OK… this is a total longshot, but you guys seem to know everything, so what the hell.
Our first family computer was a Macintosh back in the mid 80’s. I used to have two games that I would play a lot… but I don’t remember the names on either.
The first was a “lost/amnesia” style game. What I really remember, it seemed to have some sort of mob theme, I think it was set in Peoria. I remember the basement of the main building you go to had pool tables and slot machines. You could play the slots to get money. You used the money to pay a cabbie who was outside… but I don’t remember much more than that.
The other I really have very little memory. It was a fantasy type RPG game. I remember fairly early in the game you had to fight a knight, and I could never get past him (I was pretty young).
Just curious if anybody remembers either of these games.
First guesses: Deja Vu for the first, Dark Castle for the second. Probably wrong on both counts, though, especially since Dark Castle was action-- but it was one of the most prominent of early Mac titles, and featured a knight.
What genres were the games? Was the “amnesia” game a graphical point-and-click adventure? A text adventure, with or without still-frame graphics? And the fantasy RPG game, was it a standard stats-based computer RPG, an action RPG, a point-and-click adventure? Did it have turn-based combat, real-time action combat, or logic puzzles? If it was action, what kind of action was it?
Wow… I am impressed. Deja Vu is definitely the amnesia game. Set in Chicago… haha, I don’t know why I thought Peoria. Must be involved somehow. Fantastic.
The other game, I am pretty sure was turn based combat. Maybe like Dragon Warrior on the old Nintendo. I don’t remember much about it. Definitely not an action type of game in the sense I saw from the Dark Castle screencaps. It had a text box on the bottom, and a still picture on top.
I played it a lot for a period of time, but never was able to get far, got frustrated and finally just stopped playing. So, thats probably why I don’t remember as much.
The mid-80s was the heyday of classic adventure games, so there are a lot of contenders. It could fall into a number of categories-- RPG, text adventure, and/or graphic adventure.
My big guess would be Might and Magic Book I by New World Computing. M&M is traditional turn-based RPG, with a 3D still picture at the top and text at the bottom, and fits your time frame best. (It could also be M&M Book II, or Tales of the Unknown I: The Bard’s Tale, or one of the Ultima titles. M&M, Bard’s Tale had 3D pictures at this time, while Ultima II and III was still doing tile-based overhead maps.)
Possibly: Shadowgate, done by the folks who did Deja Vu, with a very similar game engine. I don’t know if there’s a knight in it, but it’s got the right setting for one. (I toss this one out since Icom games were pretty much required for all Mac users in the day.)
Less likely: one of Sierra’s King’s Quest titles; graphics at the top and text at the bottom, but the graphics were animated. Or, one of the Magnetic Scrolls graphic/text adventures like Den of Thieves or The Pawn: detailed hand-drawn art for some locations, with a standard text adventure engine for game-playing.
I realize this question was asked several years ago, but in case this has been eating at you all this time, I believe you’re thinking of Enchanted Scepters.
It was probably only released for PC, but your description made me think of the Legends of Murder games. They were the epitome of “childhood game” and “stuck”.
The OP’s last activity was in 2011, sadly. In case he or she ever comes back, is this the knight you’re thinking of, maybe? If so, that would be a game called Radical Castle.
