Retrospective: Moonstone

By Dan Whitehead Published 19 June, 2011

Gore blimey.

It's 1992 and America is in uproar over a fighting game which features acts of digital disembowelment so vivid and nasty that the US Senate holds a special investigation into video game violence. "Too violent for kids?" asks Time magazine. The game, of course, is Midway's gleefully adolescent Mortal Kombat, shocking decent upright citizens with its lumpy decapitations and spine ripping action.

For Amiga gamers, it all seemed rather tame. That's because one year before Mortal Kombat made its bloody debut we'd already been treated to a game that was every bit as gruesome as anything Kano and co. got up to, and far more interesting to boot. That game was Moonstone, or A Hard Day's Knight to use its full pun-tastic title.

To call it just a fighting game would be grossly unfair, though it's understandable that it's the medieval combat that still sticks in the memory twenty years later. After all, this was a game where players could be crushed, burned, sliced in half, gored in multiple ways and squeezed so hard they literally burst open. After that lot, simply having your head chopped off was nothing special (though you could do that as well, naturally). But beyond the sticky viscera lurked a strange genre hybrid, a non-linear turn-based multiplayer strategy RPG that just happened to feature horrifically graphic real time battles.

The plot, which could easily have been used to sell the game as a Spinal Tap tie-in, revolved around that most mysterious of locations, Stonehenge (where the banshees live, and they do live well). Four knights, all on the same quest, fought their way across a free-roaming world map, trying to find the four keys that would allow them to enter the Valley of the Gods, defeat the guardian within and earn the Moonstone of the title, which had to be returned to Stonehenge (where a man is a man, and the children dance to the pipes of Pan) for reasons that were never entirely clear.

1

Rob Anderson, Moonstone's creator, most recently worked on SEGA's Iron Man 2 and Golden Axe: Beast Rider. How depressing.

Right from the start, Moonstone whirled giddily from one gameplay style to another. Each player moved their knight around the map, entering battle arenas in search of the magical keys, or visiting towns and other locations to buy supplies, gamble or discover cunning secrets. Characters could also be levelled up, earning XP for each successful fight, making them more powerful but increasing the number of enemies they'd encounter by way of balance.

There was real strategy at work here, as all four knights were in competition with each other, and any not controlled by human players fell to a ruthless computer AI. With limited time to work your way from one spot to another, and with mountains and rivers on the map slowing your helmeted cursor, you couldn't just charge around recklessly. If you were in a griefing mood, you could chase after other players and challenge them to direct combat, and they could do the same to you. The winner would then be able to loot their victim for one item, leaving the corpse to be pillaged by whoever came across it first.

The more you explored the single screen gameworld, the more things you could discover; such as the wizards, who could grant magical benefits, rob you blind or turn you into a frog depending on their mood. In keeping with its title, the game also followed its own internal calendar through a day and night cycle, with the full moon granting certain enemies enhanced strength and the passage of time bringing an enormous dragon into play, swooping over the map and attacking any knights in its path. The dragon was beatable, but only by a knight who had stocked up on magical weapons.

It all comes back to the fighting, however, and the numerous grisly ways your knight can end his quest. I'm sure I wasn't alone in often playing badly on purpose, just to see what revolting death animations I could discover.

Combat itself was more in the wandering style of beat-em-ups like Streets of Rage (though set on a single screen) than the single plane one-on-one brawls of Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter, and each monster lair would throw numerous enemies at you. It was also delightfully ruthless. Enter the swamp area of the map and it was entirely possible to be killed instantly by murky creatures that burst from the earth and dragged you down. Some of the larger enemies could squash you flat in a single blow. And yet, perversely, once you'd worked out the correct combination of attack and distance for each type of foe it was fairly easy to romp through every encounter unscathed.

The genius of Moonstone was that it could be as shallow or deep as you fancied. You could play it as a single player gibfest and just dive in, heading straight for the lairs and slicing up whatever lay within. Or it could be an epic four-player quest, with all the backstabbing, stat levelling and inventory hoarding you could possibly want.

