~Homebrew~ Dark Mage (Atari 2600) - RetroAchievements/guides GitHub Wiki

Set developed by LadyNadia, guide written by benit149

Welcome to my brief guide for Dark Mage, a homebrew text adventure by Greg Troutman. The basic premise is that you’re a jester who was banished out of the castle for losing the insane king’s black rose, so you go on an adventure to find a new one and regain entry.

This was the visual guide I used to navigate through the game and draft this walkthrough, in case you think any of my steps may be wrong. If you can’t figure out from the directions or the visual guide, you’re basically moving around on a curvy S-shaped map, and trying to venture out of bounds is impossible.

The most unintuitive aspect of this game is that you need to use the Look command to be able to access the other options besides going cardinal directions. These options are Go, Take, Give, Use, Talk, and Inventory. The difference between Give and Use is that Give consumes the item from your inventory, whereas Use does not. You also need to use Look + Take/Talk after completing a specific objective to make progress. The Go command just puts you back in Look mode so you can resume moving around the map. Inventory shows you have you have on hand. For some reason you have a Hammer, but I’ve never seen any use for it.

There are two very important items to keep for specific events before losing them in other events. These are the Dog and the Coin. If you give the Dog to the hermit before visiting the ogre, you will be unable to progress since you need the Dog to frighten the ogre. Likewise, if you give the Coin to the troll to pass the bridge, you will be unable to resolve the jackalopes’ quarrel with a coin toss, allowing you access to the castle. All other items you obtain only have a single use.

I’ve written these steps in a very basic format, with no context for the story so you can experience it yourself. With that, enjoy your easy mastery.

  1. North -> Look -> Take (Tiny Fish)
  2. East -> South -> Look -> Take (Bread)
  3. South -> Look -> Use -> Tiny Fish -> Look -> Talk
  4. East -> East -> Look -> Give -> Bread -> Look -> Take (Dog)
  5. South -> South -> Look -> Use -> Dog -> Look -> Talk
  6. North -> North -> West -> West -> West -> Look -> Give -> Dog -> Look -> Take (Coin)
  7. East -> East -> East -> South -> South -> West -> West -> West -> Look -> Use -> Coin -> Look -> Talk
  8. East -> East -> East -> North -> North -> West -> West -> North -> North -> East -> Look -> Give -> Coin
  9. East -> East -> South -> Look -> Take (Black Paint)
  10. North -> West -> West -> West -> South -> South -> East -> East -> South -> South -> West -> West -> Look -> Give -> Black Paint -> Look -> Take (Black Rose?)
  11. West -> North -> North -> North -> Look -> Give -> Black Rose?
  12. North -> Look