is a puzzle game developed by

Tecmo , was a Japanese video game corporation founded in 1967. It had its headquarters in Kudankita, Chiyoda, Tokyo. Its subsidiary, Tecmo Inc, was located in Torrance, California. Tecmo was formerly known as Tehkan. Tecmo is known for the ''Captain ...

in 1986 for an arcade release on custom hardware based on the

Z80 The Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor introduced by Zilog as the startup company's first product. The Z80 was conceived by Federico Faggin in late 1974 and developed by him and his 11 employees starting in early 1975. The first working samples were ...

chipset. It was ported to multiple systems including the Nintendo Entertainment System and Commodore 64. The

PC Engine The TurboGrafx-16, known as the outside North America, is a home video game console designed by Hudson Soft and sold by NEC Home Electronics. It was the first console marketed in the fourth generation, commonly known as the 16-bit era, thoug ...

version was known as ''Zipang'' and the

Game Boy The is an 8-bit fourth generation handheld game console developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan on April 21, 1989, in North America later the same year, and in Europe in late 1990. It was designed by the same t ...

version as ''Solomon's Club''. A prequel, '' Solomon's Key 2'', was released in 1992 for the NES.

Gameplay

left, Arcade gameplay The player, controlling a sorcerer known only as Dana, must overcome unlimited enemy spawning, challenging level designs, a countdown timer, instant death from any physical contact with enemies, and limited ways to dispatch enemies. Dana is sent to retrieve Solomon's Key to restore the world to light from demons that were accidentally released. The object of the game is to advance through the 50 rooms of "Constellation Space" by acquiring a key to the door that leads to the next room before a timer runs out. The game incorporates elements of the platform shooter genre. Dana can run, jump, create or destroy orange blocks adjacent to him as well as create fireballs to destroy demons. The orange blocks can also be destroyed by hitting them with the character's head twice. Along the way Dana can acquire items to upgrade his firepower and extra lives, as well as items that award bonus points and unlock hidden rooms. With certain items, Dana must make, then break blocks (sometimes in a certain manner) to make these appear. In the NES version, a "GDV" (Game Deviation Value) score also appears at the game over screen. The score uses a weighted composite of several factors (like levels completed, items found, time and points) which gives the player a good idea of how well the last game was played. The higher the GDV, the better the game. ''Solomon's Key'' has many hidden items and secret levels that are hard to find which enhances the reward for playing. The ending slightly changes depending on which secret levels, if any, the player finds and completes.

Levels

There are 64 levels in total, of which 15 are secret and one is the final level. The main 48 levels are divided into groups of 4 with one group for each of the 12

Zodiac The zodiac is a belt-shaped region of the sky that extends approximately 8° north or south (as measured in celestial latitude) of the ecliptic, the apparent path of the Sun across the celestial sphere over the course of the year. The pat ...

constellation (in order, Aries,

Taurus Taurus is Latin for 'bull' and may refer to: * Taurus (astrology), the astrological sign * Taurus (constellation), one of the constellations of the zodiac * Taurus (mythology), one of two Greek mythological characters named Taurus * '' Bos tauru ...

Gemini Gemini may refer to: Space * Gemini (constellation), one of the constellations of the zodiac ** Gemini in Chinese astronomy * Project Gemini, the second U.S. crewed spaceflight program * Gemini Observatory, consisting of telescopes in the Norther ...

Cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...

, Leo,

Virgo Virgo may refer to: *Virgo (astrology), the sixth astrological sign of the zodiac * Virgo (constellation), a constellation *Virgo Cluster, a cluster of galaxies in the constellation Virgo *Virgo Stellar Stream, remains of a dwarf galaxy * Virgo Su ...

, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn,

Aquarius Aquarius may refer to: Astrology * Aquarius (astrology), an astrological sign * Age of Aquarius, a time period in the cycle of astrological ages Astronomy * Aquarius (constellation) * Aquarius in Chinese astronomy Arts and entertainme ...

and Pisces). The final level is called Solomon's room. Each constellation has a secret bonus room which can only be accessed by finding a seal for the constellation in the last room of the group. The other three levels are Page of Time, Page of Space and the Princess Room, which occur only if the player has acquired the hidden Seals of Solomon.

Development

''Solomon's Key'' was designed by Michitaka Tsuruta, who took inspiration from ''

Lode Runner ''Lode Runner'' is a 2D puzzle-platform game, developed by Doug Smith and published by Broderbund in 1983. Its gameplay mechanics are similar to ''Space Panic'' from 1980. The player controls a character who must collect all the gold pieces in a ...

'' and added the ability to both destroy and create tiles. The initial game design leaned towards being more of an action title until Tsuruta's boss at Tecmo, Kazutoshi Ueda, suggested it incorporate puzzle elements. Tsuruta took inspiration from Greek mythology as well as the film '' Jason and the Argonauts'' for the visual aesthetic of the game. The title of the game itself came from the sales manager, Harano, after one of the developers explained that the star-like symbol throughout the levels was the seal of Solomon and that there was a book called the ''

Key of Solomon The ''Key of Solomon'' ( la, Clavicula Salomonis; he, מפתח שלמה []) (Also known as "The Greater Key of Solomon") is a pseudepigraphical grimoire (also known as a book of spells) attributed to Solomon, King Solomon. It probably dates ba ...

''. "I like it," Harano stated, at which point it got its title.

Ports

In 1988, a port of ''Solomon's Key'' was released for the Master System in Japan. In 1990, Pack-In-Video converted the game for the

under the title ''Zipang''. In April 1991, a

version was released under the title ''Solomon's Club''. It was developed by Graphic Research.

Reception

In Japan, ''Game Machine'' listed ''Solomon's Key'' on their September 1, 1986 issue as being the eighteenth most-successful table arcade unit of the month. Solomon's Key sold 300,000 copies in Japan.

Legacy

The NES version of the game was released for the Wii Virtual Console on November 19, 2006 in North America and on December 15, 2006 in the PAL regions. Later, it was also released on the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U Virtual Console. Since then, it has been released as part of the Nintendo Switch Online: Nintendo Entertainment System games. A 'reverse engineered' port from the Atari ST version was released for the Commodore Amiga in 2013.http://hol.abime.net/6009 Details of Amiga version on Hall Of Light In 1992, a prequel was released for the

NES The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit third-generation home video game console produced by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan in 1983 as the commonly known as the The NES, a redesigned version, was released in American ...

named '' Solomon's Key 2'' (called ''Fire 'n Ice'' in North America). '' Monster Rancher Explorer'' (''Solomon'' in Japan), also released by Tecmo, features the same gameplay but with ''

Monster Rancher ''Monster Rancher'', known in Japan as , is a Japanese media franchise and series of life simulation role-playing video games created by Tecmo (now Koei Tecmo). The series consists of fifteen games across numerous different video game platforms, a ...

'' characters in the North American version.

References

External links

* * *{{WoS game, id=0004643
''Solomon's Key''
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