Thanks for posting that review. It's a few years out of date, so quite a lot has changed. New technology has been added, and quite a lot of features. The game can handle more than ever.
The screenshots are accurate though:-)
Actually, very little has changed, graphically. We're trying to keep with that same feeling, as we *want* this to feel unique. The game has a sense of class which we believe is generated largely by it's graphic style.
Of course, the 3d fan boys will come in and go "wtf 2d side scroller l4me". But they're not our target audience anyways. We don't necessarily need the hardcore gamers. We want a community, we want friendships to be made, and we want to make an environment that a reasonable amount of people will use that doesnt include rampant gunfire and flame wars. (Not that FPS's arn't absolutely wonderful. Its just nice to have something different to go back to.)
Thanks for posting those screenshots.
Oh man, wait until you see our next smash hit - Mario Teaches Online Etiquette. IT WILL BE A BLOCKBUSTER.
(Not really, by the way. Please don't sue us, nintendo.)
The forums were a stress test of sorts. We needed to get a few players other than ourselves in to help us stress test the game itself.
Indeed - that was I who posted the article on PA. The reason/. posted this is because we're in no way in this for the money - we're here to let people have fun. We worked hard to get this game back up in this condition, and I believe the editors can see this.
Please take a step back and realize that while it is advertising, it is in no way inappropriate or shameful for us to have this link here - We're a good group of guys who spend all of our time trying to make the internet a bit more friendly. Slashdot's editors chose to help us out, for which I can't thank them enough.
I hope the fact that I took the time you read and respond to your post is enough to prove that we're not just whoring the game about.
Thanks for that post, hobotron. It was actually a really nice read, and it's great to know me and the rest of the guys arn't alone in our sort of addiction:-P
*laugh!* True enough.
Oddly, the dictionary definition of agism defines it in relation to prejudice against the elderly. A bit off.
But I know what you mean:-P
:-/
Sadly, chances are slim to none. We tried it once, and it didnt exactly go over so well.
On that note, it CAN run under Mac OS X.. under VPC. Just.. without sound. But it's better than nothing! Buuuut - if you like it enough without sound, you could pick up a computer at the flea market for 10 dollars with enough power to run this game:-)
*Laugh*
Fortunately, as the high amount of new people who have managed to slip in tonight through the flames can prove, our download link is fine. It's hosted on a REALLY nice pipe on a seperate server.
Sadly, to certain specifics involved with the database itself and the reliance on interconnectivity between the game and the site, we can't host the website on that incredible server. So, we've just gotta ironclad it as well as we can, and hope for the best. Apparently, "ironclad" meant "jello soft" tonight.
We were in fact given permission to "retrieve"(Read: Dumpster dive for) the server and do whatever we please with it.
The ownership/trademark issue is one we've dealth with for the past few years, and is a large part of the reason we're just now trying to get a foot up in the world.
And by the way, I absolutely agree with you on how copyright is currently handled. It's a bit absurd.
Unfortunately, this is one of the topic's i'm not incredibly well informed about.
On that note, and for that same reason, this entire post could be completely wrong. If that's the case, please ignore it and hit me with a stick or something.
The main reason we needed the server was for the server/db software that (luckily) was on the hard disc itself. The rest of the server was either trashed, far too out of date to use, or just over all crud.
We have upgraded from that server, which actually required quite a bit of work. The software/db stuff that is required for the interconnectivity of the game and the website is rather hateful, and required some INCREDIBLY specific stuff. Of course, we got around all that eventualy. Sadly, the software still hates us.
Basically, our hardware rocks - its the software side that's killin us.
(And to answer your other question - sorry, to my knowledge we've already given away or tossed any server hardware we didnt need. The original server would be very outdated by now, though.)
Heh. Oh - we've definitely upgraded. The server is actually quite nice. The software required to run some of the database related stuff is the real problem, and is what we're working on right now.
