Heretic

Player notes

About this game

Heretic takes the first-person maze shooter into a world of spellcasting enemies, magical weapons and useful artifacts. You begin with an Elven Wand, then search connected rooms and courtyards for ammunition, keys and the route onward. Finding supplies and keeping an escape route open matter as much as aiming.

Choose New Game, the first episode and a difficulty to begin. The arrow keys move forward or backward and turn; hold Alt with Left or Right to sidestep. Ctrl fires and Space opens doors or operates switches. Unlike a modern mouse-look shooter, the original keyboard layout uses Page Down to look up, Delete to look down and End to centre your view.

Artifacts have their own inventory: use [ and ] to choose an item, then Enter to use it. Tab opens the map, and F1 shows the original reference screens. Save from F2 and load from F3. Flight controls apply only while the appropriate artifact is active, rather than granting unlimited flight.

This is Raven Software's 1994 game in its original DOS 1.2 shareware edition, containing the City of the Damned episode. It does not include the registered game's later episodes or a modern remaster. The original installer archive, installed files and distribution notices are preserved; the game and its menus remain in English.