Dave Marsh, Zojoi – A peek beyond the portcullis of a long-awaited Shadowgate sequel

• Interviews by Jack Allin
• Published:

Shadowgate is one of the granddaddies of the graphic adventure genre, first released as a continuation of ICOM Simulations’ MacVenture series in 1987 with black and white graphics. The game captivated fantasy fans with its dungeon-crawling conceit but with puzzles to solve and traps to survive instead of enemies to battle. A sequel was quickly planned but never came to fruition at ICOM, though a very different (and little-known) TurboGrafx-16 spinoff was released in 1993, and later a 3D Nintendo 64 sequel called Shadowgate 64: Trials of the Four Towers. Neither rekindled the magic of its predecessor, however, and it seemed we might have heard the last of Shadowgate until its original creators, reformed as Zojoi, emerged with an updated remake of the original game in 2014. The success of that game sparked new life into the venerable franchise, spawning a VR game called The Mines of Mythrok and even a board game, Shadowgate: The Living Castle. Now, at long last, Zojoi is returning to its classic roots with an unapologetically old-school sequel in the spirit of the game that started it all.

With Beyond Shadowgate recently releasing on PC, it was high time to catch up with series co-creator Dave Marsh to discuss the past, present, and even the future of this enduring fantasy franchise.

Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking the time to speak to us here at Adventure Game Hotspot during an extremely hectic period. Before we talk about what’s beyond Shadowgate, let’s back up – back WAAAAY up – to the original game that started it all. For those who aren’t familiar with Shadowgate’s origin story, please tell us a bit about the game. 

Dave: Hi. I was doing volunteer work in 1984 at a church and met a programmer there named Terry Schulenburg. Terry was working on this new fancy computer called an Apple MacIntosh. I told him that I had done pixel work on my TRS80 and he got me a few gigs doing arcade conversions to the Apple II. After that, ICOM Simulations (where he worked) lent me a Mac and a copy of Déjà Vu: A Nightmare Comes True and asked me if I wanted to create the design and art for a game. Of course I was excited and asked my friend Karl Roelofs if he wanted to help out. Since I was a huge D&D fan (we didn’t live that far from Lake Geneva where Gary Gygax had developed the game), we decided to go the fantasy route. Karl did most of the design while I did the pixel work. After we had finished, ICOM gave me a job and I finished the art on Uninvited before Karl came on board. We eventually culled Shadowgate down to fit on a floppy and it was released in 1987.

The game boasts of having “more ways to gruesomely die than gamers previously thought possible.” With talk of traps, monsters, and grisly deaths as a badge of honor, it sounds more like a dungeon crawler like an Ultima Underworld or Wizardry game that were popular at the time. But Shadowgate is a full-blooded adventure game, correct? 

Dave: Yeah. Shadowgate (and the other MacVentures) really took advantage of the ability to move windows around on the screen. Because of this, a first-person perspective was ideal. The MacVentures are true adventure games, chocked full of puzzles and compelling storytelling. The death stuff came from the fact that we had a command system that allowed you to do anything (within reason) that you would like to do. In the case of Shadowgate, since there was danger around every corner, that meant that you could HIT monsters, GO into chasms, USE torches on yourself, etc. So suddenly we had this challenge – how do we handle so many ways to kill yourself? We decided to write it in absurd and sometimes funny ways. Players really seemed to like the fact that they could do this. So much so that later when we redid the game in 2014, we had an online death counter.

The MacVenture series would get one sequel (Déjà Vu II: Lost in Las Vegas) but not a second, despite the fact that you’d evidently designed one for Shadowgate. What happened that the game you planned never got developed back then? 

Dave: Right. So we had completely finished the art and design for Beyond Shadowgate (black and white for the Mac) and the programmer had finished perhaps three-quarters of the game when the company decided that they really wanted to branch out into other areas. Since we had had success with Shadowgate on the NES, the SNES came calling and we did a deal with Sunsoft for a number of Looney Tunes games. After that, it was developing side-scrollers for NEC for their TurboGrafx 16 machine. So basically, the MacVentures weren’t really paying the bills and the company became more of a developer for other publishers.

Before you returned to that long-shelved sequel design, you revived and reimagined the original Shadowgate. What inspired you and the team to reform and revisit that game after all those years? 

Dave: Well, I was working in a startup when Double Fine kickstarted Broken Age. I was intrigued. I reached out to Eugene Evans at Infinite Ventures (whom I had done adventure game work for) and he agreed to sell me the rights to the MacVentures and the Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective FMV games. I decided to Kickstart the Sherlock games first but really didn’t know what I was doing. After that failed, I got a team together and we decided to try with Shadowgate. However, this time, I wanted to remove the puzzles that didn’t make a lot of sense from the original and add new ones. I also wanted a new, darker art style (courtesy of Chris Cold), a revamped orchestral soundtrack based on the NES chip tunes (courtesy of Rich Douglas), achievements and a few UIs (retro and modern). The Kickstarter was a success, as was the game!

Clearly the response convinced you that there was still plenty of interest left in the Shadowgate universe, but your next game in the series was VR-only. Why go that route for The Mines of Mythrok? 

Dave: To be honest, at that time I was a bit disillusioned by the game industry. After Shadowgate, I had a new team and we worked for five years on Argonus and the Gods of Stone. Man, I love this game. It’s an epic adventure title and I was convinced it would do well. Unfortunately, it launched on Steam with a dozen other indie games and never got traction. So I did some licencing deals and was pretty much burned out. My friend Rich Douglas, however, wouldn’t let me and told me to go out and buy a Rift headset. Then I bought a Quest and was hooked. Our Argonus team spent nine months working on a prototype for Shadowgate VR. The medium was everything I had ever hoped for – the ability to actually BE in a dungeon. Shadowgate was a perfect vehicle for it as well. Compartmentalized rooms were perfect for a headset that could only handle so many draw calls. We didn’t have to render massive areas so we could make the rooms extremely detailed. We were able to get the game in front of Meta and they loved having a dungeon adventure in their store.