A bit off in your math, though close. I'm actually 17, and I'm in no way "the guy" who rescued Castle Infinity. I'm part of a team of guys who each had a huge part in the process, ages ranging from 16-50.
On that note, Agism is lame.
Possibly in the future, but not in the traditional sense. The idea of player attacking player doesnt exactly flow with the game's concept. But other forms of challenge would work quite well.
*Laugh* Sorry, not us. The page just happens to have the words "Castle" and "Infinity" on it, with a few pictures of guys-that-could-possibly-be-dorky.
Good guess, though!
Mentioned it in my totally broken first post, but we've been working in stealth mode for quite some time on this. We're about to finish up on one of our first "major" patches, and with the relaunch of our new website, we decided to consider this our "Grand reopening!".
"Grand" obviously has a different definition somewhere.
Indeed - it is largely a childs game at heart, though the actual fan base seems to be older than originally intended.
Too "old" for this type of game? No worries! Show your kids - they'll love it.
Many thanks IamLarryBoy. As i mentioned a bit further down, I managed to forget line breaks under the stress of "AHHHHH THE SERVER JUST LIT THE CAT ON FIRE."
The server got a bit hot - we dumped ice cold water on it. Unfortunately no one told us that water on a server isn't actually a good thing. Yeah. Thats what happened. *cough*.
Anyways, I have good news! There IS a direct link to the download. Unfortunately, the only way to register is on the website itself. So. If you managed to register but didnt get to the download in time, head on over to:
On that note - the site is currently up, it's.. just kinda limping. And as I typed that, it went back down. We're gonna throw up a static page with a link directly to the registration and download pages.
My apologies for the mess. If you're interested, please bookmark the link - we're workin hard here.
Thanks a ton for the light hearted message, managed to make me smile after about 10 minutes of not being able to think anything outside of "Crap. Crap. Crap."
As you can tell, that went..not so well. Not only did our server just eat itself in less than 2 minutes, but I managed to forget all about line breaks. *Laugh*
/.,
My name is Greg "Devil Dog" Kumparak, and I'm an Architect of Infinity. I hope I'm not doing the rest of the team a disservice by attempting to speak for them. I've been playing Castle Infinity since a very young age, and have volunteered on the game for quite a few years.
Castle Infinity was developed around 1995/96 by Starwave. It grew a rather large fan base, which simply wasn't big enough to outweigh the cost of running it. After being transferred from company to company, it was eventually forgotten by all except for the original players. Sure, company after company brought it up for 2-3 months, but it was only a tease. Each and every time, Castle Infinity was closed down. The blow of signing on to see "Sorry, we're closing down until further notice" hit some of us quite a few times.
That was until we realized that Castle Infinity had been thrown away. I do quite honestly mean thrown away. In a trash can. With a bit of good timing, and maybe a liiiiittle bit of fast driving, we got our hands on the server and a large portion of important data. (Thanks Kevin!)
For the past few years, we've spent a large portion of our free time on rebuilding Castle Infinity. Months of server woes, countless bug fixes, and an unimaginable amount of stress on each and every member of the team.. and it's all lead up to this. We're up, we're running, and we're ready to dump as much cold water on our server as it takes to keep it from melting.
Theres a lot of work to be done, but trust me - we're trying as hard as we can. We have quite a lot in the works. We're constantly working on ways to make Castle Infinity feel much more "modern", giving it features to make it compare to the MMOGgs of today's standard. Due to this, we're ALWAYS looking for a talented hand. Think you can help out in any way? Contact us. Don't worry, we're good people.
With that, I welcome you. Welcome to the fruition of our noble quest. It's been a long, wild ride. Uncountable heartfelt thanks to all at Slashdot for running this story.
