The Black Cauldron (1986)

Sierra

Amiga · Apple II · Apple IIGS · Atari ST/STE · DOS

2.85 from 13 ratings

48 members have it in their collection · 17 backlogged · 9 wish listed

How long? · 100% 3h (from 1 logged playthrough)

From Sierra, makers of the bestselling King's Quest adventure series, and the Walt Disney personal computer software staff. Seventy three-dimensional screens more detailed than any seen before, in up to 16 colors- watch as animated characters pass in front of trees, behind rocks, and around other characters! Six built-in arcade sequences and mazes, including a moat teeming with hungry alligators, … Read more
From Sierra, makers of the bestselling King's Quest adventure series, and the Walt Disney personal computer software staff. Seventy three-dimensional screens more detailed than any seen before, in up to 16 colors- watch as animated characters pass in front of trees, behind rocks, and around other characters! Six built-in arcade sequences and mazes, including a moat teeming with hungry alligators, a slippery castle wall with guards tossing boulders down, and teetery rocks that form a path across a treacherous swamp. Multiple solutions and variable scoring- follow the movie's storyline, or use your imagination to maximize your score; play again and again, each time discovering new twists. Read less
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Details

Developers
Sierra
Publishers
Sierra
Genres
Adventure, Point-and-click
Themes
Fantasy
Franchises
Disney, The Chronicles of Prydain

Release dates

  • Apr 1986 (North_America) Apple II, Atari ST/STE
  • 1986 (North_America) DOS
  • Jun 14, 1987 (North_America) Amiga
  • 1987 (North_America) Apple IIGS
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Rating distribution

5 stars
1
4 stars
1
3 stars
6
2 stars
5
1 star
0
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Community All Reviews Statuses

giopep

Review giopep 2/5 · Aug 18, 2024

This time, the semplification of the King’s Quest model for a kids game doesn’t work well, certanly not as well as with the Hi-Res adventures for kids. The interface is clunky and the game includes sudden deaths and shitty labyrinths that feel out of context. Still, the visuals are quite nice, there’s some fun cutscenes, a certain degree of freedom …

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This time, the semplification of the King’s Quest model for a kids game doesn’t work well, certanly not as well as with the Hi-Res adventures for kids. The interface is clunky and the game includes sudden deaths and shitty labyrinths that feel out of context. Still, the visuals are quite nice, there’s some fun cutscenes, a certain degree of freedom in how to tackle some puzzles and an experimental vibe in how it tries to reproduce some parts of the movie. Overall I had fun but I still think it’s not a good game.

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scoopings

Review scoopings 2/5 · Jun 29, 2023

Irritating Intro Song And Sluggish Gameplay Make For A Disappointing King's Quest-Style Adventure

Preliminary: Wow, some hideous title screen music and then starting gameplay music. Let's hope the fact it's a King's Quest style adventure game with interesting, seemingly simple controls will save it heh.

And what a chore it was to get this game to play right and with the (seemingly) right colors. Looks soooo much prettier the way I got it …

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Preliminary: Wow, some hideous title screen music and then starting gameplay music. Let's hope the fact it's a King's Quest style adventure game with interesting, seemingly simple controls will save it heh.

And what a chore it was to get this game to play right and with the (seemingly) right colors. Looks soooo much prettier the way I got it to play, rather than the SVGA graphics card I originally was trying. I really didn't think I'd stick to this game, despite the nice colorful Look and King's Quest-esque gameplay and relatively smooth Function Key controls--it's slow (like, you literally move slow), seems like there isn't a lot of "meat" and excitement to it, and I don't have a connection with the Black Cauldron plot (plus, I see you get hungry and thirsty periodically blergh... and it looks long).

Ironically it was how smooth the save and load function are, with great director navigation, that convinced me I will give this an earnest try after all this travail ha. Here goes nothing

Look: 7/10 Lol cute enter image description here

Sound: God awful

Play: 6/10 After delivering Hen Wen to the, uh, secret fairy house place, I was already feeling a bit burned out. If only there were a good jingle, or tho the Look is nice and classic, if it were more striking... Or maybe if the character moved faster and there were less navigation :-p

Feel: 7/10 I do love the King's Quest and Below the Root vibes, but it wasn't enough to save it. Maybe if the Sound wasn't so annoying, or the gameplay was more engaging, it'd help allow the good Look to make the game what it could be. (Or if I had an attachment to the Black Cauldron story... something)

Attachment: 6/10 Welp, I wound up saying enough is enough, after the chore of navigating through the calmer parts of the river to get to the Dagger and the Mountain cave thing (which did look cool for the record, like a bunch of gemstones), but it was this Rope part that made me say it's enough. Why do these early text-adventures-brought-to-life often love to exploit their poor platforming or movement mechanics? Like, you clearly knew this game was sluggish and clunky in its controls and was supposed to be a text adventure brought to life but with Function Keys instead of King's Quest style text commands... after trying 3 times to go "diagonally" up this rope, as much as I knew I'd eventually figure it out, the fact I still had a whole chunk of the game ahead of me meant nah... time to move on. enter image description here

Completion: 44/230 Score Playtime: ~50 mins

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