Astaroth - The Angel of Death - Amiga full playthrough
3924 year old Marc Dawson started work for the legendary Imagine in Liverpool when he was 18. Since then he’s written several games for now-defunct software houses Odin and Thor. Astaroth is his first production for Hewson.
Marc had the idea for Astaroth after reading Carrie by Stephen King. “It’s all about powers of
the mind,” says Marc, “and since then I’ve read other Stephen King books which are more or less along the same lines.” Marc’s also particularly keen on the arcade-adventure format: “ enjoyed Star Wars in the arcades, but generally | don’t like flight simulators and suchlike, prefer games that are quick and easy to play; after a long day of programming you want something to relax with. . .”
Marc reckons Astoroth is easily his best game to date. Before that his favourite was Hypa-Ball
(published by Odin), along with Nodes of Yesod and Robin of the Woods. “I prefer to forget
about the stuff! did for Imagine — BC Bill and the like. Boy! Some of that stuff was TERRIBLE!”
Marc does his work for Hewson through his own company, Eldritch the Cat, formed in partnership with programmer Steve Weatherill. “Yes,” he agrees, “it IS a weird name! It has a rather dubious origin — there was a guitarist called Andrew Eldritch who played with a group called Sisters of Mercy. Our graphic artist did a drawing of him that later became the main sprite in Astaroth.”
Marc has a few words for budding young games programmers, including some words of warning: “The trouble is, the majority of programming is just boring. Starting off is simple because you're doing the exciting part, working out all the ideas. But finishing off is very difficult. You have to fight against boredom all the time. There are a lot of programmers who go around showing people ideas or demo screens, but they only stick it out for a couple of months and never get anything finished.”
The object of the game is to travel through the catacombs of Astaroth’s domain until you come to
the final showdown with the lady herself.
To be able to destroy Astaroth in the final battle you will have to collect all nine of the ‘mind powers’ that are placed throughout the caves. Along the way you will need these powers to- help you destroy Astaroth’s minions and her three ‘Guardians of the Soul’, these take the form of a Sphinx, a three-headed Hydra and a Maralith Demon (a multi-armed, half-human, half-serpent creature). If you do not defeat these creatures you will not have enough power to even enter Astaroth’s chamber and there-fore be unable to complete the game.
Once you have battled through the catacombs you can enter Astaroth’s chamber to enter into a final ‘battle of the minds’. In this battle the aim is to push back Astaroth’s mind power (depicted by a red energy beam) using all the powers of your own mind (depicted as a blue energy beam). This is achieved by waggling your joystick left and right as fast as possible. If you have collected all nine mind powers throughout the game and you are fast enough then it is just possible to win.
If you win this battle then Astaroth is destroyed and banned to the Ethereal plane for eternity and victory is yours.