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Castle In The Darkness on Steam - User reviews, Price & Information
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Castle In The Darkness is a fun and challenging shout out to the early days of video games! It's an action exploration platformer with some RPG elements, much like games from the Castlevania or Metroid series. It's super fast-paced, challenging, and full of secrets!
Castle In The Darkness is a metroidvania, indie and platformer game
developed by Matt Kap, Nicalis and Inc.
and published by Nicalis and Inc..
Released on February 05th 2015 is available in English only on Windows.
It has received 1,251 reviews of which 959 were positive and 292 were negative resulting in a rating of 7.4 out of 10. 😊
The game is currently priced at 9.99€ on Steam.
The Steam community has classified Castle In The Darkness into these genres:
Media & Screenshots
Get an in-depth look at Castle In The Darkness through various videos and screenshots.
System requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- OS *: Windows XP or later
- Processor: Pentium 4 or higher
- Memory: 1 GB RAM
- Graphics: 256 MB or higher
- DirectX: Version 9.0
- Storage: 120 MB available space
- Sound Card: Any
Steam Price & Best Deals
User reviews & Ratings
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
Recommend; But Some Aspects are a bit Rough Initial technical setup took a bit of time to get a DS4 controller working; also weirdly the game defaults to both sound and music at zero volume. Music and sound volume seems to fade in and out for no rhyme or reason; one minute its fine the next I could barely hear the music at all. As for the game itself it takes heavy inspiration from the best and worst aspects of the 8-bit console era. The game expects the player to have heavy domain knowledge from the era; somewhat lesser known tactics such a damage boost jumping are actually required in places; or having to hold jump after bouncing off an enemy increasing the bounce height. Fantasy walls are also present (some are artistically hinted, a handful are not). Heavy usage of one-hit death spikes and pits (sometimes completely offscreen); which shockingly become even more common towards the endgame. This makes the blind playthru feel pretty bad at times getting "gotcha!" by falling spikes. Some scenes require very precise platforming. The game areas are pretty expansive; with locked off/ability gated sections but you'll have to remember everything as the game provides no mapping function (Thankfully you can find fan made maps if needed). In total, I think they went too far for exploration difficultly when you combine it all together. Character movement feel is best described as slippery; its not ice physics but it doesn't feel great either. Combat encounters are rarely very challenging; with the exception of one of the later last bosses. Instead I took the majority of my deaths to spikes. One standout feature was the sprite art changes with weapon equipment which I thought was great. Even though I'm still recommending Castle In The Darkness I score it in the 7 out of 10 range.
El juego podía ser excelente, pero por una serie de cuestiones, se queda en muy bueno a secas. Los pinchos que causan muerte al instante es una decisión absurda. No tanto porque hagan insta-kill, sino porque están posicionados para molestar. No para causar un reto, están posicionados para hacer la vida del jugador más pesada. El 90% de mis muertes han sido por pinchos El mapa es excelente, lleno de secretos, pero los puntos de guardado son irregulares. Y que haya que recorrer muchas habitaciones desde el punto de partida hasta el boss, es mal diseño, por desgracia. El juego me ha gustado mucho, tiene muchos secretos, la dificultad sería la adecuada si no tuviera los pinchos, pero ese par de detalles hacen que muchas veces te desesperes. Si te gustan los plataformas / metroidvanias, es un muy buen juego.
Pretty neat little game! I came back and played this after having played Astalon and Lovish, more recent games by Matt Kap, and this one is a lot less refined in comparison, but you can see the design philosophy here that would eventually evolve into those games. There's a lot of secrets to find, some pretty well-designed puzzle platforming, and combat feels good. The Metroidvania elements are a bit light; progression through the game is pretty linear, and every area has a few secrets and branching areas that you'll have to come back to after you have a later powerup, but it's not a huge maze. It's got a pretty catchy soundtrack, too, although I feel like all of the really good tracks got saved for later areas and the beginning of the game is a little underwhelming. Also, be aware that this is a tough game. It pays homage to a lot of NES classics, and it definitely aims to be as challenging as some of them were. My biggest criticism would be an overreliance on instant death spikes; they often feel like they're just sprinkled everywhere. They're on floors, falling from ceilings, and even moving around platforms. Occasionally these are used in well-designed platforming sections that are tricky but satisfying to get through, but they're also frequently just there to slow you down. There are multiple times that I'd go through a door, see an enemy in front of me, and react by moving away, only to move right into death spikes that were behind me, for no other reason than to punish me for my gut reaction. But the game goes on deep sales pretty often, so I can't complain too much. For a buck fifty I certainly got my money's worth out of it.
Ok, this game is...interesting. It's mostly kinda boring. Honetsly it nails that weird, dreamlike retro feel that many other "retro inspired" games lack. It's the "hard alcohol" of retro platformers: instead of the pitch being "it's the games you played as a kid, but the unnecessary friction removed!" Matt Kap instead leans into the friction for better or worse. The result is a game that is simple and drab enough to maybe actually be a lost NES cartridge. All that said, it has actually pretty fun bosses and the secrets can be fun to find. I say "can" because there are a mix of just-off-screen secrets and legitimately cryptic stuff, but I'd say at least the majority of them are doable without a guide. Overall, this one is fine.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Castle In The Darkness is currently priced at 9.99€ on Steam.
No, Castle In The Darkness is currently not on sale. You can purchase it for 9.99€ on Steam.
Yes, Castle In The Darkness received 959 positive votes out of a total of 1,251 achieving a rating of 7.35.
😊
Castle In The Darkness was developed by Matt Kap, Nicalis and Inc. and published by Nicalis and Inc..
Yes, Castle In The Darkness is playable and fully supported on Windows.
No, Castle In The Darkness is not playable on MacOS.
No, Castle In The Darkness is not playable on Linux.
This information about Castle In The Darkness is not available yet.
This information about Castle In The Darkness is not available yet.
No, Castle In The Darkness does not support VR.
Castle In The Darkness is a single-player game.
No, Castle In The Darkness does not currently offer any DLC.
No, Castle In The Darkness does not support mods via Steam Workshop.
No, Castle In The Darkness does not support Steam Remote Play.
Yes, Castle In The Darkness is enabled for Steam Family Sharing. This means you can share the game with authorized users from your Steam Library, allowing them to play it on their own accounts. For more details on how the feature works, you can read the original Steam Family Sharing announcement or visit the Steam Family Sharing user guide and FAQ page.
You can find solutions or submit a support ticket by visiting the Steam Support page for Castle In The Darkness.
Data sources
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Additionally, we incorporate data from the SteamSpy API, which offers insights into game sales and player statistics. This helps us present a comprehensive view of each game's popularity and performance within the gaming community.
Last Updates| Steam data | 29 August 2026 21:06 UTC |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 03 September 2026 04:33 UTC |
| Steam price | 13 September 2026 18:42 UTC |
| Steam reviews | 10 September 2026 22:07 UTC |
If you'd like to dive deeper into the details about Castle In The Darkness, we invite you to check out a few dedicated websites that offer extensive information and insights. These platforms provide valuable data, analysis, and user-generated reports to enhance your understanding of the game and its performance.
- SteamDB - A comprehensive database of everything on Steam about Castle In The Darkness
- SteamCharts - Analysis of Castle In The Darkness concurrent players on Steam
- ProtonDB - Crowdsourced reports on Linux and Steam Deck Castle In The Darkness compatibility
Game modes
Features
Online players
1
Developer
Matt Kap,
Nicalis, Inc.
Publisher
Nicalis, Inc.
Release
05 Feb 2015
Platforms