items there, as they get stolen. Rather leave
them on the west bank or by the frog or in the castle/east of the
bridge.
General advice for the faerie:
To trade successfully with her, answer N for both of her questions. You also
want to be sure you are only carrying the sword, once it's served its purpose,
and the bag; she won't ask for an item if you're wearing it, but if you come
by with the chest she will try to trade for that.
She may not want to trade at first, though. To get her out of her funk say
'beautiful faerie' if you see her; just 'beautiful' works if she's alone. If
you hang around too long without complimenting her, she can get cross.
Part 2: loot the castle
If you can find the sword, get it. If not, you have a task. When you see the
king, greet him by saying MAJESTY, to make sure he'll notice you when you say
TRADE. Now you can accept any trade the king offers for the sword and run
around for a bit after because he will drop the item, so you have a net gain
of a sword. You may need a little patience.
There's another solution where you don't have to wait for the king to drop an
item: get the book and trade the king for it. To be sure of the item you
trade, go into the pool and drop everything except the key, or the book, or
whichever. Which you can also trade to the king and not wait to drop it. But
the detour to drop items takes about the same time as just waiting around.
There are three detours to take. Go with 2 first if you have the key,
otherwise trade with the king and go with 1 and wait around.
1.
n. w. look in pool. get locket. wear locket. e. s
(back at the entry hall)
2.
u. unlock door. open door. n. e. get feather. wear feather. s. d.
[if you still need the sword, get the book and drop everything else and trade
the book to the king.]
3.
u. s. get cape. wear cape. n. u. open crate with sword. get chest. d. d.
[drop sword if you have the vase and key and have items full. If you haven't
unlocked the door below yet, do so with the key before continuing.]
You shouldn't have problems juggling items or giving NPC's the items they
want, but if you do, keep them in the north north room or the pool area while
you pick up the rest of what you need.
**detour**
Just in case you didn't get the key at first.
d. d. e. cross bridge. drop chest. e. s. s. w. [say beard belt if you
see the mankin anywhere here]
When trading with the blue faerie you want to trade the sword and bag
for the vase and key. This usually seems to follow the pattern below for
me:
give sword for vase
give bag for sword
give sword for key
After trading with the faerie go east to the gorge but not further(that
will kill you,) n. n. w. cross bridge. w. u.
(and don't forget to take the chest on the way back!)
**end detour**
Part 3: get the ring
e. cross bridge. e. [Drop the sword now if you still have it!] s. s. w. w. w.
w. get dragon. e. get stone. w. [wait until dragon comes back.] get dragon.
get chalice. get dragon. get dragon. e. n. get boat. u. ogre, give ring(move
S/W/N/N and back and forth to scout for him if you have to.) wear ring.
Part 4: gain clearance
d. get boat. [if you haven't met the mankin yet, which is highly unlikely, n.
e. talk frog elowynd. w. s. This is another way you can get in the griffin's
cave.] s. w. u. greetings griffin. talk griffin elowynd. d. e. e. e. n. u.
put stone on carving. get stone.
[now you should have clearance to get to the near-final bit.]
d. s. w. w. n. n. get pegasus. get pegasus. get pegasus. n. put stone on
pillar. s. get pegasus. s. get boat. u. s. w. n.
[The part with the fountain may not be necessary; nevertheless it does work
to win the game. Apparently there are ways in which you can cause a pillar to
fall on your head when you enter the final room. They include bringing the
sword along. This should get rid of those.]
Part 5: inside the castle
open door. n. pour liquid in fountain[not necessary if you scratch the case.]
open door. n. open trap door. d. drop chest. open chest. remove feather. put
feather in chest. remove ring. put ring in chest. remove cape. put cape in
chest. u. s. w. open door.
s. put vase on altar. put chalice on altar.
scratch findolwyr case with thorn[this is not necessary if you've poured the
liquid in the fountain.]
[Jason Palopoli notes that you can achieve an alternate less successful by
inserting these two commands before the final: remove tooth. drop tooth. So
save here to see them both quickly.]
open case
You win, yay.
7.2. LOGICAL/CLUE PROGRESSION
The game actually does make sense although there are a lot of physical
clues you need to pay attention to.
The first clues you get are from the book after you've gotten the key.
The writing talks about the ring, feather and cape. You now have
something you can ask NPC's about. This also tells you of the treasures
you need to put in.
Ask the frog about the ring and he says the ogre doesn't want it.
That's how you ask the ogre for the ring.
EXAMINE RING CAREFULLY to see the name of the female dragon ELOWYND so
you can ask the griffin about her. Is that adverb a low shot or what?
There's an image by the Ring of Stones telling you what you need to do
with the vase and chalice. They form a triumvirate.
The wizard and raven both tell you to return the chest to where it
came(that would be the treasure room.) Although I haven't been able to
get the raven to do it.
You know the cape protects you because 1) not wearing it over the
desert road gets you killed by scorpions and 2) it looks different when
you have the grey stone and view it.
FINDOLWYR, the word of power, appears on the chest.
TYNWYN's name is revealed by the frog.
Telling the raven WYR ['of the dragon,' from the word FINDOLWYR on the
chest and WYRMOG on the sword if you examine carefully] gives you a clue
to put the chest in the treasure room. Not sure how to ask the raven to
ask you for the word though.
TYNWYN and E_____D appear as names on the throne, offering a clue that
the two should be together.
7.3. OTHER MISCELLANY
Jason Palopoli notes some other important things:
****
Pouring the liquid in the fountain has the same effect as scratching
the case with the thorn and writing 'Findolwyr'
No swords in the chapel is a logical extension of no swords on
dragons.
Liquid can be poured out and wasted from the chalice and you can still win
the game.
****
I believe you can kill the king/frog and still win the game, but I am too
lazy to check.
** END OF FAQ PROPER **
================================
8. VERSIONS/CREDITS
1.1.0 mailed to GameFAQs 12/7/2004 along with a graphic map. I smoothed over
the walkthrough.
1.0.0 mailed to GameFAQs 9/18/2002 mostly complete, probably missed a few
ways to die, but the walkthrough should be OK.
Thanks to CJayC and GameFAQs for having this game on the Apple II request
list. In the end it was worth going through and I hope my walkthrough makes
the game worth going through for other people who are currently frustrated.
Thanks to Jacob Gunness and his 8-bit solution archive(and it's at least 300%
better than most of the 2-bit ones out there) where you can also request
help(the game was requested there too) and also for hosting the message board
that hooked me up with...
Jason Palopoli, who provided some important clues which I have tried to
annotate in addition to what we both discovered independently.
You can find Jacob's great site at:
http://www.if-legends.org/~casa/
http://hjem.get2net.dk/gunn/
And a domain of its own to come soon.
Thanks too to falsehead for all the proofreading and also
encouraging/reminding me to take another look at old text adventures.
Also djgpp.com for the compiler to write the program that helped me process
the data files, which I partially deciphered with the wonderful AXE hex
editor.