Greg Kumparak
Architect of Infinity
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks for posting that review. It's a few years out of date, so quite a lot has changed. New technology has been added, and quite a lot of features. The game can handle more than ever. The screenshots are accurate though:-)
Actually, very little has changed, graphically. We're trying to keep with that same feeling, as we *want* this to feel unique. The game has a sense of class which we believe is generated largely by it's graphic style. Of course, the 3d fan boys will come in and go "wtf 2d side scroller l4me". But they're not our target audience anyways. We don't necessarily need the hardcore gamers. We want a community, we want friendships to be made, and we want to make an environment that a reasonable amount of people will use that doesnt include rampant gunfire and flame wars. (Not that FPS's arn't absolutely wonderful. Its just nice to have something different to go back to.) Thanks for posting those screenshots.
Oh man, wait until you see our next smash hit - Mario Teaches Online Etiquette. IT WILL BE A BLOCKBUSTER. (Not really, by the way. Please don't sue us, nintendo.)
We mostly eat muffins, make small indian artifact replicas, and act important.
The forums were a stress test of sorts. We needed to get a few players other than ourselves in to help us stress test the game itself. Indeed - that was I who posted the article on PA. The reason /. posted this is because we're in no way in this for the money - we're here to let people have fun. We worked hard to get this game back up in this condition, and I believe the editors can see this.
Please take a step back and realize that while it is advertising, it is in no way inappropriate or shameful for us to have this link here - We're a good group of guys who spend all of our time trying to make the internet a bit more friendly. Slashdot's editors chose to help us out, for which I can't thank them enough.
I hope the fact that I took the time you read and respond to your post is enough to prove that we're not just whoring the game about.
Erm - Rick Lambright designed Castle Infinity's server system. :-)
Thanks for that post, hobotron. It was actually a really nice read, and it's great to know me and the rest of the guys arn't alone in our sort of addiction:-P
*laugh!* True enough. Oddly, the dictionary definition of agism defines it in relation to prejudice against the elderly. A bit off. But I know what you mean:-P
:-/ Sadly, chances are slim to none. We tried it once, and it didnt exactly go over so well. On that note, it CAN run under Mac OS X.. under VPC. Just.. without sound. But it's better than nothing! Buuuut - if you like it enough without sound, you could pick up a computer at the flea market for 10 dollars with enough power to run this game:-)
*Laugh* Fortunately, as the high amount of new people who have managed to slip in tonight through the flames can prove, our download link is fine. It's hosted on a REALLY nice pipe on a seperate server. Sadly, to certain specifics involved with the database itself and the reliance on interconnectivity between the game and the site, we can't host the website on that incredible server. So, we've just gotta ironclad it as well as we can, and hope for the best. Apparently, "ironclad" meant "jello soft" tonight.
We were in fact given permission to "retrieve"(Read: Dumpster dive for) the server and do whatever we please with it. The ownership/trademark issue is one we've dealth with for the past few years, and is a large part of the reason we're just now trying to get a foot up in the world. And by the way, I absolutely agree with you on how copyright is currently handled. It's a bit absurd.
Unfortunately, this is one of the topic's i'm not incredibly well informed about. On that note, and for that same reason, this entire post could be completely wrong. If that's the case, please ignore it and hit me with a stick or something. The main reason we needed the server was for the server/db software that (luckily) was on the hard disc itself. The rest of the server was either trashed, far too out of date to use, or just over all crud. We have upgraded from that server, which actually required quite a bit of work. The software/db stuff that is required for the interconnectivity of the game and the website is rather hateful, and required some INCREDIBLY specific stuff. Of course, we got around all that eventualy. Sadly, the software still hates us. Basically, our hardware rocks - its the software side that's killin us. (And to answer your other question - sorry, to my knowledge we've already given away or tossed any server hardware we didnt need. The original server would be very outdated by now, though.)
Actually - the game itself is INCREDIBLY well optimized and requires VERY little bandwidth per player.
Heh. Oh - we've definitely upgraded. The server is actually quite nice. The software required to run some of the database related stuff is the real problem, and is what we're working on right now.
