Talk:Castle of the Winds

Untitled
'In 1998, the author, Rick Saada, decided to make it public domain and allowed the registered and shareware versions to be freely distributed, but he did not release the source code.'

He actually sent me the source code when I asked for it, but I never got around to asking if it was okay to share. I suspect it is, but I don't think I have it any longer. I do believe he's given it to a couple other people, who may be able to enlighten us. At any rate, I'm not sure this claim is perfectly accurate. -- General Wesc 17:12, July 13, 2005 (UTC)

As much as I love this game and appreciate its impact on the world, I do not think it necessary for pages to be created about "heal minor wounds," etc, so I have taken those wikilinks out. --Jacqui M Schedler 04:03, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

One more thing -- you're allowed to play this game as male or female, but many instances in this article are not gender-neutral. --Jacqui M Schedler 04:23, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

When I asked the author for the source code, I got this response: "Sorry, I appreciate the offer but I'm not giving out the source at this time (I do get lots of requests)." --Anonymous

I actualy have the source! although it is not complete (it is missing the graphic content, the story etc) --Spruit elf 17:20, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

New Wikibook!
In Peer review/Castle of the Winds/archive1, LordViD suggested that much of this article’s content would be far better suited to a Wikibook. So I’ve started Castle of the Winds and am transferring the article’s contents. But it won’t be a complete book right away. We can have monster, item and spell tables, and we can talk more about the interface. It would also be good to have a fancy cover.

public domain citation?
Could somebody put a citation for where the author said the game was released to the public domain. A url to his personal site would be ok (or archive of an old site). Even a quote from a documentation file would be an improvement. I notice on his web site he says "At this point, I give the game away for free. "   I don't consider that a release to the public domain, just as giving away a book for free is not a release of copyright to the book (text or images). I just wish to ensure we're not confusing "freeware" with "public domain". --Rob 07:17, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I removed the claim it was public domain. --Rob 20:28, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
 * The claim is back, but not sourced: "The game is public domain per Rick Saada's words:" then quotes what _isn't_ Saada's words. 194.126.175.154 (talk) 19:25, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

Removed game guide material
I've removed the detailed descriptions of game stats, which have all been moved to the Castle wikibook anyway. Alphonze 08:18, 13 March 2006 (UTC)


 * The Wikibook page was apparently removed in both 2008 and 2009. Reference is made there to a Strategywiki page, which contains no text.  I eventually found an Archive of the Strategywiki content at the Internet Archive Downstrike (talk) 17:30, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Removed link

 * Castle of the Winds download

Because they will charge you for a download a freeware game.

Release date / platform support
The supplied release date for CoW is 1989, but that predates commercial sale of both Windows 3.0 (barely) and Windows 3.1x (definitely), the platform target (one or the other) stated in the article. It is also noted that the game was released in two parts. Something seems amiss here, as it would seem likely for there to be separate dates for each part, with possibly distinct minimal version of Windows supported. Anyone? D. Brodale (talk) 19:04, 23 December 2007 (UTC)


 * The actual release date is 1992. However, the copyright notice in the about screen says 1989–92. 1989 is probably when Rick Saada started working on it.—Graf Bobby (talk) 10:10, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

DOS
I remember when i was like 5 playing this game(a shareware demo) on MSDOS butthe article says its Windows 3.0 and such...could someone enlighten me on this? also the ersion i played was not "mouse dependent" but allowed the mouse or keynoard to be used in menus and the keyboard in game.99.251.215.15 (talk) 02:11, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Not sure what you mean by the Windows 3.0 thing, but all functions in CotW are accessible with either keyboard or mouse alone. It is possible to play the entire game using only one of those peripherals. Ong elvin (talk) 04:13, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Release date
This game couldn't have been released in 1989 simply because Windows 3.0 did not even exist back then. --Litude (talk) 09:42, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Not a true Rogue-like?
I think the term rogue-like tends to be overused and this game is a good example of that. It seems more of a standard single-player CRPG for its time. Why? There is no perma-death, a key element of rogue-like gameplay, and there is an actual plot to follow to conclusion (not just a simple randomized fetch quest) - something most random rogue-likes do not have. Perhaps rogue-lite? Or just call it a CRPG like the Apshai series and leave it at that ...