What stands out most, revisiting Moonstone in 2011, is that it really couldn't be made today. Not because of the violence, which now seems rather quaint set against a gaming landscape overflowing with first-person stealth kills and ragdoll abuse, but because so much of what made Moonstone memorable came about because of the limitations of the technology.

2

Decent second hand copies of Moonstone are rare, and often fetch high prices on eBay.

The disparate elements that Moonstone pulled together are no longer strange bedfellows. Almost every game now has a layer of RPG experience points built into its guts. The prospect of an open game map, where you could plot your own course, is standard fare today. And pitting multiple players against each other in a shared gamespace is nothing out of the ordinary.

No, if Moonstone were made today it would probably be a third person hack and slash game with little to distinguish it. Everything it tried to do would be achievable through the easiest and most direct means. It'd be The Last Templar, basically. By having to constrain its ambition in a 2D sprite-based world, by having to cram its multiplayer action onto one offline screen, by having to reconcile its deeper adventure elements with the visceral demands of arcade combat, Moonstone was forced to find design solutions that were more interesting, more ingenious, more distinctive.

That's why Moonstone endures for me. Not just because it's a great game, although it undoubtedly is, but because it represents a time when the design boundaries were tighter, the obstacles taller, and developers had to invent new ways to get past them. Technology has marched on, and those boundaries have been pushed back, thanks in part to games like Moonstone. Game worlds can now sprawl and grow, and genres bleed into one another. And yet so often the result is games that feel increasingly homogeneous, more similar than unique, and those brilliant oddball gems are fewer in number as a result.

It seems fitting to end on a quote from the poet David St. Hubbins, whose work provides so many obvious stitches in Moonstone's ferocious tapestry. Although he was writing at a time when video games were still in their infancy, Hubbins understood that modern man could still learn a lot from ancient wisdom. Today's developers would do well to take note.

And where are they now?

The little children of Stonehenge

And what would they say to us

If they were here... tonight?

Picture of Dan.

About Dan Whitehead

Dan has been writing for Eurogamer since 2006 and specialises in RPGs, shooters and games for children. His bestest game ever is Julian Gollop's Chaos.

Read more articles from Dan by visiting the Dan Whitehead archive page.

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Comments (74) Latest comment 11 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • ToAks #1 11 months ago

    this game sits in my top 10 games of all time,i am of the lucky ones who has the special edition of the game (Amiga version) and we still play it today when mates come over, we take a few beers and play it all night.

    back in 2005 i contacted Rob for the last time regarding if we could get the source code from him so we could patch the game to be a bit more stable,i was denied sadly.... and to this date the game still sits as 1.2 on latest floppy versions and is still a buggy mess although not as bad as the first version that was released of the game.

    i was so happy when i heard Rob was back in the industry when he was doing golden axe, sadly it was so rubbish that i never even completed the game which is rather uncommon for me.

    [link url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJ4uyD6yVdw&feature=related
    ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJ4uyD6yV...[/link]



    NOTE: THE PC VERSION IS UTTER RUBBISH!!!, i tried that a few years ago and i recomend people stay away from it as all the Magic from the Amiga version aint there.
    Edited by ToAks at 19/06/11 @ 07:13

  • galerian86 #2 11 months ago

    "No, if Moonstone were made today it would probably be a third person hack and slash game with little to distinguish it. Everything it tried to do would be achievable through the easiest and most direct means. It'd be The Last Templar, basically"

    Or Demon's Souls

  • ilmaestro #3 11 months ago

    Nice, a retrospective on a game arguably old enough to warrant it for a change!

  • Dizzy #4 11 months ago

    He could make some money porting this to iOS TBH.

    And yes this is Demon's Souls in many ways.
    Edited by Dizzy at 19/06/11 @ 08:08

  • ToAks #5 11 months ago

    dizzy:or a hd remake for PSN and XBLA.

  • Editos #6 11 months ago

    This game was my childhood.

    How I miss my Amiga 1200.

  • FTM #7 11 months ago

    I used to love this it was one of all time favourites along with North and South..both had maps that you had to move around to take territory

  • OnlyMe #8 11 months ago

    I never thought of Demon's Souls as a spiritual successor to this, but it's true. Not quite as gruesome as the trademark violence Moonstone is so famous for, but certainly the design and idea behind it is very similar.

