15-Minute Reviews :: Dark Castle 3D Screensaver

Hello all and welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is Dark Castle 3D Screensaver by Rixane Interactive – An eerie screensaver portraying a stereotypical evil castle.

Software Description

As Giveaway of the Day states:

“Fill your home or office with moonlight, flashing torches, rumbles of thunder, sound of rain and great mysterious music. Captivating and relaxing scenes of Dark Castle 3D screensaver will definitely immerse you into a Gothic fairytale and evoke a storm of emotions.

The night Castle in the mountains recalls the atmosphere of Stephen King’s thrillers.”

Quick Pros

• Sounds are very enticing into the feeling
• Lot of detail in the model of the castle
• Evil flowers in center of the courtyard dancing cool

Quick Cons

• Trees lack texture detail
• Somehow, the spires and chimneys don’t look right
• Rain and clouds just don’t look right at all
• Only one side of the castle is seen
• Really could have benefited from bumpmapping on rocks, ground and castle

Expansion

Creepy old castle – Rain – Diabolic-looking clouds. There is just something about a scene like this in the movies; It sets the mood and gets you prepared for what the director can throw at you. This screensaver tries to capture this feeling in a live-action screensaver.

First off, the sound, while not the greatest, does entice you into a sense of the beginning of a horror movie. It does prepare you for your tour a little bit. Seeing the castle, there is a lot of detail in the model of the castle itself; The modelling itself doesn’t feel mechanical or ‘squared off’ at all; This is the primary focus of this screensaver is the castle. There is a lot of detail in some of the other objects as well; The flowers in the middle of the courtyard are probably my favorite. Because of how the models for the flowers are built, they look like they are watching you as you pan past them (And the camera makes you feel like the eyes which you are watching through sees this and is being cautious as well.) The flowers actually move some too – They rock side to side, up and down. It doesn’t so much seem like the wind moving them, but them actually moving. I don’t know if this was the intended effect, but it works pretty well. The flowers and bushes on the side of the castle are a decent detail as well. The texture on the castle has been well-done as well.

This said, there is some that does detract from the entire feel of the environment. The trees, while ‘plush’, look like ghost trees because the texture quality on them are so poor – While you can see defining features on many of the other objects, the trees look like a blur. While the models of the castle look nice; Somehow, the chimneys and spires don’t look quite right. The Chimneys seem like they have a spotlight on just one face of them – Too bright. The spires seem to have a ring through them that when the camera passes by you can kind of see inside the model; Doesn’t look quite right. While the rain would have been nice; It always falls vertical like there is no wind. This wouldn’t be an issue, but in the scenes that the camera is looking up and the clouds are moving at significant speeds. With this, while clouds in horrors tend to be ‘briskly’ moving along, these seem to quick, and there is not enough cloud content for a severe thunderstorm. While in a horror this would make sense, the implementation does not ‘feel’ spooky, it more looks like it is just poorly done. On top of that, the screensaver gets pretty monotonous pretty quick; You see the same part of the castle so many times, it gets very boring. There seems to be three ‘areas’ of camera views; Looking at the castle from outside the walls in that small area; Looking at it from inside the walls; Or looking at the plant life in the courtyard.

One final note; This screensaver could have ‘screamed’ (Bad pun, sorry) if bumpmapping was thrown in here to give ‘definition’ during the lightening and while moving acount. The brick on the castle looks way too flat; The spires look like they were made with painted steel and no definition; The rocks look like blocks of iron ore. There is so much that could have benefited from bumpmapping in this screensaver, especially during lightening.

Final Verdict

There is so much more that could have made this screensaver more naturally thrilling – Changes in lighting due to the moon covering and uncovering by clouds and bumpmapping are a few ideas. They could have even turned this into a fun screensaver by making things go dark and suddenly something right in front of the camera during a lightning flash to scare you good or similar. With some of the parts I mentioned and others I can’t even put my thumb on, it just doesn’t feel like a dark castle. While I love the eerie flowers, there just wasn’t enough ‘other’ detail to make this screensaver awesome. For free, it may be fun to play with and have on for a little while. As for paying $17.95, I could not warrant paying that much when it doesn’t have the environment of what it should be, nor could I recommend it. If the author works on the environment and feel of it, it could be a great screensaver.

Posted by BladedThoth on Sunday, July 01, 2007