Douglas Associates, Inc. developed a DOS game in the year 1987 called Castle Ralf. In the video game ranking, this game ruled the charts for a very long time. You can now play it again online by clicking here.
Fully text adventure shareware-origin, which is not even really a quest, but a collection of puzzles of varying difficulty, but without any visual representation. The plot, which is unusual, fits in one sentence: the main hero, traveling by car, got lost and accidentally drove to the terrible castle of the mad Dr. K. Bellefleur Igotcha III full of traps, puzzles and evil creatures. Crossing the threshold of this building, go back he will be able only after solving lots of puzzles - with your help.
Quality text in every sense - from the average to "above average": not particularly detailed, but in this (somewhat unusual) the game this is not required. As in more traditional IF commands to control the game process can be entered from the keyboard, but you can use and select verbs from the list located at the bottom of the screen with the mouse cursor. Some teams, by the way, is very unusual, despite the comparative simplicity, - not only to look around or take something, but even, for example, sniffing. Another interesting feature is the presence of the graphics card of the castle (and it is very extensive and includes many rooms on several floors), which is invoked by a special command and is drawn as you visit all new castle locations.
The main remarkable feature of Castle Ralf is, despite the lack of visualization, amazing atmosphere not even humorous, as we are trying to convince authors, and some psychedelic, phantasmagoric madness: for example, you will find in the castle of a giant burnt pizza or hungry alligators, which need to be forced to love each other; add to this the fact that the game essentially has no story line, but because its passage is largely non-linear puzzles (sometimes quite hard) unrelated, you can go anywhere you want and solve what you want. It should be noted also that the dangers of the castle - and, therefore, risk and die, sometimes in a highly original way - there are plenty, it is highly desirable to be preserved as often as possible.
The result: a thing fascinating within the (sub)genre from a technical point of view almost innovative, but unlikely to appeal to fans of classic IF, because actually "fiction'and" there's really not. To recommend you first and foremost just fans of any difficult games.
Enjoy playing Castle Ralf online, it can be played on your browser and is free.
Source: Archive.org, Mobygames.com
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