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March 5, 2010 2:47 PM   Subscribe

What's this RPG from the Windows 3 era I'm thinking of?

Waaaaaaaay back, between 1994 and 1995, a friend of mine had a PC with Windows 3.1. He showed me an elaborate RPG. It was top-down and tile-based. The main character was a shirtless muscleman resembling Conan (though you may have been able to be a woman too). Other than that it was your standard D&D adventure in computer form. I remember my friend saying he bought an expansion (or upgraded from shareware to full game?) later.

Unfortunately, that's all I remember. Does anyone have any idea what the hell I'm talking about?
posted by spamguy to Computers & Internet (15 answers total) 7 users marked this as a favorite
 
Best answer: Good news! Castle of the Winds is now fully free from the creator's website!
posted by Pope Guilty at 2:49 PM on March 5, 2010 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: MeFi does it again! 5 minutes or your pizza's free!
posted by spamguy at 2:54 PM on March 5, 2010


I loved that game!
posted by AltReality at 3:01 PM on March 5, 2010


PS: Nice Title :)
posted by AltReality at 3:01 PM on March 5, 2010


*wipes a tear*... See, this is why MetaFilter rocks. I completely forgot about that game... and now my weekend is shot.
posted by frwagon at 3:02 PM on March 5, 2010


@frwagon Seconded. I haven't thought about this game in years. Thank you, MeFites!
posted by Gussio at 3:59 PM on March 5, 2010


Awesome game; it must have been the first RPG I played. I probably got it off of a 'Way Cool' games CD.
posted by Real.Wolf at 6:51 PM on March 5, 2010


From Wikipedia: Castle of the Winds (CotW) is a tile-based roguelike computer game for Windows 3.x.

There's a whole category of rogue-like games out there just waiting for you to explore them. Rogue-Like games (based on the original Rogue) and emphasize deep gameplay over flashy graphics. Many of them have no graphics at all, using keyboard symbols to represent items, characters, doors & monsters. (The wikipedia entry has an example screen of a roguelike - and it's not an image!) The learning curve is sometimes steep, but they will reward you with deep gameplay.

Commercial & free games based on roguelikes are still being made to this day. Check out NetHack, Angband and ADOM for fully realized example of non-commercial games in this genre. Some of these games (such as ADOM) can take months to complete. The Fushigi no Dungeon series (I haven't played it, but have been aware of it & will probably buy the most recent installment for the Wii today.)
posted by MesoFilter at 9:49 AM on March 6, 2010 [2 favorites]


Ack! I got this game as shareware, and loved the heck out of it!
posted by Night_owl at 3:22 PM on March 8, 2010


... and I can't play it, as my Windows 7 can't handle it and can't run Virtual PC. Compatibility modes aren't working. Any ideas?
posted by Night_owl at 3:43 PM on March 8, 2010


It runs with no difficulty at all for me on Windows 7.
posted by Pope Guilty at 3:44 PM on March 8, 2010


Do you have the 32 bit version, or am I doing something wrong?
posted by Night_owl at 4:08 PM on March 8, 2010


Oh, yeah, totally 32 bit.
posted by Pope Guilty at 4:11 PM on March 8, 2010


Isn't there a 32 bit compatibility mode?
posted by MesoFilter at 9:27 PM on March 8, 2010


The utility I downloaded from that page says my processor isn't strong enough to handle that mode.
posted by Night_owl at 10:29 AM on March 9, 2010


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