When I was a little kid in the late 80s, my little brother and I, like many other kids, loved playing Nintendo. Enough so that our parents would not only get us a few games once in a while, but even a subscription to the now immortal Nintendo Power magazine. And it is in here we would learn many of the tips and tricks I did actually use to beat several of those games, but for me, it would do something more. Within the first few articles was a guide to find your way through the first part of a little title known as Shadowgate. I read through this guide top to bottom untold amount of times, excited to see the arcane tricks of the castle it wanted to show everyone how to survive. Enough so the game was a birthday gift that year...
I fell in love with this game as both a puzzle game that could be tough as nails and my first taste of horror gaming, and I even learned to speed run it before speedrunning was a thing before putting the cart away forever. But I never forgot the living castle and made a point to play every new entry in the franchise I could get my hands on, and even the 2014 remake. Now, nearly 40 years later, the perfect storm has happened and the original team who wrote the first game got together to make the sequel they were never allowed to way back then. It was worth waiting for. Welcome back to Kal Torlin!