Introduction

The wizards have been at it again, and this time they've accidentally opened Hellgates under the castle! Now it's up to you, brave, brave Sir Declan, to search each procedurally generated castle dungeon and find enough magical shards to access and close its gate.

Armed with your trusty magical Caster Sword, potions you find, and perhaps the occasional legendary charm, Sir Declan must fight demons that escaped from the gate, avoid traps, and collect treasures to trade for battle enhancements, before finally facing the Hellgates themselves.

How deep can you go?

Gameplay

Travel from room to room in each randomly generated dungeon. Shoot the treasure chests you may find in each room until they open and reveal what is inside. Not all chests contain something!

Demons will continually spawn into rooms and attack you, draining your life energy. However, your true mission is to find all the Magic Shards in the dungeon, which will unlock the cosmic barrier blocking entry to the room containing the hellgate. Once in this room, you must throw all your shards into the portal to close it and clear the dungeon. You will then move on to a deeper, more challenging level.

Your main weapon is the Caster Sword that shoots bolts of magical energy that can destroy demons. Each bolt uses some power, and while it does naturally recharge, it is easy to run out and be left temporarily unable to defend yourself.

You earn Experience Points (XP) as you progress for killing demons, finding rooms and shards, closing portals and many other actions. You have a rank that will increase as you earn more XP.

Chests can contain various items apart from shards. Various potions will cast temporary spells to help you in your mission. Coins and Gems can be used to purchase upgrades in the Enhancement Emporium found on most levels, though not all upgrades will be available immediately and must be earned through increasing your rank and/or upgrading other attributes first.

There are other traps, secrets and surprises in the dungeons for you to find.

Are you ready to get down?

Status Bar

• Life Energy remaining. When this is exhausted, your mission is ... over
• Shards held
• Caster Sword power remaining
• Bombs held
• Gold held
• Gems held
• XP

Controls

A number of control schemes are available in the Options menu on the title screen.

• 1 Joystick: bolts fire in the current movement direction. Press B2 to launch a bomb
• 1 Joystick + Lock: bolts fire in the current movement direction and stay in that direction until B1 is released. Press B2 to launch a bomb
• 2 Joysticks: one joystick controls movement, push the other joystick to fire in that direction. Press B1 or B2 on either stick to launch a bomb.
• CD32: DPAD controls movement, use the coloured buttons to fire in that direction. Shoulder buttons will launch bombs. Start button pauses the game.
• Abstraction DS: Left stick controls movement, right stick controls firing. Shoulder buttons will launch bombs. Middle buttons pause the game.

On emulators, it is possible to configure a modern dual stick gamepad as a CD32 controller and play the game with two sticks in that way.

In Game Keys

• P - Pause
• M - Toggle music on/off
• S - Toggle sound effects on/off
• SPACE - Launch bomb if available
• ESC - quit game