Dark Designs

Dark Designs is a series of computer role-playing games originally created by John Carmack and published by Softdisk.

Setting
Apparently set in a shared universe with Catacomb, being based on Carmack's Dungeons & Dragons campaigns, the games take place some time after the death of Grelminar. His skills in cross-planar magic live on in his magical staff, which is now being sought by a team of heroes in order to stop an extra-dimensional invasion.

Engine
The engine is a grid based pseudo 3D projection similar to Wizardry, restricted to 90 degree angles and a draw distance of only a few tiles, and is Carmack's first foray into the concept. He returned to first-person projection with full horizontal rotation for Hovertank 3D (and eventualy full rotation with Quake). One feature present in Dark Designs appears in Catacomb 3D in the form of descriptive text that adds additional description for areas of the game. The Apple II version featured only monochrome wire-frame world graphics, while the DOS version features patterned walls and the Apple IIGS releases had either colours or later on full on textures (similar to Hovertank and later Catacomb 3D).

First Trilogy

 * Dark Designs I: Grelminar's Staff (1990) - Softdisk #103, SoftDisk-GS #9, Big Blue Disk #52 (February 1991)
 * Dark Designs II: Closing the Gate (1990) - Softdisk #109, SoftDisk-GS #12, Big Blue Disk #54 (March 1991)
 * Dark Designs III: Retribution! (1991) - Softdisk #116, SoftDisk-GS #17

All originally developed for the Apple II, the first two titles were also ported to MS DOS.

A Dark Designs Character Editor was released on Softdisk #134.

Enhanced ports to the Apple IIGS were also produced.

Second Trilogy
Developed by Peter Rokitski exclusively for the Apple II, who also developed the sequels to Catacombs.


 * Dark Designs IV: Passage to Oblivion (1994) - Softdisk #146
 * Dark Designs V: Search for Salvation (1994) - Softdisk #151
 * Dark Designs VI: Restoration (1994) - Softdisk #157

Videos
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