A bit off in your math, though close. I'm actually 17, and I'm in no way "the guy" who rescued Castle Infinity. I'm part of a team of guys who each had a huge part in the process, ages ranging from 16-50. On that note, Agism is lame.
Possibly in the future, but not in the traditional sense. The idea of player attacking player doesnt exactly flow with the game's concept. But other forms of challenge would work quite well.
*Laugh* Sorry, not us. The page just happens to have the words "Castle" and "Infinity" on it, with a few pictures of guys-that-could-possibly-be-dorky. Good guess, though!
Not at all - in fact, we appreciate it. Let people know we're not some faceless corporation or any other cliche group-to-hate.
Mentioned it in my totally broken first post, but we've been working in stealth mode for quite some time on this. We're about to finish up on one of our first "major" patches, and with the relaunch of our new website, we decided to consider this our "Grand reopening!". "Grand" obviously has a different definition somewhere.
Indeed - it is largely a childs game at heart, though the actual fan base seems to be older than originally intended. Too "old" for this type of game? No worries! Show your kids - they'll love it.
Many thanks IamLarryBoy. As i mentioned a bit further down, I managed to forget line breaks under the stress of "AHHHHH THE SERVER JUST LIT THE CAT ON FIRE."
The server got a bit hot - we dumped ice cold water on it. Unfortunately no one told us that water on a server isn't actually a good thing. Yeah. Thats what happened. *cough*.
S etup.exe
.. just kinda limping. And as I typed that, it went back down. We're gonna throw up a static page with a link directly to the registration and download pages.
Anyways, I have good news! There IS a direct link to the download. Unfortunately, the only way to register is on the website itself. So. If you managed to register but didnt get to the download in time, head on over to:
http://www.mediamerlin.com/castle/C8/C8Install/C8
On that note - the site is currently up, it's
My apologies for the mess. If you're interested, please bookmark the link - we're workin hard here.
Thanks a ton for the light hearted message, managed to make me smile after about 10 minutes of not being able to think anything outside of "Crap. Crap. Crap."
As you can tell, that went ..not so well. Not only did our server just eat itself in less than 2 minutes, but I managed to forget all about line breaks. *Laugh*
/., My name is Greg "Devil Dog" Kumparak, and I'm an Architect of Infinity. I hope I'm not doing the rest of the team a disservice by attempting to speak for them. I've been playing Castle Infinity since a very young age, and have volunteered on the game for quite a few years. Castle Infinity was developed around 1995/96 by Starwave. It grew a rather large fan base, which simply wasn't big enough to outweigh the cost of running it. After being transferred from company to company, it was eventually forgotten by all except for the original players. Sure, company after company brought it up for 2-3 months, but it was only a tease. Each and every time, Castle Infinity was closed down. The blow of signing on to see "Sorry, we're closing down until further notice" hit some of us quite a few times. That was until we realized that Castle Infinity had been thrown away. I do quite honestly mean thrown away. In a trash can. With a bit of good timing, and maybe a liiiiittle bit of fast driving, we got our hands on the server and a large portion of important data. (Thanks Kevin!) For the past few years, we've spent a large portion of our free time on rebuilding Castle Infinity. Months of server woes, countless bug fixes, and an unimaginable amount of stress on each and every member of the team.. and it's all lead up to this. We're up, we're running, and we're ready to dump as much cold water on our server as it takes to keep it from melting. Theres a lot of work to be done, but trust me - we're trying as hard as we can. We have quite a lot in the works. We're constantly working on ways to make Castle Infinity feel much more "modern", giving it features to make it compare to the MMOGgs of today's standard. Due to this, we're ALWAYS looking for a talented hand. Think you can help out in any way? Contact us. Don't worry, we're good people. With that, I welcome you. Welcome to the fruition of our noble quest. It's been a long, wild ride. Uncountable heartfelt thanks to all at Slashdot for running this story. Greg Kumparak Architect of Infinity