Castle Woflenstein 3D has been demade to the bare minimum of graphics. Seriously, unless you go to remaking this game in the style of Zork then there is not much left, graphically, to demake to. What is wild is just how well this demake works.
This is a port of Escape From PETSCII Castle for the Commodore 64, originally created for the Commodore PET computer. I love the keeping it in the same family of computers lineage going here.
As you can see from the embedded video below, there are graphics but minimal. Extremely minimal. The actual levels are made of PETSCII art, a variation of ASCII art, which means extremely basic pieces that are embedded into the hardware. No fancy art using a $1,200+ tablets, no artificial intelligence listening to prompt jockeys here.
100% the Commodore 64 using what came with it. Stock.
That makes this even more impressive.
Currently there is no demo available, just one screenshot on itch.io and the above embedded video. On the itch.io page there are a few other videos and pics of the game farther back in development.
There are a lot of things that are not working or implemented yet such as enemies and items to pick up as you play. Hidden sections are already being shown off so that is a big step in the right direction.
The creator behind Escape from PETSCII Castle, Jimbo has a lot of releases for classic hardware. Their focus seems to be early Commodore computers, which is great if you ask me.
More games for classic platforms is always welcome, especially when they push the boundaries of what we thought those classic platforms could do.
Check out Escape from PETSCII Castle and maybe swing over and show the developer some support with comments and whatever else you want. It can go a long way when they are working on these things out of the sheer love of the game.
