"At the top of Mount Althus lies an ancient, brooding castle, the Castle of Deceit. It served as a gateway to six other universes and dimensions. At the center of the castle nests six Magical Stones, the Runes of Guarding. The Runes were guarded by Phylax, a mystic Emerald Magic. He dwelled within the energies created by the stones century and century until at last it drove him insane. The power of the stones gave life to the hallucinations of his madness, this creating six deadly beings which stole the runes and fled to the six universes. It is your duty as Eebo, the most promising of the young Magicians of Dace, to collect the Runes."

I had been wanting a copy of Castle of Deceit for quite some time (since last year). After many hours of searching, I finally snagged a copy of the game. If you've never heard of Castle of Deceit, I'll tell you that it was published by Bunch Games. Do I really need to say more?

Castle of Deceit consists of ten worlds, seven of which hold bosses. Each stage is filled with keys, items, and enemies. Eebo must travel through the worlds one at a time, solving puzzles while dodging enemies. The style of Castle of Deceit is similar to that of the semi-popular Captain Comic game.

I have noticed many flaws within Deceit, some of which are forgivable and others aren't. Castle of Deceit is average in the graphics and music department; play control would be sub average. I have a difficult time controlling Eebo when he jumps. Speaking of difficulty, Castle of Deceit is a challenging game. Some of the enemy combos are insane! However, Castle of Deceit is a better game then that terrible Pesterminator game.

After all, of the negativity, is Castle of Deceit worth playing? Of course it is! Although the game wasn't a smash hit, it still has some charm. When you lose, the game tells you that you have been deceived. Who could go wrong with that?

In concluding this write-up, I would like to include a portion of an interview I had done with one of the programmers/artists for Castle of Deceit.

Judye: "Anthony and I sat around and had a ball thinking it up -- at restaurants/over the phone/sitting on the floor in his den or mine/or sitting hunched over the computer. The story was primary and then we created visually what we thought of, given the possibilities of the system.

One of my favorite enemy names were the Webblings, tiny baby spiders that lived in spider webs. In the docs --- the people that translated it into German didn't understand and connected web with webbed feet and water (they probably never saw the game or the drawings) and called the enemy --- something like Schwimmenets. We thought that was so funny."