From one end of the technological spectrum to the other, you’ve deliberately gone back to the old-school style for Beyond Shadowgate. Why not continue with the more updated look and feel of the first game’s remake, or even continue with VR? 

Dave: Well, we are continuing with VR. We’re working on Shadowgate VR: The Source of Magic – the sequel to The Mines of Mythrok. As for a sequel to Shadowgate 2014, I licensed the IP to Forever Entertainment and that game will be coming out soon on all platforms! The reason we did Beyond Shadowgate is because it was a great opportunity. Our lead designer and producer Christian Moseley saw that there was a developer named GrahfMetal making MacVenture-esque games on Itch. They were fantastic. So he encouraged me to reach out to them to see if they wanted to make a game based on my properties. They got back to me immediately and it was by far the easiest contract I’ve ever written. Jeff and Jason Canam (artist and programmer respectively) are two of the most lovely guys you’ll ever meet. Once we had an NDA signed, we brainstormed finally bringing the original Beyond Shadowgate (BSG) game design to life. (It had been sitting in my basement for 35 years).

Okay, I’ve held off long enough. What can you tell us about Beyond Shadowgate?

Dave: The team really wanted to make the game a sequel to the NES version and obviously create it in pixel art. Jeff increased the color palette and the team decided to make it feel like an NES game but feature more modern controls, add achievements, etc. We hired Orie Falconer to handle the chip tunes (he’s amazing) and brought Chris Gaizat (Shadowgate: The Living Castle board game) on board to help Christian Moseley with whatever he needed done. Then someone had the idea to Kickstart it and actually make physical non-playable NES cartridges. Gaizat decided that he wanted to create a Nintendo Power-like strategy guide and before you knew it, we were Kickstarting the thing. We asked for the minimum amount to get the game done (mostly for audio and swag) and the campaign took off. We had created stretch goals to make the game bigger and suddenly we were hitting those. So we decided to add other locations and have our main character (Del) have adventures there (Déjà Vu, Uninvited, Mines of Mythrok). So much fun!

Other than the much larger scope, are there any significant differences between the two games? 

Dave: Well, the look and feel of the game is very NES, obviously. There is a command system, inventory, text box, room transitions, chip tunes, etc. All the things you remember from the NES version of Shadowgate. We’ve added NPCs (which Shadowgate really never had), side quests, achievements, multiple game endings, quick travel, timed puzzle events, a game map, Controller and mouse and keyboard support, dev commentary, and recently speedrun capabilities.

Beyond Shadowgate isn’t just a chronological reference but a geographical one as well. How much of the game is actually spent inside the titular castle? 

Dave: I really don’t want to spoil the game for players. Let’s just say that you are in the wild world of Shadowgate. 😊

You mentioned side quests that branch into the worlds of other MacVenture games. How does that work? Déjà Vu in particular seems to share little in common with the more medieval-style fantasy world of Shadowgate. 

Dave: It works surprisingly well! The team came up with a seamless way of getting our little hero into these other worlds through portals and it’s super fun to see him interact with such strange places (well, at least Déjà Vu and Uninvited as the Mines of Mythrok are located within the gatekeeper mountains around Shadowgate).

There’s little reason not to play the original game’s remake first, but how newbie-friendly is the sequel for those who aren’t familiar with the Shadowgate universe?

Dave: Super friendly. It’s a great game on its own. In fact, imho, it’s the best Shadowgate or MacVenture game ever made! There are obviously tie-ins to the original and we spend time getting you caught up on that as the adventure goes along, but it really does stand very well on its own.

There already was a sequel called Beyond Shadowgate, for the TurboGrafx-16 in 1993, for which you’re credited as director. And yet you’re calling this the “official sequel.” What makes this one “official” in the way that the other was not? 

Dave: Well, tbh, I don’t remember a lot about the TG16 version. I think I was more of a hands-off exec producer on that game. It’s a great side-scroller but it’s not the one that Karl and I wanted to make. This is the official sequel to the NES version. 😊

There’s another game on Steam advertising itself as Shadowgate 2. Is that the one you referenced earlier? 

Dave: Yes, I’ve licensed that to Forever Entertainment. That game is the official sequel to the 2014 version of the game and really takes more from the characters in the cancelled Shadowgate Rising game. My son Luke and I worked on the general overarching story, UI, spell and storybook system designs. The rest of the puzzles and combat were designed and developed by Forever.

How do you feel about other developers using a property you still feel personally attached to, for obvious reasons?  

Dave: I feel great about it! I find people (or they find me) that have a passion for Shadowgate and if it seems like a good fit, we move forward. Obviously I want to make sure that they have the chops to get it done right and so far, it has worked out great! The other thing is that I still work on the IP myself, taking on the bits that interest me the most (VR for example).

You were also involved in the Shadowgate board game, which looks like a lot of fun. What’s the status of that project? 

Dave: The board game is out and being sold by Trick or Treat games! This was created by Chris Gaizat and his colleagues. Chris took the card game that we developed for the 2014 Kickstarter and basically said, “Dave, this is fun but it’s not Shadowgate. I want to turn it into a real adventure board game.” Again, another example of someone I had worked with before, who had a love for SG and a great design. Easy decision!

Sounds like a lot of great Shadowgate content available, Dave, so I thank you once again for talking to us about it. I wish you all the best with the new game, and will finish with just one last question: You've teased the VR sequel, but what else is beyond Beyond Shadowgate? 

Dave: We’re looking at a Switch version of BSG as well as a new engine that would allow us to continue to make these types of adventure games!

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