    Moonstone is one of my favourite games of all time, and i'd be incredibly happy if we saw a Moonstone HD with online multiplayer (where everything on the map happens in real time instead of turn based perhaps?).

  • GreatUncleBaal #9 11 months ago

    Amazing game. Could be incredibly frustrating early on, getting batted from one end of a swamp to the other by those bastard giants with their bastard tree trunks or just getting dragged underground by that tree / skull thing, but then the timing clicked and it felt brilliant. And you felt like a god when you took on the dragon and beat it.
    Alsto had excellent music and sound effects - the squelchy blood noises were particularly gruesome.

  • neosalad #10 11 months ago

    was an awesome game... i think once i managed to complete it without it crashing...
    the bondage queeen at stone henge thing...

    but lots of happy amiga memories with this game...

    :)

    i sortof wish for a HD remake on XBLA but.. it would probably ruin the memories

    Edited by neosalad at 19/06/11 @ 09:20

  • Freakachuu #11 11 months ago

    I absolutely adored this game. The Amiga had so many classics that are overlooked. For me it's the true gaming heritage of this country, along with the Spectrum, the C64 and the ST. Console games were for kids. :)

  • DDevil #12 11 months ago

    I had this when I was a kid. A friend came round to my house with another lad in tow, and rough element, and when they left I noticed my boxed copy of this was missing.

    They denied all knowledge and I've never quite gotten over it (:-P) Such a classic game.

  • Gambit1977 #13 11 months ago

    Sweet, a game from a childhood where 'it's gorey' translated into insta-sales!

    Loved Moonstone, it was so different to the endless Ocean platform games and codemasters Football management sims :)

  • Gambit1977 #14 11 months ago

    And I still wish they'd Remake StuntCar Racer for the Xbla/PSN. Can't see any devs doing this game any justice though :(

  • Kanselier #15 11 months ago

    The memories that spring to mind when I read the article were all positive. From the epic intro to the fight with the dragon (stand under its neck, overhead slash, victory) and everything in between (the Player vs Player fights ("don't chop off my head mate, don't chop of my... ah you bastard!";), the tower ("haha, you got nothing!";) and those rolling balls of fur you could all one shot by continually stabbing your sword into the ground.

    Rob, I salute you.

  • DDevil #16 11 months ago

    and O, how they danced
    The little children of Stonehenge
    Beneath the haunted moon
    For fear that day-break
    May come to soon

    "I think the problem may have been that there was a stonehenge monument on stage that was in danger of being crushed by a dwarf"

  • rogermellie #17 11 months ago

    "I had this when I was a kid. A friend came round to my house with another lad in tow, and rough element, and when they left I noticed my boxed copy of this was missing. "

    I know how that feels, I was one of the few that bought the original PC Doom (via formgen) and it was stolen. Never seen another like it and it still annoys me.

  • lucky_jim #18 11 months ago

    It was superb at the time, but I didn't feel it'd stood the test of time too well when I last played it a few years ago.

  • ToAks #19 11 months ago

    @lucky_jim

    its still as good but you have to play it on the real deal with a crt screen and on the Amiga hw, notably a500 or relokick 1,3/whdload for later amiga setups.

    lots of timer/cia.a/b issues so the game feels not quite like the real deal also this is one of thoose games that is a hassle to setup to work properly in Uae.

    fantastic game!

    Superfrog, Slamtilt, Jim Power,Mr nutz (amiga) next? :)

  • neonxaos #20 11 months ago

    I remember it for its brilliant mixture of gameplay styles, but certainy also for its large amount of showstopper bugs. It was just as challenging to avoid those as it was to play the game :)

  • Psychotext #21 11 months ago

    Moonstone, some of the bes scenes: [link url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tj3Vqppd2Gg
    ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tj3Vqppd2Gg
    [/link]

    God I loved this game. Some of the noises enemies (or your character) made when they died are still memorable to this day.
    Edited by Psychotext at 19/06/11 @ 10:49

  • RodHull #22 11 months ago

    Thanks EG. I've spent the last 20 years suppressing the memory of being terrified and disturbed by this game. If you need me I'll be in the corner rocking back and forth and wishing I'd played New Zealand Story instead.

