Dark Ages is a platform game written for MS-DOS, published by Apogee Software. It was the first shareware game to feature support for the AdLib sound card. Dark Ages was distributed as shareware. It consists of three episodes, with only the first episode playable in the shareware version. The episodes are: Prince of Destiny The Undead Kingdom Dungeons of Doom The game was released as freeware on March 20, 2009. Gameplay: Dark Ages is a side scrolling game where the player's alter ego, the prince, can move sideways, jump and shoot. Game play involves killing and avoiding enemies and jumping over obstacles. Progression to the next level often involves a hidden door, revealed by one of several Wise Men type characters after retrieving an item for them. The items include a key, a shield, and an apple. The player can use magic to fight the prince's enemies, starting out with a simple energy bolt and slowly gaining access to more destructive spells as the game progresses. There are three spells in the game: a blue bolt that flies straight forward, a boomerang that flies forward then returns allowing enemies to be hit twice, and a magic beam with a shorter range but can kill most enemies in one hit and can be fired in rapid succession.
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As a kid I thought it was cool that the levels were stitched together with no intermission screen in between. And the music is good. The level 1 theme with that prominent bass has stuck with me since I played the game years ago. The game has atmosphere too, like it takes place in a time so medieval and old that it might as well be another dimension. It has the essence of forgotten legend. Not cool enough to make it worth playing, but interesting nonetheless.
Here, you play as a hunky MS-Paint-looking prince with flowing yellow locks who jogs and leaps around and flings a magic boomerang beam at the monsters that cross his path: giant, gnarled hands the reach up from the dirt and creeping spiders and gangly, kneeling dudes whose role within the fantasy of the universe of the game is never clear to me. Worst are the flying creatures (too pixelated to properly identify) who fly toward prince rather quickly and take two boomerang hits each to kill.
The level design is pretty bland, and the game's biggest drawback is its lack of variation, as the second and third episodes (from what I've seen) are essentially repeats of the first. That said, as you work your way through each episode, it's possible to pick up upgrades for your boomerang that send them hurtling back to you through enemies and eventually become a stream of deathly energy. The looping music by Keith Schuler slaps, and the gameplay was genuinely satisfying enough to get me halfway through second episode, where I got stuck trying to boomerang my way out of a waterfall heavy section whose visual textures were starting to make my eyes cross. Despite its clear shortcomings, this game was, at its core, a fun time.