Stonekeep

Stonekeep
Developer(s)	Interplay Entertainment
Publisher(s)	Interplay Entertainment
Designer(s)	Christopher Taylor (game designer)
Platform(s)	MS-DOS, Windows 95, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Release date(s)	Windows 95 INT 1995 MS-DOS INT November 8, 1995 Windows XP and Vista INT c. 2009[1]
Genre(s)	Role Playing Game
Mode(s)	Single player
Media/distribution	CD-ROM

Stonekeep is a 1995 computer role-playing game for DOS by Interplay Entertainment. It is a first-person dungeon adventure with pre-rendered environments and live-action cinematic sequences. Five years in production, Stonekeep was ranked #6 in Gamespot's top ten vaporware hall of shame.^[2] Stonekeep was later released by Good Old Games for Windows XP and Windows Vista, made available for purchase through Good Old Games's digital distribution system.^[1] In January 2010 it was announced that a new game based on the original is in development for WiiWare by Alpine Studios.^[3]

Story

Stonekeep's mythology revolves around a variety of gods associated with planets of the solar system. In order, they are Helion (Mercury), Aquila (Venus), Thera (Earth), Azrael (Mars), Marif (Jupiter), Afri (Saturn), Saffrini (Uranus), Yoth-Soggoth (Neptune) the Master of Magick, and Kor-Soggoth (Pluto) the Brother to Magick.

Stonekeep is centered on a hero, Drake. During the Devastation of the world by the insane god Khull-Khuum, the Shadowking, Drake the boy was saved from his castle by a mysterious figure. Years later, Drake returned to the ruins of Stonekeep and the goddess Thera sends his spirit out of his body into the ruins itself to explore, reclaim the land, and defeat Khull-Khuum.

Along the way, Drake makes many friends, including Farli, Karzak, and Dombur the dwarves; the great dragon Vermatrix; the elf Enigma; and the mysterious Wahooka, the King of goblins. He also rids the world of Khull-Khuum's evil minions and allies such as the sorceress Ice Queen.

Gameplay

Stonekeep is a first-person RPG in the style of Eye of the Beholder and Dungeon Master. The game is set in a series of underground labyrinths, filled with monsters, treasures and traps. The player uses the directional keys on the keyboard for movement and typing in notes in the journal and uses the mouse pointer to interact with objects and characters. The mouse pointer is usually a target indicator for aiming attacks and weapons wherever it is clicked. When the mouse pointer is moved onto a particular something it changes to another icon to indicate a different action. For example the mouse pointer changes to an eye when the player can examine things (often signs) or the mouse pointer changes into a spread-out hand when the player can pick up items. Other mouse pointers include opening and closing chests, opening and closing panels, pulling levers and switches, pressing buttons, drinking water and giving items.

Drake has two starting possessions to aid him: The magic scroll and the magic mirror.

The magic scroll allows the player to pick up an infinite number of items. Items of the same type can be combined together up to a maximum quantity of 99. Other items can be combined together such as a quiver which can hold 99 arrows.

The magic mirror allows the player to equip Drake and other characters with weapons, armour and accessories and to consume items to affect their status such as healing potions or bad smelling Throg food otherwise Drake can read scrolls used on him. Although Drake can wield any weapon, other characters like Farli and Karzak can only wield hammers, axes and shields. Certain weapons like polearms and heavy swords require Drake to have two free hands to wield one. Certain armour can be worn by certain characters. For instance only dwarves can wear dwarven platemail and only Drake can wear knight armour. Exceptional characters like Sparkle and Wahooka cannot be outfitted, but can still consume items.

The third possession is the journal available once the player procures it. The journal is divided into six sections. The first section of the journal records the statistics of Drake, shows the status of his current equipped weapons and describes the characteristics of his partners. Drake statistics are strength, agility, health and his weaponry skills including polearm, sword, magick, missiles and others. The second section of the journal records any clues and hints the player may come across. The third section of the journal is used for writing notes. The fourth section of the journal records items each time the player picks up a new type. The fifth section of the journal records runes each time the player comes across a new one. Unlike the items section, the runes do not have their own respective name recorded. The sixth section of the journal records the level maps that the players journeys through. Spots on the map can be clicked and notes referring to them can be written.

Stonekeep features an elaborate 'Magick' system where four types of runes are inscribed onto a spellcaster: Mannish, Fae, Throggish, and Meta. The first three runes are used for offensive, defensive and special interaction purposes. The Meta runes enhance the effectiveness of the base runes, like double power multiplies a single firebolt in two. To use a spellcaster, it must contain adequate mana and runes must inscribed onto the shaft of the spellcaster. To inscribe runes on the spellcaster, the player needs to equip the spellcaster on either one of Drake's hands, open the journal onto the Runes section, take out the spellcaster and copy the runes onto the spell slots of the spellcaster. Then the runecaster can be taken out at any time and the spell that can be used has the spell slot highlighted and lauched on the indicated target point. Using the magic mirror, some spells can be aimed on the characters especially healing and quickness spells.

Development

The project started out with just two people, Peter Oliphant and Michael Quarles. It was intended to last only nine months and only supposed to cost $50K. However, because the initial stages of the game looked good it exceeded nine months, lasting a total of five years. Eventually there was a production crew of over 200 people, and costing a total of $5 million.

