Shadowcaster

Background

"ShadowCaster was done in 1992-1993. We started off doing it for EA and it was to be Black Crypt II. After we had the game designed, EA bought Origin and felt that we should take advantage of the Ultima World and make it some type of Ultima game. We started to turn it into an anti-Paladin Ultima game. Then it was decided that perhaps we should make it into a Bard's Tale spin-off. But that too fell by the wayside, and finally we came up with the idea of morphing a character into different types of creatures that had different abilities. We licensed a pre-Doom engine from id and we were underway with ShadowCaster. I must add that I really loved the concept for ShadowCaster, but hated the story and the name, and wish I could go back and redo it!" - Brian Raffel

Extra Levels

You can find the solutions of the two new levels added in the CD-Enhanced Version of Shadowcaster (Level 24 and 25) in the "shadowin.pdf" file in the "docs" directory of your Shadowcaster CD. They are added as an addition to the Shadowcaster clue book.

Engine

ShadowCaster used a heavily modified version of the Wolfenstein 3-D engine, licensed from id Software and written during the summer of 1992. The original ShadowCaster was published in 1993; this makes it the first commercial game released with classic "2.5D Doom engine" improvements (distance fogging, non-orthogonal walls, textured ceilings and floors) before DOOM itself came out.

Secret Credits

In the Lava Tunnels (Level 21), after you receive Grost (the final MetaForm), if you backtrack to earlier in the level, there is a wall near the hourglass that only the Grost can break down. If you break down this wall, there is a "Royal Book" behind the wall. When you first pick this book up, you can read the game credits (Producers, Testers, etc) from it. Once you read through it once, there does not appear to be a way to read it again.