As a fan of “Gauntlet” the famous dungeon crawl game I was ecstatic when I finally opened my copy of "Demon Stalkers: The Raid on Doomfane" published by a then young Electronic Arts for the Commodore 64 platform. Not only did I get a chance to play a “Gauntlet” style arcade game, but “DS” was one of the first games I purchased that came with its own game editor. I must have been 12 years-old when I got the game, and though I loved the fast action of the game back then, I was infinitely more interested in building my own levels.
Game levels consisted of a series of dungeons (99 to be exact) with monsters (mad mages, rats, ghosts, etc.) that spawned endless from generators—just like “Gauntlet”. The game editor allowed you to place walls, doors, treasures and of course creatures to conquer.
If I remember correctly, the original game came with a double-sided floppy disk and a cardboard decoder that allowed you advance in the game. The decoder was kind of nice touch because it allowed a real-world cipher to become part of the game. The codes were not “cheat codes” but actual words or phrases that helped you solve portions of the game. I don’t think I’ve encountered another game since that employed an actual object from the real world that integrated
with the game. To this day it remains one of my more favorite games from my childhood.
If you played the game all the way to the 100th level you went head-to-head with the demon boss Calvrak for which the quest is named. I don’t recall ever making to the end, but as I said the level editor was far more interesting. If you’re interested in creating/editing your own dungeon crawl—this is a great way to start!
In the original Commodore 64 version you had to create your modifications on a blank disk (which was not included) to save your levels. The only downside that I can recall was that while there were a variety of items to place, the game is fairly straight forward—so you really can’t make the puzzles too complex. In the actual game, they made puzzles more complex by making players enter, exit, and sometimes re-enter levels. This made solving puzzles in the game very interesting—even frustrating—but it was an ingenious way to extend the playability of the game.
All in all, this game is great fun, and I highly recommend it to C64 retro gamers.
The level editor allows a great level of flexibility, including changing the text on scrolls so that you can create a storyline.
