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Solstice: The Quest for the Staff of Demnos, or simply Solstice, is a 1990 puzzle video game developed by Software Creations. It was published by Nintendo in Europe and CSG Imagesoft in North America for the Nintendo Entertainment System. The game focuses on the wizard Shadax's bid to defeat the evil baron Morbius and rescue Princess Eleanor, whom Morbius plans to sacrifice. Shadax aims to gather the six pieces of the titular Staff of Demnos hidden within the fortress of Kâstleröck. The game's setting is non-linear, and consists of 250 rooms, each with a particular puzzle to solve. Solstice is the first original game to be developed by Software Creations, which had previously only worked on converted titles between 8-bit consoles. The game features a musical score by Tim Follin, who has named the game's title track as his favourite among his compositions. It became one of his best-known tracks. Solstice was received positively by critics for its puzzles and graphics, and the audio was singled out for praise. A sequel, titled Equinox, was released for the Super NES in 1993. Gameplay Solstice is an isometric-perspective puzzle game in which the player controls the wizard Shadax, who must navigate 250 rooms within the fortress Kâstleröck and assemble the six pieces of the Staff of Demnos to defeat the baron Morbius and rescue the princess Eleanor. Shadax's basic abilities consist of jumping, and picking up and dropping objects. Early in the game, Shadax can obtain a pair of magic elfin boots that augment his jumping height. He is additionally equipped with a few beakers that can be used to store four different varieties of potions; these potions can either grant temporary invincibility, destroy all moving objects in a room, freeze time, or make invisible objects visible. At the beginning of the game, the beakers can only hold up to two doses of a potion each, though upgrades can be obtained later on. Any number of potions can be cast simultaneously within a given room, but the spell(s) will only last as long as Shadax remains within that room; any effects from the potion(s) will disappear when the room is vacated. Many of the fortress's rooms feature hazards such as floors covered in spikes, conveyor belts, vanishing bridges and tiles, and floating mines, and may also be inhabited by antagonistic creatures such as trolls, giant spiders and demons. The rooms often include movable blocks that can be found either lying on the floor or falling from above. These blocks can be used to move safely around the rooms and bypass enemies and hazards. Falling blocks can be frozen in mid-air with the time-freezing potion and be used as steps. There are also hovering crystal balls that can be pushed through the air and ridden as transportation, but cannot be picked up and carried. In some rooms, bombs can be detonated to create an entrance to a previously blocked-off passageway, though the detonators are hidden within nearby rooms. Other rooms contain portals that provide the only access to certain rooms within the fortress. Some rooms can only be cleared or accessed after finding and using of one of four hidden magic keys. Extra lives can be obtained by collecting blue pointed hats scattered throughout the fortress. Although the screen only registers ten lives at one time, the player can continue to accumulate more lives from that point. The player can also collect coins that allow them to return to a certain room when all lives are lost instead of having to restart the game from the beginning. At any point in the game, the player can access a map that chronicles any room that they have entered and indicates all possible exits; some of these exits appear on the map, but will not appear in-game until a certain task is performed. Aside from the map, the player can view an inventory listing a percentage of the total number of rooms they have visited, as well as the total number of magic items they have found. Plot On the eve of the winter solstice, Morbius the Malevolent kidnaps Eleanor, Princess of Arcadia, to sacrifice her ritually and become the Evil Baron of Darkness. Shadax the wizard, after witnessing the kidnapping, heads to Morbius' stronghold, the fortress Kâstleröck, to rescue Eleanor. Once while researching Kâstleröck in the Library of Arcadia to find a way to overthrow Morbius, Shadax learned of a secret entrance into Kâstleröck and the whereabouts of the Staff of Demnos, an ancient weapon with the power to defeat Morbius. The staff was hidden in Kâstleröck because that was where Morbius would least expect to find it. Morbius' spies searched for the Staff but did not find it because it was broken into six pieces and made invisible. However, every one hundred years on the winter solstice, all six pieces become visible. Knowing a way in, Shadax enters Kâstleröck to reassemble the Staff of Demnos, overthrow Morbius' forces of darkness, and save Princess Eleanor. Upon restoring the Staff of Demnos, Shadax seeks out and frees Eleanor from imprisonment and destroys Morbius with the Staff. Development and release Conception and design The development of Solstice was initiated by the programmer Mike Webb of Software Creations, who desired to create a Knight Lore-style isometric title for the NES. Solstice is the first original game to be developed within the company, which had previously only developed converted titles between 8-bit consoles. Mark Wilson, having previously worked as a programmer and a graphics artist for the company, saw Webb's proposal as an opportunity to attempt the role of a video game designer. In spite of his personal dislike of isometric games up to that point, Wilson thought it sensible to create an isometric title as the company's first original work, as no such format had previously been attempted on the NES. Over the course of four weeks, Wilson designed the entire game as sketches and notes on paper, often within a McDonald's on Oxford Road. All the game's item positions and events were placed on a "master map" hand-drawn on a very large sheet of graph paper, and were based on Wilson's understanding of what the player might think or need at any particular point. This detailed approach put Wilson at odds with Webb, who failed to see why such an amount of time would be taken to design a game as opposed to expediently inserting rooms into a map at random. At one point, Webb presented Wilson with an alternate map created by his girlfriend the previous night, which consisted of 255 randomly-connected empty rooms. Out of guilt for their furious arguments and pleasure with the final product, Wilson would ultimately give Webb a co-designer credit in the game's attract mode screens. Wilson would later regret this action; during a subsequent interview with Wilson at MicroProse, one of the interviewers falsely identified Webb as the game's sole designer. Visuals and audio During the game's early stages of development, the player character Shadax appeared a.... Discover the Mike Winterbauer popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Mike Winterbauer books.