How to play Dark Chambers online
- Move through the maze: arrow keys
- Shoot: Z (left button) – you fire in the direction you are moving
- Detonate a bomb: X (right button)
- Choose skill level and one or two players: F2 (Select)
- Start the game: F3 (Reset)
- Pause: F4
Both the USA (NTSC) and Europe (PAL) releases are on this page; use the switch to pick one.
Gameplay
You are trapped in an underground maze of 26 levels, lettered A to Z. Each level is a dungeon full of walls, locked doors and ghouls, and you go deeper by finding a hole in the floor. The ghouls come in five kinds, from weakest to strongest: zombies, skeletons, wraiths, wizards and grim reapers. They keep coming because spawners hatch new ones. Shooting a spawner turns it into a weaker spawner, but the one underground spawner cannot be destroyed.
Your health is a strength meter. Ghouls drain it by touching you, and it also drops by one unit every 8 seconds, so you can never stand still for long. Food and potions top it up. When it runs out, the game is over. Along the way you pick up guns (faster shooting), daggers (stronger shots), shields (less damage from ghouls), keys for the locked doors, and bombs. You can carry up to 15 keys and 15 bombs. In a two-player game, a fallen hero can be brought back if the other player finds a heart and shoots it.
| Target or treasure | Points |
|---|---|
| Zombie | 10 |
| Skeleton | 20 |
| Wraith | 40 |
| Wizard | 60 |
| Grim reaper | 100 |
| Strongbox | 100 |
| Silver chalice | 500 |
| Amulet | 1,000 |
| Gold chalice | 3,000 |
Tips
- Shoot the spawners, not just the ghouls. Ghouls keep pouring out until you weaken their source.
- Save bombs for crowds. Since you can stock up to 15, keep a few for moments when you are surrounded.
- Don’t waste time. Your strength drains even when nothing touches you, so grab food on your way and head for the exit hole.
- Collect keys. The more keys you carry, the more locked doors you can open to reach secret rooms.
- In two-player games, stay together. If your partner falls, look for a heart to shoot.
The story behind Dark Chambers
Dark Chambers started life as Dandy, written by Jack Palevich as his bachelor’s thesis at MIT in 1982 under the name Thesis of Terror, and released for the Atari 8-bit computers in 1983. Atari Games’ 1985 arcade game Gauntlet built on the same idea of players blasting through monster-filled mazes, and Gauntlet designer Ed Logg later said Dandy had directly inspired it. Palevich sued, and the case was settled out of court.
Atari later had Sculptured Software turn Dandy into Dark Chambers, released for the Atari 2600, the 7800 and the 8-bit computers. AtariAge rates the 7800 version as much better than the 2600 one, and on the 7800 two players can explore the maze at the same time. Palevich has since published the source code of the original Dandy under an open-source licence.