  • Tomo #23 11 months ago

    God! I completely forgot about this game. The screenshot used on the front page sparked some kind of memory into life and I instantly remembered it being awesome.

    Wow :D

  • humble #24 11 months ago

    My God, has it really been 20 years? To me, the game still feels relatively new...
    Never understood the rather poor review scores it got back then. It became an instant favourite in my household. Curse the disc-swapping, though!

  • Phantom_Dynamite #25 11 months ago

    I loved Moonstone to death played it so much.

    That bloody Dragon.

  • ToAks #26 11 months ago

    @humble

    haha , i had2 external floppy stations so no problems there :)

  • Nazo #27 11 months ago

    Great game, but my mate with an Amiga always refused to play it because it was so crash-tastic. Damn him.

  • tenebrae #28 11 months ago

    Oh wow, Moonstone. Instant classic where I'm concerned. At the time it reminded me of one older game: C64's Nemesis the Warlock, where at times you had to build mountains of corpses to be able to jump to the next level.

  • hiddenranbir #29 11 months ago

    Games like this were what made PC/computery gaming great. Collaborative genres.
    Edited by hiddenranbir at 19/06/11 @ 11:25

  • Pac #30 11 months ago

    I loved this game to death. I got to the final confrontation in Stonehenge and the game crashed. Bought another copy and it did the same again. it still irks me today that I never got to see the ending. Would still play it again though.

  • Saxo #31 11 months ago

    I played this game so much on my amiga 500, what a good game. I never completed it, i was allways killed in some horrible way before i could finish the quest, but that doenst matter, it was great fun, i allmust allways played it with atleast one friend.

  • quadfather #32 11 months ago

    Awesome game. Have done the same as all the previous posts with mates + beer etc. Fantastic fun. So good, that even the game breaking bugs didn't even really matter that much - it was so good, we'd just load it up again.

    Just checked that link that you posted ToAks - kudos!

    That was gaming.

    I've got it on an emulator (amiga) but it's fiddly at best to get working. Though I might try again today after reading this article :)

  • DanWhitehead #33 11 months ago

    I've got it on an emulator (amiga) but it's fiddly at best to get working. Though I might try again today after reading this article :)

    There's a fansite called the Moonstone Tavern. The download section has a special standalone version of WinUAE that just runs Moonstone, and has all the settings already in place. It's pretty much click-and-play.

  • Dizzy #34 11 months ago

    These guys are doing a HD remake: [link url=http://astaroth-game.com/news/
    ]http://astaroth-game.com/news/
    [/link]

    But they have a LOT of work left.

  • quadfather #35 11 months ago

    @Danwhitehead - appreciated, I'll have a look

  • Atropos #36 11 months ago

    I once spent an entire summer porting all my old games to UAE and creating individual setup-files for every single one. This was one of the fiddliest (along with Walker and most adventure games), but I finally got it working perfectly along with about 500 other games. Then my hard drive died (and I was too young, and hd:s to expensive, to afford backups). Sigh. Never had the heart to do it all again.
    I did manage to complete it though :-)

  • dragulagb #37 11 months ago

    awww i forgot all about this game, was possibly my favorite game back when i had my amiga

  • P1GEONPOO #38 11 months ago

    defo one of the best games on amiga played this and syndicate more than any others. Never could beat the dragon though. Also my copy crashed alot . Can anyone remember the name of the army game with reel sad music where if you died your helmets were shown hanging on your grave?Loved that game too but was too sad to play regular when i was a kid.

  • Atropos #39 11 months ago

    @PigeonPoo

    Lost Patrol? It was a great Vietnam game, but sadly I had a "borrowed" copy that made the guru meditate something fierce at regular intervals. Never did manage to complete it.

  • Stoatboy #40 11 months ago

    One of my biggest gaming regrets was that I never bought this back in the day. I loved the demo to bits - perhaps it was too good, because me and a mate used to just play that over and over.