The initial story line was written by Oliphant, who also designed and programmed the graphics and artificial intelligence engine for the game. The project started out being called Brian's Dungeon (named after Brian Fargo, the president of Interplay Entertainment at the time). Fargo came up with the final name, Stonekeep. The production took much longer than expected because of the rapid advancement of personal computer hardware at the time; specifically, PC CPUs advancing from 80386, to 80486, to Pentiums in the years the game was being developed.

Oliphant, who originally designed the game and was lead programmer, left the game as the project passed its fourth year in development. He felt his continued presence was resulting in the constant addition of feature creep and changes (he was a contractor, and had initially only signed up for a nine-month project). After he left, the design became finalized and the product was shipped one year later. Michael Quarles, who was an Interplay employee, stayed as the game's producer and saw it through to the end.

The initial specification for the game included that it could not require a hard drive or a mouse, run on a 80286 CPU, use 640K, and run off floppy disks. At the project's end, the game had been upgraded to requiring a mouse, a hard drive, a 386 CPU, and ran off CD-ROM. As a result, the engine had to be extensively modified throughout the production.

The initial motions of the monsters in the game were captured by using a blue screen outside with the sunlight. This resulted in uneven lighting from take to take, so eventually all that work was scrapped. Later a professional studio with controlled lighting was used.

According to Peter Oliphant, when the project was taken over by Michael Quarles, two questionable decisions were made. The game was always designed to be grid-based, where the player moved from grid to grid (in contrast to today's full freedom of motion 3D environments). Peter Oliphant wanted the movement from center of grid to center of grid, but Michael Quarles changed this to edge of grid to edge of grid. This resulted in the problem that turning within a grid moved the player to the other side of the grid. Much of the long production was a result of correcting this lack of symmetry. The other questionable decision was to not include Peter Oliphant in the production of the motion graphics (Oliphant had extensive Hollywood background before becoming a game developer). One consequence was that the original combat graphics had been captured from the waist up only, as Michael Quarles had reasoned one must be close to a monster to fight it. Peter Oliphant, upon being delivered these graphics and seeing them for the first time, pointed out that the player could back away during a fight, which would result in seeing their legs. The legs therefore had to be drawn in by hand frame-by-frame to fix this, until these graphics were scrapped for a professional green screen treatment used later on.

The movie at the beginning is the most expensive part of the production, costing nearly half a million dollars to produce. It is interesting to note this amount is 10 times more than the initial budget for the entire project.

About three years into the project, Peter Oliphant suggested to Brian Fargo that the product be delivered on CD-ROM. Fargo rejected this idea at the time, citing the failure of previous Interplay CD-ROM projects that had gone this route. Oliphant suggested this after Fargo requested him to drop his percentage of royalties by half due to the high cost of production and goods to create the product, as it was at that time to be shipped on 8 floppy disks. The cost of one CD was about the cost of one floppy disk, and the possibilities for eight floppy disks having problems is much greater than a single CD, so the solution seemed obvious to Oliphant. And, in fact, six months later Fargo changed his mind and made the same decision.

The original skeleton in the game was an actual skeleton being worn by one of the artists, and was filmed against a green screen. Because of this there were no images/animations of the skeleton walking away from the player during game play. A few months before the game's release the skeleton was replaced with the 3D model which was used on the packaging.

Reception

After the game's release, Stonekeep was awarded the Reader's Choice Role Playing Game Of the Year 1996 (Computer Gaming World). The Adrenaline Vault praised the game, stating, "This game was by far, IMHO, the best game of 1995 in it’s genre and is still an awesome game to play. You’re guaranteed to spend hours upon hours on this game and never tire of it’s thrill!"^[4] GameSpot did not offer similar praises, concluding that "Stonekeep is a dated first-person RPG that suffers from a poor interface, little depth, and few frills."^[5]

Packaging and additional material

Stonekeep was packaged in an elaborate gravestone-style illustrated box and came with a white hardback novella, Thera Awakening, coauthored by Steve Jackson and David Pulver. It was also translated into German. According to personal communication (via e-mail), David Pulver did the main work of the novel, for which both authors were hired. All rights of the novel went to Interplay.

The CD-ROM also included a file called "muffins.txt" which contained a recipe for Tim Cain's Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Muffins.

A novel called The Oath of Stonekeep, which takes place in the world of Stonekeep, was written by Troy Denning and published 1999 by Berkley Boulevard Books. Interplay's own Black Isle Studios worked on a sequel called Stonekeep 2: Godmaker for five years before cancelling it in 2001.

External links

• Stonekeep at MobyGames
• Combat FAQ
• General FAQ
• Amazon Reader entry of the novel The Oath of Stonekeep
• Polish-language Stonekeep fansite

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b} "Stonekeep purchase page". Good Old Games. http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/stonekeep. Retrieved 2009-09-12. 
2. ^ Poole, Stephen. "Vaporware Hall of Shame". Gamespot. http://web.archive.org/web/20090516110058/http://www.gamespot.com/features/vaporware/html/number6.html. Retrieved 2009-09-12. 
3. ^ http://www.joystiq.com/2010/01/13/interplay-resurrecting-stonekeep-on-wiiware/
4. ^ Clair, Brian (2000-01-01). "Stonekeep Review". The Adrenaline Vault. http://www.avault.com/reviews/pc/stonekeep-pc-review/. Retrieved 2009-09-12. 
5. ^ Yee, Bernard (1996-05-08). "Stonekeep Review". GameSpot. http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/stonekeep/review.html. Retrieved 2009-09-12.