Game 489: Quest (1981)

 

Also copyrighted was the game that Quest took most of its ideas from.

      

Quest

United States

Independently developed; Aardvark Software Technical Services (publisher)

Released 1981 for TRS-80 and TRS-80 Color Computer; 1982 for Commodore VIC-20; 1983 for Commodore 64 and TI-99.
Date Started: 25 March 2023

Date Ended: 25 March 2023

Total Hours: 3

Difficulty: Easy (2.0/5)

Final Rating: 13

Ranking at Time of Posting: 68/508 (13%)

      

Quest is a "campaign" game, clearly inspired by Robert Clardy's Wilderness Campaign (1979), though simplified to the point that it's not much fun. It was created by a Robert Retelle and published by Aardvark Software, a mail-order company that released games with such awful production values that I almost suspect it was a front for a money launderer. Among other things, its manuals were in ALL CAPS and had cover art drawn by preschool children. The title screen of this game is another example, although I should note that the TRS-80 Color Computer version, at least, had a more artistic title. This was the only version I could find.

      

A new game begins.

    

A new game starts as soon as the game loads, with no character creation. The unnamed hero's army starts in the northern half of a world divided by a straight river. The entire game world is represented on the one screen. The goal is to reach the citadel of Moorlock in the southeastern corner and defeat him, bringing freedom to the land. The army begins with 10 men, 8 leather jerkins, 7 suits of chain mail, 29 rations, and 108 gold coins. The only commands are the four directions, (I)nventory, (U)se, and redraw the (M)ap. The game is excruciatingly slow at 100% speed, and I kicked the emulator into turbo mode for most of the game.

      

A hairy-legged man in a skirt kneels in front of a computer screen and draws lines in the dirt with a sword.

      

Two cities appear on the map. Other locations--caves, ruins, towers, and special encounters--are hidden until you move the army one square away. I've seen some descriptions of the game that say these are randomized. It's possible that they are for other versions of the game, but the C64 version I played always offered these locations in the same coordinates no matter how many times I restarted. Weirder, hitting the (M) ap command reconfigures the positions of mountains and swamp but not anything else.

      

The cave is too dark. Time to use a lamp.

    

Quest follows the basic "campaign" template. As you move around the map and explore the various areas, your fortunes wax and wane. Friendly armies may merge with yours; enemies lead you into combat. Ruins and towers deliver chests of gold but also occasional combats. You buy rations and supplies in cities, as well as special items necessary to enter the ruins (shovel), caves (lamp), and tower (grapple). "Puzzles," far more interesting in the Clardy game, boil down here to hitting the "U" key and picking the obvious item.

    

Buying items in the store. The offerings change every so often.

     

In combat, success comes down to your number of men, number of arms, experience (gained by winning previous combats), and a "luck" roll made each round. Except for the final battle at the citadel, the game almost always offers enemy parties that are weaker than your own, removing any suspense in combat.

       

Fighting some monsters in a cave.

      

By far, the most significant logistical challenge in Quest is keeping everyone fed. Every 10 moves, the army consumes a number of rations equal to half the number of men. (More in the mountains, but there's no reason to enter the mountains.) When you get to 0 food, a random number of men die when it's time to eat. This has the ripple effect of reducing the amount that you can carry, so you're constantly having to stop to dump equipment after each new batch of soldiers dies.

  

But overall, it's not hard to keep the army on a consistently upward trajectory, particularly since when other armies join yours, they bring gold and equipment with them. In fact, you get so much gold from these encounters that I'm not sure it's even worth searching ruins, caves, and towers. You could just dance back and forth in front of a town and build your army from random encounters.

        

Another group joins me.

    

Eventually, you have to buy a boat to cross the river. Once your army is strong enough, you can make your way to the citadel. The force guarding the citadel has an extremely varied number of soldiers. I initially approached it with about 150 soldiers, and they had 500. When I had 500, I tried again, and they had 800. So I kept playing until I had 800, attacked a third time, and they were down to 500. Their number of "arms" seems to increase in a linear manner throughout the game, however.

    

The cities sell a "siege tower" for 9,999 gold. Maybe you're meant to purchase it before trying to attack the citadel, but I never had anywhere near that much money. I just attacked with a regular army, and it took nearly an hour of mashing the "F" key (for "Fight") before I whittled the enemy down to zero soldiers. Maybe the siege tower would have made this go faster. There were times that neither side lost any men for four or five rounds in a row.   

      

        

Eventually, I killed the last soldier, and the message "HAIL TO THE VICTOR" scrolled down the screen. Yay.

       

You could have at least thrown in an exclamation point.

    

The only mode of character development is in that nebulous "experience" statistic, but even with that, I don't really see "campaign" games as RPGs. Many titles have done much better with the theme, including Avalon Hill's Fortress of the Witch King (1983). I think I even enjoyed Braminar (1987) more.

   

Fellow blogger El Explorador de RPG covered the game and mentioned that Aardvark published a Quest II in 1984 for the TRS-80 Color Computer, Commodore 64, and DOS.  I haven't been able to find any of these. (The generic name doesn't help.) But the gameplay seems to be similar enough that El Explorador covered it in the same entry, so I'll let it go.