About this game

1985: a hundred rooms and one way out

If you owned an MSX in the mid-eighties, there is a fair chance you remember the music first and the frustration second. In 1985 ASCII released The Castle, designed by Isao Yoshida: Prince Raphael has to cross a castle of a hundred single-screen rooms to reach Princess Margarita, held at the top.

There is no scrolling and nothing to grind. Every room is a puzzle laid out on one screen: coloured doors and the keys that open them, blocks you can push but never pull back, lifts that rise and fall on their own clock, and guards who patrol whether you are ready or not. Keys are spent the moment you use them. Push a block into the wrong corner and the room is sealed for good. The game rarely punished you for being slow; it punished you for not thinking first.

You could save to cassette tape, and it cost you a life to do it. Anyone who sat through a tape load knows how much that save was worth.

1986: Castle Excellent

A year later came Castle Excellent. The title screen credits Keisuke Iwakura alongside Yoshida. It runs on the same engine as the first game but builds a whole new castle of a hundred rooms, so veterans had to forget every route they knew and start again.

The first castle kept a quiet secret. Two fairies held the only two red keys in the whole game, and Margarita waited in room 09 behind red doors. If you reached her, the prince finally spoke:

“Princess Margarita! Raphael has come to rescue you.”

“Ah, my prince, I have longed for this day.”

2026: The Palace

The Palace started with the original ROMs. Every one of the two hundred rooms was read out of the game data, and every rule was measured against the real thing: how far a jump carries, when a lift turns, which side a guard checks, the frame a door gives way. The result plays exactly like the MSX game, and the room tests match the originals on all 200 rooms.

On top of that faithful core sits a world you could only imagine in 1985: lit marble halls, a modelled prince and princess, guards with weight, a voiced prince and fairy, and filmed scenes for the fairy’s visit and the game over. The rooms look new. Where things stand, and what kills you, is exactly what it was.

Both original castles are included, and a third, Castle 2026, is a new palace of 100 rooms built in the same spirit: long chains of locked doors, new puzzles, and the princess at the very top.

For the players who remember

Plan before you commit. Count your keys. Watch the lift twice before you jump. Some doors only open once, and some keys are a one-way trip. If that sounds like a warning, it is the same one the game gave you forty years ago.

Then and now

The same rooms, side by side: the original frame on the left, this remake on the right. Layout and rules are identical; everything you see is new.

Room 70, the gate in The Castle · MSX, 1985 — **Room 70, the gate** · Where every run begins. The flat blue brick is lit marble now, with battlements against a night sky, but the pot, the cross and the two guards stand exactly where the MSX put them.

Room 70, the gate in The Palace · 2026 — **Room 70, the gate** · Where every run begins. The flat blue brick is lit marble now, with battlements against a night sky, but the pot, the cross and the two guards stand exactly where the MSX put them.

Room 23, the elevators in The Castle · MSX, 1985 — **Room 23, the elevators** · The lifts that ate a thousand lives. Rails, pulleys and a glass cabin are real objects now; the timing that catches you mid-jump is the 1985 timing.

Room 23, the elevators in The Palace · 2026 — **Room 23, the elevators** · The lifts that ate a thousand lives. Rails, pulleys and a glass cabin are real objects now; the timing that catches you mid-jump is the 1985 timing.

Room 39, the fountain in The Castle · MSX, 1985 — **Room 39, the fountain** · The rainbow fountain, the fluted columns, the potions and the wizards keep their exact tiles. They just read as glass, gold and cloth.

Room 39, the fountain in The Palace · 2026 — **Room 39, the fountain** · The rainbow fountain, the fluted columns, the potions and the wizards keep their exact tiles. They just read as glass, gold and cloth.

Room 09, the princess in The Castle · MSX, 1985 — **Room 09, the princess** · The room you spent the whole game trying to reach. Spikes, ice-blue blocks and the red door are all where they were; Margarita finally has a face.

Room 09, the princess in The Palace · 2026 — **Room 09, the princess** · The room you spent the whole game trying to reach. Spikes, ice-blue blocks and the red door are all where they were; Margarita finally has a face.

System requirements

Minimum

OS: Windows 10 (1909) or 11, 64-bit
Graphics: DirectX 11 graphics with 1 GB of video memory; integrated graphics run at Medium detail
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Storage: 8 GB free while installing, 5.7 GB after
Notes: The 25 MB setup downloads the game (1.5 GB) while it installs

The Palace

Play The Palace