    Abiding memories for me are that a throwing knife through the helmet eyehole looked really bloody nasty, and that the game gave the victor a little time after winning to abuse the corpse of their victim, so you'd over-head chop into it to really rub in your win (I've just realised that's pretty much an early form of tea-bagging).

  • Lunastra78 #41 11 months ago

    Moonstone is one of my favorite Amiga games, along with Turrican and Supercars 2.

    There's another Amiga game I really liked that I just can't remember the name of. It was a turn based RPG featuring angelic and demonic armies fighting on hexagonal grids. I remember the angelic army had white archangels without faces. Anyone know the name of this game?

  • Kaminari #42 11 months ago

    One of the rare games where dying was an exhilarating experience.

    Moonstone is also one of those games that defined the Amiga legacy.

  • markopoloman #43 11 months ago

    Anyone with the Homebrew Channel on the Wii can download this! It's still a damn fine game. :-)

  • Feanor #44 11 months ago

    I played the shit out of Moonstone on my friend's Amiga since I was too poor to have my own. The game was awesome.

  • dllord #45 11 months ago

    Loved this game on my A1200

  • ToAks #46 11 months ago

    @lunastra78

    [link url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGeoAzCcxzY
    ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGeoAzCcxzY
    [/link]

    i bet its that one or its sequel :)

  • Ryslaw #47 11 months ago

    @lunastra78

    Celtic Legends

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oVzVlAUwE0

  • P1GEONPOO #48 11 months ago

    @Altropos

    Thats the one, could never remember the name.That game was so emotional when your a kid. Thank you very very much.
    Can anyone remember Wrath of the demon or Heimdall? Both great retro games also.

  • StolenGlory #49 11 months ago

    XBLA/PSN.

    NAU.

  • Lunastra78 #50 11 months ago

    Celtic Legends is the one. Thanks Ryslaw!

  • CholeriKen #51 11 months ago

    Loved that game back then! Played it with my buddies A LOT and would love to see this as a PSN port.

  • lostlain #52 11 months ago

    Just creamed myself when I saw this pop up on the site. Loved this game.. though I did have a dodgy pirate version (shame...) which wouldn't allow me to complete it anyway.

  • Jamrag #53 11 months ago

    I did have a dodgy pirate version (shame...) which wouldn't allow me to complete it anyway.

    Yep, would just hang/freeze if you moved your pointer over a certain item in your inventory. I think I recall that it was usually a round orb or helmet thing that would cause that problem.

  • Cappy #54 11 months ago

    Knights of the Crystallion next, please!

  • NeoKenzi #55 11 months ago

    I really miss this game! It was one of my favorites!

  • panathatube #56 11 months ago

    Moonstone is one of my favorite Amiga games! I also liked the music and the atmospheric catscenes

  • DavidA #57 11 months ago

    I worked on this game as a tester. I think Phil Harrison signed it when we were both working at Mindscape. I don't recall if Phil had left to go to Sony by then, but I remember Rob coming over from the US to Burgess Hill at around Alpha to finish it the game off. He was a lovely guy; softly spoken and friendly. It was a really buggy game and a great example of code where a fix for one bug causes a knock on bug somewhere else. Rob's trip to the UK was a lot longer than anyone intended. I think we shipped when the bug count was as low as we thought it would be.

    Sorry we didn't fix all the bugs. We had a good time testing it though.

  • akiratasoeur #58 11 months ago

    Ah, the good old Amiga days. This game was so hard, especially when facing a dragon that decapitates you in 1 hit.

  • T4RG4 #59 11 months ago

    Absolutely loved this game!

  • cam_guin #60 11 months ago

    Fantastic little game, one of the first I ever came into contact with, still warms the cockles of my heart. Aside from the copious bloodshed.

  • Milbe #61 11 months ago

    Sword of sharpness FTW

  • Riggers #62 11 months ago

    I loved Moonstone so much, I have fond, fond memories of decapitating (and being decapitated by) my brother!

  • ShiroBen #63 11 months ago

    Loved this game. Copies of it went around my school, I remember nobody believed me when I told them you COULD kill the dragon.

  • SpaceMonkey77 #64 11 months ago

    Nice article. I had the pleasure of enjoying Moonstone, on a close friends Amiga 500, back in the day. Totally pefered it to MK at the time. It really was a good showcase for games made outside of the regimented console arena.

