Castle of the Winds

Cooler than the hero.

Castle of the Winds (CotW) is a tile-based Roguelike game for Windows 3.x., published in 1989. The player goes off adventuring in a monster-infested mine, only to discover after completing it that some random Big Bad ordered your village destroyed while you were away, in attempt to kill you (because you are the Chosen One!). Cue the quest for vengeance.

Consists of two parts, A Question of Vengeance (released as shareware) and Lifthransir's Bane, each with its own dungeon (not including the aforementioned mines). The full version is now available for free on the creator's website.

Does not work on 64-bit versions of Windows, as it is a 16-bit application. However, using DOSBox or Windows XP Mode, you can still enjoy this classic on modern PCs.

Tropes used in Castle of the Winds include:

• Bandit Mook: The Smirking Sneak Thief can steal your money or whatever's on your belt, then randomly teleport to anywhere else in the level (including hidden rooms). Very agile and requires three fireballs' worth of damage to kill. You can get your stuff back if you can find and kill it.
• Cast from Hit Points: The player is allowed to keep casting spells after running out of mana by drawing on their own constitution, (rapidly) lowering their max HP (and turning their mana level negative) until the player suddenly dies. This can be exploited in a Good Bad Bug, though.
• Character Customization: You can customize your stats at the beginning of the game.
• Chosen One: You, for some reason. Probably a descendant of a king or something.
  • At the end of Part One, your dead father comes before you after touching your hallucinogenic family heirloom to tell you it is up to you to unseat the higher evils.
    • Specifically, you are the true heir of the Castle of the Winds, your father being the last survivor of the massacre and depositing you in your small village as he lay dying, the amulet being the key both to your identity and entrance to said castle.
• Critical Existence Failure
• The Dev Team Thinks of Everything: Using Save Scumming, one can identify cursed items, then reload and sell those "unidentified" items to the unknowing shopkeeper for a lot of copper. But you can only do this so many times. Do it too much and the shopkeeper will refuse to buy unidentified items from you anymore, demanding you get them identified first.
• Doomed Hometown: Triggered by either deliberately reading or leaving the beginning mines with the parchment found at the bottom, which when read is discovered to be the Big Bad's orders.
  • Which also provides a jarring Gameplay and Story Segregation moment. If you drop the parchment just before the exit of the dungeon, you can exit and visit the still intact town as normal. As soon as you return to the dungeon and either read the parchment or exit with it (which triggers the autoread) the town is instantly destroyed, even if you immediately turn around and come back.
• Dummied Out: There are a bunch of weapon and armour enchantments that are never seen in game, even though they appear to work just fine. The only way to get them is by hacking a save file.
• Fire, Ice, Lightning: The main attack spells are Fire Bolt/Fire Ball, Cold Bolt/Cold Ball and Lightning Bolt/Ball Lightning.
• Hot Bar: You get 10 buttons at the top of the window to set commonly used spells to. Unfortunately, 12 of them are frequently useful. Have fun! (Of course, you can always access any spell through the spell book, but that takes longer)
• Human Sacrifice: There is a prisoner for the player to rescue from this fate.
• In-Universe Game Clock: The game keeps track of time for you. Unfortunately, the only things it's used for in the final version is for when stores restock their inventory, and there's a small number of magic items that have a spell they can cast once per day.
• Mirror Match: Shadows and Shades appear as transparent versions of the default male player character. However, it's only the monster's appearance, as it uses the default AI. And, the effect is lost if playing as a female (or, with a custom icon).
• Moses in the Bulrushes: The Big Bad killed your parents in an attempt to kill you, The Chosen One. Your parents knew it was coming, however, and left little baby Player in the hands of a elderly farmer couple in the Doomed Hometown.
• Norse Mythology: The game world is based on this, with various Dungeons & Dragons monsters thrown in for good measure.
• Old Save Bonus: Activating the pendant found at the end of the shareware game for the second time allows you to create a save that can be loaded in the second part, allowing your character to continue exactly as you left it. Not so much a bonus, though, as a necessity, as the game is designed with a high-leveled character in mind. The second part does spot you some levels and equipment if you start from scratch, but such a character is still at a significant disadvantage.
• Orphan's Plot Trinket: An amulet belonging to the protagonist's biological father. Recovering it is the goal of the first game.
• Our Demons Are Different: A couple varieties summoned from the depths of Muspelheim by the Big Bad
• Our Dragons Are Different: Four elements of dragons (fire, lightning, ice, and poison). Older dragons are stronger, with "Ancient" dragons being the most powerful.
• Palette Swap: Many enemies share graphics. Sometimes they're recoloured, sometimes not. Related species tend to have similar graphics, though.
• Power Glows: Enchanted items are generally depicted as having a blue aura. On the other hand, cursed items have a red aura...
• Purely Aesthetic Gender: The only effect of the gender is which icon you have. And, if you use a custom icon, it's totally irrelevant.
• Rare Candy: Draughts of Increase Strength and so forth for each stat and whole level, as well as cursed counterparts that permanently do the opposite!
• Save Scumming: Combine with the Detect Objects spell and reload after first entering a new dungeon level until you get a favorable selection of items, like Books of Spells. You can also use this to feed shops unidentified cursed items, but it's not really worth the trouble. Also useful for identifying uncursed items for sale and use at the beginning of the game, before the Identify spell is acquired.
  • You CAN sell unidentified cursed items at the shop, but only so many times. Do it too much and the shop will refuse to buy it, telling you "You've sold us too much worthless junk already. Get it identified first!"
• Scripted Event: Although most of the dungeon floors are randomly generated, certain rooms are guaranteed to show up in certain places, and certain enemies are guaranteed to drop plot-relevant items.
• Shareware: The first game was shareware, while the second one was commercial. Eventually, the creator released both versions as free ware.
• Shout-Out: When you die in the game, you get this message: "Another one bites the dust..."
• Stronger with Age: Dragons come in a variety of ages, the strongest being the Ancient ones.
• To the Pain / Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon: Once you start to acquire magical weapons, the descriptions of what you do to your enemies when you hit them get rather...colorful.
• The Undead: Zombies, Skeletons, Wraiths, Ghosts, Shades, Vampires; you name it, it's got it.
• We Buy Anything: Averted. Shopkeepers will generally only buy items that they can sell (and promptly puts them up for sale). The Junk Shop will buy anything (and is the only one to accept cursed and broken items)... but only for a paltry 25 copper pieces or less; sold items disappear for good. However, other shops will still accept unidentified items that the player (through Save Scumming) might know are actually cursed... up to a point. Sell a shopkeeper enough actually-cursed items and they will refuse to accept unidentified items anymore.
• Whoring: When creating a character, you get to allocate a number of points between the four stats. At higher difficulties, it's almost compulsory to have a min/max strategy if you aren't outright Save Scumming.
• With This Herring: Somewhat averted. The local ruler in the final town won't believe you're The Chosen One or give you the time of day until you're proven your worth in the dungeon. At certain levels of progress, though, he gives you an item or some cash, but what items he does give you aren't all that impressive. Regardless, the shops are more than willing to charge full price for all your needs.
• Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe: But only in the story-relevant texts you pick up, mostly in the form of substituting "f" for "s"...