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Stonekeep

Moby ID: 1876
DOS Specs
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Description official descriptions

When the insane god Khull-Khuum was rampaging the world, devastating everything on his way, the only person who survived the destruction of the Stonekeep castle was a boy named Drake, saved by a mysterious figure. Years later, Drake returns to the ruins of Stonekeep, and the goddess Thera extracts his spirit so that he might withstand the dangers that await him there. Drake must avenge his past, and find a way to liberate the benevolent gods of the realm.

Stonekeep is a dungeon-crawling role-playing game with real-time combat. The entire game is spent underground. There is no character creation; Drake's initial statistics are pre-set. Over the course of the game, up to three other characters will join the party and help Drake in combat, controlled by the computer AI. Drake becomes stronger by repeatedly fighting with a particular type of weapon. Magic is contained within runes, which must be found and equipped on staves. Spells can also be combined by the player to produce various offensive and supportive effects. The game utilizes digitized pictures and animations of live actors to represent characters.

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Credits (DOS version)

221 People (212 developers, 9 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 82% (based on 23 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.6 out of 5 (based on 59 ratings with 4 reviews)

Released over 10 years past its time.

The Good
I could say "nothing," but I am a generous soul, so I will find some nice things to say. The stereo sound is quite good, almost immersive at times. I didn't really experience any technical problems or bugs. I actually got a laugh out of the introductory video sequence. Finally, Stonekeep does make you appreciate just about every other RPG by comparison.

The Bad
Everything else. This game was in development for 5 years, and it shows. The graphics are cheesy and dated. Your character stutters around in increments rather than smoothly, so you don't get the feeling of really being there like you might in a game like Daggerfall. The main problem isn't programming or design, though, but the game's very concept. A novel was included with the original game, which sounds like a nice bonus until you realize that it isn't a bonus. That's because there isn't any story to speak of in the game itself; you're in the keep, you hack up enemies, the end. There is not only no story, but also no real role-playing, no adventure, and not very much action. So what do you have? A terribly disappointing dungeon hack.

The Bottom Line
It's hard to believe this game was developed by the people who gave us classics like The Bard's Tale and Wasteland. Stonekeep pales even in comparison to those games that came a full decade earlier.

DOS · by PCGamer77 (3157) · 2012

A fun dungeon crawl with great sound, decent graphics, and a pretty good storyline.

The Good
It's basically a dungeon crawl, but there's a lot to it that make it engaging. The sound is great... everything has sound from footsteps, to swinging swords, to doors opening, to eating and drinking. The graphics are not too shabby, and the display is full-screen (with minimal game-mechanics interference). The story is fun, and it develops much more fully as you progress into the game.

I also liked the way magic was handled. Instead of your character having spell points or mana, spells are cast through "runecasters" which themselves have a mana charge. The runecasters have different numbers of open "slots", each one of which holds a spell to be cast. There are locations called "mana circles" that recharge the runecasters, so the need to wait as mana or spell points gradually return is eliminated.

The Bad
Perhaps the most annoying aspect of the game is the way items are handled. Items may be located anywhere on the floor of the map square you're standing in, and at times this deteriorates to a "find the pixel" game to locate an item. Smaller items can be hard to see, especially if hidden behind a corpse, a table, or a pile of garbage.

Once you pick up an item, it is stored on a magic scroll... from top to bottom and one-dimensionally. After playing for a while, the scroll gets quite long and it can be difficult to move through the entire thing quickly to find the item you want. Also, like items can be stacked on top of each other, so if you have 3 daggers only one picture of a dagger is shown. This is nice, except if you decide to re-arrange your inventory you have to move the items one at a time. So if you have 50 healing herbs, you have to relocate each one, one at a time. This gets a bit tedious.

Finally, there are still a few technical bugs, even in the most recently-released version (v1.2), that hinder gameplay. Two I have found that annoy me personally are: one of the NPCs (Wahookah) doesn't "appear" every time that he should -- on occasion you need to give him items for clues, but you can't if he's not there; and sometimes when I save the game, there's a hardware I/O error and the savegame is lost (so use 2 or 3 slots and rotate them for game saving... the first time I played I used only one slot, and was quite despondent when all the time I had put in was wiped out).

The Bottom Line
Though not one of the more popular RPGs, I feel it's certainly worth playing. Full stereo sound and music, very good graphics, and a non-cluttered interface really allow you to get "into" the game. Try playing it at night with the lights off, and you'll see what I mean!

DOS · by Mirrorshades2k (274) · 2001

An epic adventure through the castle of Stonekeep and what lies beyond

The Good
-The Storyline is excellent -The game play is great -The size, it lasts ages

The Bad
-There could have been a better variety of weapons and armour

The Bottom Line
In this game you are drake risking your life to free thera (a goddess) and defeat Khull-Khuum (the evil guy). On your way you will have to kill hundreds of Khull-Khuum minions and also save the other gods from Khull-Khuum's wrath!

If you like retro RPG's like the Lands of Lore and Eye of the Beholder seires this game is for you.

DOS · by DOS2DEF (1) · 2007

[ View all 4 player reviews ]

Trivia

Cancelled sequel

A sequel was in development at Interplay's division Black Isle Studios, with the code-name Project King, but it was cancelled in 2001. A new game in the IP would not be made until the 2012 Wii-exclusive Stonekeep: Bones of the Ancestors.

Development

Counting platform shifts, production and development delays, Stonekeep was almost 7 years in development.

German version

In the German version, almost all blood was removed.

Muffins

Included on the CD-ROM is a file called Muffins.txt. It's a Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Muffin recipe.

Novels

The game included a cloth-bound novella entitled Thera Awakening, written by Steve Jackson and David Pulver (they were credited in the actual game in the "Special Thanks to" section). Here are the book's credits:

The first edition was published October 1995.

Troy Denning wrote a novel called The Oath of Stonekeep that is set in the game's universe. It was published in 1999 and was supposed to take place between events pictured in Stonekeep and its (later cancelled) sequel, a time span of "thousands of years", as the publisher says. There is a clear indication on the book's back cover that the publishers were sure that Stonekeep II will be published for certain. As of 2008, unused books can still be found available for purchase on the internet.

Wahookah

The game's infamous "Wahookah Bug" puzzled Interplay's designers up until the end. It was supposed to be fixed in every updated release, but somehow it never quite was. The problem is that Wahookah, an NPC, is supposed to appear each time you arrive at a certain square. You then give him various items in exchange for clues. The following was included in README.TXT with the latest patch to the game from Interplay... they just gave up:

Wahooka on 2nd level of Stonekeep appears only once. The fix for this would invalidate save games so if Wahookah only appears once for you, here are the clues that he gives you:1. Watch out for traps! The Shamans of the Throgs set many of them around here hoping to stick a couple of dwarves. 2. Search the sewers below for the keys to the Underlands. 3. To succeed in your quest, you must find all nine of the Orbs.

Awards

  • Computer Gaming World
    • June 1996 (Issue #143) – Role-Playing Game of the Year (Readers' Choice)
    • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) – #10 Top Vaporware Title in Computer Game History

Information also contributed by Adam Baratz, DreamWeaver, Mirrorshades2k, Sciere and Zovni

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Chris Martin.

Macintosh, Windows added by Sciere.

Additional contributors: Patrick Bregger, Plok.

Game added July 4, 2000. Last modified August 2, 2024.