    I always wished a sequel would turn up, but to no avail. I love it enough that it will stay amongst some of my best game experiences.

    Thanks Rob

  • Galathorn #65 11 months ago

    When I bought Magicka, it felt so much like Moonstone, it felt so much like the amiga days, great game and too many bugs to enjoy it. An awesome idea but flawed by too much guru meditations. And I actually paid to play Magicka and it's as buggy as this awesome game. Don't flame me, I'm drunk and not fluent in the english language. Peace. Love those articles. Thank you. PS. I believe in Carrier Command remake.

  • cawley1 #66 11 months ago

    I bought Amiga Moonstone for £9 from the Game Exchange in Shepherd's Bush a few days after my first nipper was born in 2005.
    It was in mint condition (the disks still had their Mindscape band holding them together) and I stuck it on eBay at £1 starting price...
    Some guy in Germany won the auction a week later for £231!
    I Didn't realise at the time I bought it the following this one h

  • CatWeazle #67 11 months ago

    Superb game! We used to love playing this round my mate's house. It was a bit crashy though - it was about 50:50% whether the game would freeze before anyone had won.

  • IkariW #68 11 months ago

    Oh man, I used to love this! I still have it somewhere, for my A500 with Meg upgrade and external drives! haha. :) Sure it was 2 or 3 disks wasn't it?
    But anyway, good fighting games on the Amiga were pretty rare, But surely Moonstone, Full Contact, Chambers of Shaolin, and the Amiga version of International Karate + must rank as some of the best? :)

    Although, in my humble opinion, some of the best MP games on the Amiga should include Fire Power & Ebon Star which was like Geometry Wars-ish, but more tactics and 4 players!
    Anyway, wheres the C64 Racing Destruction Set retrospective EG?! ;) (Now that was a game!)
    Edited by IkariW at 20/06/11 @ 12:19

  • Softie2k #69 11 months ago

    Probably the scariest game known to man!

  • reeferchief #70 11 months ago

    Really enjoyed the read up. Many happy memories of smoking the good herb into the night with my mates and ripping each other apart on this game. This stole a lot of teenage hours from me.

    "Beware the rat men under the full moon"
    Edited by reeferchief at 20/06/11 @ 16:45

  • spiderignacio #71 11 months ago

    I cannot understand how someone who made this piece of art could be involved in Golden Axe Beast Rider or iron man...

    Anyway, I would love a PSN/Live port in HD and improved gameplay. Maybe even a reebot as a good Hack'n slash with a deeper story and Demon's souls atmosphere.

  • SpaceMonkey77 #72 11 months ago

    @Spider

    Yeah, I think a remake of it would make a great XBLA/iOS/PSN game. Would need some tough work, but in the right hands, it could be awesome sauce again.

  • SAMagic #73 11 months ago

    My most epic memory of this was from the time when, without yer fancy internet, stories and 'achievements' were simply passed between friends at school. Everyone was playing it as it was 'the' game of the moment (Gore and knights - hardly surprising, then).

    So I'm playing and get chased by the dragon. I decided to give it a valiant attempt and simply moved up to it, expecting to get flattened or roasted by the one-hit kills that it could do (I believe you needed the dragon amulet to prevent these from happening). I did the upwards stab attack once and it hit the dragon on the neck - "Blood, I see blood!" In fact, the dragon couldn't retaliate. So I held down the controller and repeated it. It hit again and again. My brother laughed out loud. I kept doing it for several minutes and _eventually_ it died. We couldn't believe it. My brother bragged about it to his mates and I felt like a true legend!

    An absolutely awesome game. I can't echo the need for a remake enough. It wouldn't need to be fancy at all.

  • gav082 #74 11 months ago

    hd remake for PSN and XBLA!
    I remember getting to the middle once, and having to face the woman who had a tornado for legs! No one believed me at first, because it was so hard to get the key from the swamp area as most of the chests there caused the game to crash!
    One of the best games for the Amiga, along with North and South, Pirates, speed ball 2, monkey island, flash back, the chaos engine alien breed 2, and hero quest.