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The Essence of Kowhai

Now you're playing with power!

Back in the day, 1984 to be exact, the XBox 360 of our generation was the BBC Micro.

With a colour monitor, 5 & 1/2" floppy drive and huge 32K memory it was a 'dream machine'.

Now you can experience the power of the BBC!

Castle Quest
the world's most challenging computer game

The aim of the game was to escape the wizards castle. To do this you needed to collect a range of objects, (the sword, torches, dragon egg etc) and use them in creative ways to get yourself out trouble and out of the castle!

To Play

From the Nemo screen start BeepEm from the programmes menu

Go to File – Load Disc 0 – (click on castlequest.img under the local work folder)

Type in CHAIN”B.CSTLQST”

(To get the speech marks you will need to hold down 'shift' and press the 2 key).

Controls

Left	Z
Right	X
Up	~
Down	/
Jump	Enter

Pickup item	P
Drop item	D
Store item	S

Select item in backpack	F1, f2 or f3
Retrieve item from backpack	R
Throw item	Use arrow keys

TIPS

You will need to think creatively and 'outside the box'.
Think: "How will this object interact with the environment?" Can you throw the chair? What will happen if you drop the flaming torch on the bed? Are the red dwarves afraid of fire? What can I use as spider bait?
Persistence pays off; it is a very tough game - you will need to try lots of different things to win!
Work together with your classmates to see what works and share your information.

Want your own BBC Microcomputer to play games on?

Step 1:

First you will need the emulator programme BeepEm. This allows your modern computer to run like an old BBC Micro.
Click on this link to download it.
Run the installation programme.

Step 2:

Download the Castle Quest game from this link. You will need to 'unzip' the folder to access the files.

Follow the instruction on the left to play the game.

Enjoy!

There are quite a few sites with loads of other 'old school' games for the BBC Micro.
Beepgames seems to have the best collection.