History VideoGame / TheCastlesOfDoctorCreep

''The Castles of Doctor Creep'' is a PuzzlePlatformer for the UsefulNotes/{{Commodore 64}} created by Ed Hobbs and published by Creator/BroderbundSoftware in 1984. Your character (or characters in 2-player mode) are trapped in one of Doctor Creep's castles, and must escape. In your way are various devices, traps, and monsters created by the titular doctor, and it's up to you to find a way to get past them all and through the exit door.

* NintendoHard: Some of the later castles are absolutely brutal in difficulty.

* ObviousBeta: Not the original C64 version (nor the Steam port), but the PC port was this, especially with the player and monster graphics.

* TheArtifact: The tutorial's background image for when the players escape the castle is the triple-crown logo of Creator/BroderbundSoftware. The Steam port keeps this image even though Brøderbund no longer exists (and all other references to the original publisher have been removed).

* PublicDomainSoundtrack: If left idle, the game will cycle through some rooms of the current castle. On the second loop, it will start playing a chiptune variation of Johannes Brahms' ''Hungarian Dance N°5''. The game also cycles through a set of songs, some of which are upbeat, including ''Funeral March of a Marionette''.

* YetAnotherStupidDeath: If you're not concentrating, it's easy miss a step in solving a puzzle, and subsequently find yourself walking into a monster or deadly trap, or else find yourself in an inescapable situation. Two-player mode can occasionally result in this with one player failing to pay attention to where the other player is, and (for example) hitting a lightning machine switch at the wrong time....

** Callanwolde ([[DifficultySpike Difficult]] and [[MarathonLevel long]])

** Rittenhouse ([[DifficultySpike Very difficult]])

* AntiFrustrationFeatures: Attempted. The Unlimited Lives option is provided so that a player can take their time to figure out the puzzles in a castle before they try it "for real". Also, the game features a save feature that allows the player to save their current position within a castle--essentially an early (and official) implementation of a save state. That said, it's possible for the puzzles, on the player's death, to be in such a way that they are {{Unwinnable}}, and the player has to completely restart the castle (or load from an earlier save) anyway. Also, [[EasyModeMockery using these will block the player from entering a high score during a run]], so these are strictly tools for ''learning'' to solve a castle.

* AntiFrustrationFeatures: Attempted. The Unlimited Lives option is provided so that a player can take their time to figure out the puzzles in a castle before they try it "for real". Also, the game features a save feature that allows the player to save their current position within a castle--essentially an early (and official) implementation of a save state. That said, it's possible for the puzzles, on the player's death, to be in such a way that they are {{Unwinnable}}, and the player has to completely restart the castle (or load from an earlier save) anyway.

* TrialAndErrorGameplay: Some castles feature this, with lethal consequences for getting it wrong. This trope is one of the reasons that the Unlimited Lives option exists.

* VideoGameLives: You have three lives, represented by the text color (Green=3, Yellow=2, Red=final). You can also enable unlimited lives but can't save the highscore.

* AntiFrustrationFeatures: Attempted. The Unlimited Lives option is provided so that a player can take their time to figure out the puzzles in a castle before they try it "for real". That said, it's possible for the puzzles, on the player's death, to be in such a way that they are {{Unwinnable}}, and the player has to completely restart the castle anyway.

* ObviousBeta: Not the original C64 version, but the PC port was this, especially with the player and monster graphics.

* GoodBadBugs: The original game was subject to slowdown in some circumstances due to hardware limitations, which in some cases worked to the player's advantage. The Steam port lacks this slowdown, but the developers in charge of the port attempted to compensate by altering the timing of the existing mechanics to match the expected slowdown.

A lesser-known PC port was created by the original programmer, but it had some graphical issues and did not survive the transition to 32-bit. The original game, as of March 2022, [[https://store.steampowered.com/app/517930/The_Castles_of_Dr_Creep/ is available]] on UsefulNotes/{{Steam}}.

A lesser-known PC port was created by the original programmer, but it had some graphical issues and did not survive the transition to 32-bit.

* TeleportersAndTransporters: The Matter Transmitter. You teleport from a colored booth to a matching color target elsewhere in the room. You can change the target by changing the booth's color (hold up on the joystick; on the PC version, down would cycle through the colors the other way).

* PublicDomainSoundtrack: If left idle, the game will cycle through some rooms of the current castle. On the second loop, it will start playing a StandardSnippet suitable for the game's theme. The game also cycles through a set of songs, some of which are upbeat, including ''Funeral March of a Marionette''.

* TrialAndErrorGameplay: Some castles feature this, with lethal consequences for getting it wrong appearing as early as Sylvania[[note]]From the start, going straight to the green room at the bottom will result in your character getting shot by a ray gun, and even if you escape the room there's no way back up to the other rooms. The pink room to the left is a dead end and forces you toward the green room. To get past the ray gun, you need to first take the blue room to the right, which will eventually allow you to lower the ray gun so it won't immediately shoot you[[/note]]. This trope is one of the reasons that the Unlimited Lives option exists.

* VideoGameLives: You can either play with unlimited lives, or not. If you choose not to use unlimited lives, you get three.