Black Crypt

Infobox VG| title = Black Crypt


developer = Raven Software
designer = Brian Raffel,Steve Raffel,Ben Gokey,Rick Johnson,Kevin Schilder
publisher = Electronic Arts
released = 1992
genre = Role-playing games
modes = Single Player
platforms = Amiga
Black Crypt was Raven Software's debut title, and was published by Electronic Arts in 1992. Its 3D realtime computer role-playing game style is similar to FTL Games' popular Dungeon Master, where the player leads a party of four heroes through a large dungeon to ultimately confront and defeat a powerful enemy.

Black Crypt was originally conceived by Brian Raffel and Steve Raffel in the late 1980s as a non-electrical game set for pen-and-paper role-playing games, although work began in April of 1990 to eventually turn their idea into a computer game. [cite web|url=http://www.ravengames.com/blackcrypt/blackcrypt.php |title=Origins of Black Crypt]

An OpenGL PC port was in development by Rick Johnson, and a two-level demo was released in 1998 (which can be found at [http://www.3ddownloads.com/ravensoft/Black%20Crypt here] ), which also displays a brief history of the game on start-up (see below). It is believed this project has since been abandoned, however.

Description

In Black Crypt, the player is given the task of creating four heroes to traverse the twenty-eight levels of the 'Tomb of the Four Heroes' (maps of which can be [http://www.ravengames.com/blackcrypt/blackcrypt_maps.php found here] ) to defeat the evil Estoroth Paingiver. Estoroth, a powerful cleric, had been banished to a black crypt for committing unspeakable acts, but the guilds of the country of Astera believe Estoroth is attempting to unseal his crypt and send the four heroes to seal him away for good.

Unlike Dungeon Master, Black Crypt does not have pre-generated characters to select as possible heroes -- when starting a new game the player must first create and name their four heroes, who are of set class (fighter, cleric, magic user and druid), as well as set their starting attributes (see inset).

While most games of this type did not include maps of the dungeon (meaning players often mapped them out themselves on paper) the magic user has access to a spell called 'Wizard Sight' which automatically maps the heroes movement and can be viewed in-game while the spell is active. Black Crypt also features 'bosses' on several levels, the first of which is actually within twenty spaces of the start location.

Apart from the PC demo port, Black Crypt was only available on the Amiga, and came on three 880k disks (excluding a game-save disk, used if not installed on a hard drive). The graphics mode used was called Extra Half-Bright, which allowed for a user defined palette of thirty-two colours, as well as an additional thirty-two colours which were half the brightness of the chosen palette, allowing for the games gloomy atmosphere.

Black Crypt was well received, but did not attain critical acclaim. [cite web|url=http://amigareviews.classicgaming.gamespy.com/blackcry.htm#blackcryptaj |title=German review of Black Crypt from 'Amiga Joker' in 1992]

PC Port

The PC demo port includes the following brief history of the game on start-up:

Black Crypt is the first Raven game ever released. Brian Raffel and Steve Raffel had the concept of doing an RPG game in the late 1980s. Work on an actual game did not begin until around April 1990 when programmers Ben Gokey and Rick Johnson were recruited to help out on the project.Work proceeded for about a year until a demo was produced. This demo was distributed to many companies, including EA, which picked up the title to publish it.Although the infamous phrase coined by Rick, 'It will be done by Christmas' was heard for a few seasons, it wasn't completed until early January 1992. Crypt officially went on sale March 20, 1992. Unfortunately, a copy of the game was leaked from a duplication plant and pirates downloaded the game many months before commercial release.Crypt was originally designed to run on a Commodore Amiga with 1 meg of RAM. The graphic mode used was called Extra Half-Bright, which allowed for a user defined palette of 32 colors (out of 4096 color choices). The mode then provided an additional 32 colors, which were half the brightness of the chosen colors. 'Copper' effects were used to do special effects, such as the teleport or water ripples. Crypt supported 4 channels of sound and was “hard drive installable.” It was distributed on three 880k disks.EA had plans to produce both a Genesis and PC version of Crypt, but halfway through each conversion (done by different 3rd parties), each one was killed for various reasons.When the initial release of the GameSDK (now known as DirectX) for Win95 was made available, work begin on the PC port on October 21, 1995 by Rick Johnson. Although the conversion went pretty quickly, due to a lack of spare time, it has taken about 3 years to complete. Some bugs from the original game have been discovered and fixed. Other ones, such as the “Doom Hammer,” have been left in. The conversion demonstrates the game’s original look and feel. None of the graphics have been touched or enhanced.Rick would like to thank Ben Gokey for his assistance in remembering the original 68000 assembly code and to Tonya Powell for clipping some of the graphics.

This release of Black Crypt is intended to test the compatibility of the converted game. Crypt requires DirectX 3.0 or above and should run any most 95/98/NT 4.0 platforms. This release only contains the first dungeon map (two playable levels).

If you experience any problems with graphics, sound, or crashes, please report them on the Crypt webpage listed below.

All comments, bugs, and other issues should be directed to the message board on the Black Crypt homepage at http://www.ravensoft.com/GamesDetail/tabid/76/XMID/3/Default.aspx

Most of all, enjoy the game. Each of us who put this game together put a lot of our souls into this game. It is still one of the most satisfying projects I've ever been on.

-- Rick Johnson

See also

* Raven Software
* "Dungeon Master"

References

External links

*moby game|id=/black-crypt|name="Black Crypt"
* [http://www.ravengames.com/blackcrypt/blackcrypt.php Black Crypt information at RavenGames.com]
* [http://www.3ddownloads.com/ravensoft/Black%20Crypt www.3ddownloads.com Black Crypt section, containing PC OpenGL demo]