Stonekeep

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Stonekeep is a 1995 first-person Action RPG for MS-DOS by Interplay Entertainment.

The story is about a boy named Drake, an inhabitant of the human stronghold Stonekeep, who was saved from the destruction of the earth's surface by a mysterious figure. After wandering the destroyed earth for years, he returns to his old home to be greeted by the goddess Thera, who has momentarily escaped the grasp of her brother, the dark god Khull-Khuum, the one responsible for the end of the world. She explains to Drake that although the other gods are powerless and sealed away in orbs by Khull-Khuum, she has managed to wrest the orbs from his control and they are now scattered throughout the ruins of Stonekeep and the tunnels below. Before getting resealed by Khull-Khuum, she manages to send Drake's spirit on his way to collect all the orbs, defeat Khull-Khuum and restore her temple.

On his journey through the ruins of Stonekeep and the mines below, Drake ends up smashing a lot of enemies, including the goblin like Shargas, the Khull-Khuum worshipping Throgs and Khull-Khuum's own nightmarish legions. On the way he also meets new friends, including a bunch of dwarves, the rebel Sharga Skuz, the last remaining Elf Enigma and the insidious self-proclaimed "King of all fairies and goblins" Wahooka.

The game's claim to fame would have been the detailed full-screen 3d environments (which are seamlessly built up from pre-rendered graphics) and the almost completely in-universe interface (only the settings and save/load screens take you away from the 3d view). Sadly, the game spent 5 years in Development Hell and when the game finally hit the stores, the troubled development has left some marks and caused the game to get mixed reviews. Released along with the game is a surprisingly readable short novel, Thera Awakening, which introduces the game world's races and pantheon as well as Drake's parents.

In early 2010, a new Stonekeep game for the Wii was announced with a Q3 release schedule, but no more news or publicity has been released since. Interplay's site currently lists the release date as Q3 of 2011.

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This game shows examples of:

• Absurdly Spacious Sewer
• Action RPG
• After the End
• All There in the Manual - The game came with a full length short novel about Drake's parents. Reading it is... beneficial to understanding what the heck is going on in the game.
• Bad Moon Rising - During two cutscenes, the moon turns into a giant skull.
• Bag of Holding - Aquila's scroll turns whatever you find into drawings, letting you hold an infinite number of items. And you will.
• Blob Monster
• Combat Tentacles - The boss of the sewers uses these. Before they're chopped off.
• Common Tongue - Played straight for dialogue. Averted in that some signs are in different languages and/or scripts, and you require either a character familiar with the language to read it for you (with varying degrees of success), or a translation spell.
• Dem Bones - Regular kind, floating horrible nightmare skull kind and shadow versions of either.
• Didn't Need Those Anyway - Removing the tentacles of the boss of the sewers actually makes it more dangerous since it'll start biting you instead.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu? - The common way to win is to seal Khull-Khuum away with the ritual he used to trap the other gods. You can also beat him in single combat, which apparently kills him.
• Diegetic Interface - You get your interface at the start of the game. You actually have to collect the journal (which includes the automap, stats screen and all magic spells) in-game.
• Doomed Hometown - The titular Stonekeep.
• Down the Drain - Sewers below Stonekeep.
• Dug Too Deep - The dwarves have accidentally unearthed an undead warrior. You're expected to deal with it in one of the scariest scenes in the game.
• Dungeon Crawling - The entire game is just one big dungeon.
• Easter Egg - There are two secrets in the game that involve developer in-jokes. ("Beware the Kevin of Bass!" and the dwarven vault scroll)
• Enemy Mine - Averted when Enigma (an elf) joins and Karzak (a dwarf) insists on leaving. Played straight when Farli (another dwarf) rejoins later on.
• Evolving Attack - You get better with whatever weapon you use.
• Faux First Person 3D - Probably one of th last games to use it, the quality of it giving the game its immersive feeling.
• Fantasy Pantheon - In order: Khull-Khuum, Helion, Aquila, Thera, Azrael, Marif, Afri, Saffrini, Yoth-Soggoth and Kor-Soggoth
• Ghost Town - The Gate of the Ancients and Stonekeep itself.
• Giant Spider - The game's most basic enemy.
• God of Evil - Khull-Khuum
• God's Hands Are Tied - The other gods are basically useless against Khull-Khuum and need some brat to save them.
• Gosh Hornet - Kill one hornet. Get the hive for free. (hint: don't kill one hornet)
• Healing Potion - Come in friendly blue and what-the-hell-does-this-potion-even-do green. (seriously, does it cure poison or something?)
• Heal Thyself - Blatant since opening the inventory freezes time. It is actually possible to heal all your wounds during battle by just eating enough nutritious tree roots... instantly. Although generally less useful in battle, there are also healing fountains and healing spells.
• Hell Gate - The Gate of the Ancients
• Hidden Agenda Villain - Wahooka He can even join as a party member.
• Hidden Elf Village - The Fairy Realm
• Hyperactive Metabolism - Seriously hurt? Eat 10 tree roots in an instant. Fixes you right up.
• It's All Upstairs From Here - Khull-Khuum's tower.
• Joke Level - The Fairy Realm. Sort of.
• Last of His Kind - Enigma is the very last elf. He's not too happy about still being alive. Drake may or may not be the last living human.
• La Résistance - The Sharga rebellion
• Magic Wand - Called Runecasters.
• Medieval European Fantasy
• Monster Town - The Sharga rebellion.
• Menu Time Lockout - Opening the inventory pauses time, but you can eat and drink stuff and change equipment while in the inventory.
• Now What? - At the end, Stonekeep is shown rising up from below the ground. But everybody inside died in the intro and Drake's spirit is still stuck in the world of the dead. Uh... what? Did everybody come back to life or something? We'll never know. Arguably an example of A Winner Is You.
• Mummy - The undead warrior.
• Nothing Is Scarier - The Gate of the Ancients is absolutely deserted. The music doesn't help.
• One Man Party - Your teammates are pretty much just there for exposition and comic relief. Even the good ones like Enigma you could do without.
• One Size Fits All - Not played entirely straight, but equipment does seem to change size depending on who wears it.
• Our Dragons Are Different - Standard western type. Guards a treasure. Chained with a lock with a broken key.
• Our Elves Are Better - Enigma, who is also a straight aversion of Elfeminate. (see that queen of the fairies? He was tapping that)
• Our Goblins Are Different - Skargas and Throgs. And Wahooka.
• Pulling Themselves Together - Skeletons do this. Picking up their bones so they no longer add up stops them.
• Preexisting Encounters - There are no Random Encounters.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World - The ice caverns. Have warmly dressed shargas and floaty ice spike balls.
• So Long and Thanks For All The Gear - Not all that bad since you'll generally save your unique gear for Drake, but lampshaded by Skuz when he leaves.
• Spark Fairy - They can actually switch between spark-mode and, well, it depends on the fairy's gender.
• Status Buff
• Temple of Doom - The Temple of Throggi.
• The Chosen One - Drake.
• The Underworld - The Realm of Shadows.
• Underground Level - Guess what. The entire game is underground.
• Video Game Weapon Stats - All weapons and armour have cut/crush/pierce attributes.
• Worthless Yellow Rocks/Money for Nothing - You collect loads of gold coins and gemstones. Too bad there's only one shop and it doesn't really sell any good stuff. Also, you can persuade the shopkeeper to give you everything for free.
• You All Look Familiar - That's a female Sharga.