This might surprise you, but I wasn’t always a writer. I was once a brave adventurer like you! And in addition to being a brave adventurer, I was also an engineer. That is where our story for Castle of Doom begins.

Let’s travel back to 1990, when I was attending Virginia Tech, pursuing my computer engineering degree. As part of the curriculum, I had to take the class Introduction to Artificial Intelligence and Pattern Recognition (EE 4524). As with lots of college classes, in addition to many programming assignments and exams, there was also a final project. Like many college students, I procrastinated on starting my project until the very end of the semester. Thankfully, I had a secret trick up my sleeve: Thanksgiving Break.

As soon as I got home for the week of Thanksgiving, I set up my computer on the kitchen table (thanks, Mom and Dad, for not complaining) and got to work on my final project.

Now I’d always been a fan of fantasy and early video games. I loved movies like Mazes and Monsters (1982) and TV shows like Wizards and Warriors (1983). Given that we had free rein for the project, I set out to write the most epic fantasy video game ever. For the next week, that’s what I did.

For those who want the technical details, the computer I used was an IBM PS/2, the program was written in PASCAL, and there were over 4000 lines of code. Also, I had to code up mouse subroutines in order for the mouse to work as a graphical interface.

A week later, when I finished, the game was a masterpiece. The player would enter the Castle of Doom, search around looking for artifacts, try not to get killed, and make it back out of the castle alive. Upon surviving and collecting the treasures, the player was awarded the status of being a Knight of the Round Table. There was a cool inventory list and everything.

Looking back at the original game screens makes me smile. This was so 1990s!








I know you’re all wondering what grade I got. Yes, it was an A :)

Good news! I graduated with a Computer Engineering Bachelor’s Degree, went on to get a Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering (with a specialty in Digital Design), and then worked for 15 years designing computer chips for Motorola, Intel, and Marvell.

Fast forward to the year 2014. I had two kids by this point, and in school, they were using a tool called Scratch, developed by MIT Media Lab, to program their own video games. While helping my kids with their programs and the software, a realization hit me. I loved computer programming! I loved writing video games! The decision was made. I was going to become a Scratcher. That day, I got hard at work writing some amazing Scratch video games to go along with my books. You should check them out. My Scratch user ID is triciajh, and the games are also available to play on my website.

After writing some amazing games, such as Escape from King Tut’s Tomb and Quest for the Hidden Keys, a fantastic idea hit me. I could recode my original Castle of Doom game in Scratch. After all, I had the gamebook, which explained how to play the game. And so that’s what I did. After 24 years, Castle of Doom had a new life . . . on Scratch!

For a fun comparison, here are the 2014 Scratch gameplay screens.








Life got busy. I stopped coding and started doing more writing. I’d always loved reading interactive adventures, and I decided that I wanted to write my own. In 2018, I published the first book in my Pick Your Own Quest series: King Tut’s Adventure. Basically, you’re King Tut, and Egypt is under a major threat. You need to save the day. There are over 40 endings. Sure, you might save Egypt in one ending, but you might get eaten by a crocodile in another. Life is tough! A ton of planning goes into writing these interactive adventures, but my engineering background made it a natural fit for me. I wrote 16 more, including fun titles like Trapped in the 80s and Medusa’s Head.

And then . . . a brilliant idea hit me. It was awesome. It was epic. It was never done before.

What if I turned my original Castle of Doom video game, from 1990, into a Pick Your Own Quest adventure? A book 34 years in the making!

Once the idea appeared in my brain, I couldn’t let it go, and so I got to work. As usual, I brainstormed with my amazing partner, Alec Johnston, who was fully on board with the idea. Alec helped come up with a ton of death traps, including the Jumping Jaws and the 3D Shadows (make sure to thank him if these get you in the end). Together, we also came up with the brilliant idea of not making the book a solo mission, but instead having it be a questing party.

Alec had written some fantasy stories some number of years earlier, and in these fantasy stories were three characters: Baltus the Dwarf, Kaileth the Elf, and Galfilor the Wizard. These were the perfect characters to accompany our hero (you!) on the quest through the Castle of Doom, and so they became a part of the quest. As I started writing, the characters came to life in such a fun way!

So here we are at the end of the story of Castle of Doom, and now you’re reading this book. I can honestly say that 34 years ago, when I originally wrote the PASCAL video game for my Artificial Intelligence class, I never could have imagined the path it would take.

And with all that said, I’ll leave you with two final notes.

First, I dug out my old 3.5-inch floppy disk for Castle of Doom, bought an external floppy disk drive, stuck it in, and crossed my fingers. The disk was still good! I was able to copy the files onto my computer. Sure, it wouldn’t play on my new computer, but being an engineer, I found a solution. I downloaded some software called DOSBOX, and using it, I was able to type:

C:\> castle

The game ran! I may have cried a tiny bit.

My second note is this. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

Thank you to the readers who have made it possible for me to write the books I love. I honestly have the best job in the world, and I’m so happy to be able to nerd out over Castle of Doom with all of you!