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Friday, August 2, 2024

Game 527: The Quest for the Holy Grail (1981)

         
The Quest for the Holy Grail
United States
HHH Enterprises (developer and publisher, first edition); Superior Software (developer and publisher, second edition)
Released 1981 for Apple II
Date Started: 23 July 2024
Date Ended: 1 August 2024
Total Hours: 3
Difficulty: Easy (2.0/5)
Final Rating: (to come later)
Ranking at time of posting: (to come later)  
      
One of the greatest cons ever pulled was convincing a large portion of the public that the Holy Grail was an actual thing--something that could be retrieved by Indiana Jones or Robert Langdon--and not just a weird plot device of 12th-century French literature. It is the subject of numerous myths and conspiracy theories. Heinrich Himmler sponsored an expedition to find it. Numerous churches across Europe claim to possess it. There's a rumor that it's in Fort Knox. This cannot be stressed enough: There was never anything to find or possess. The Holy Grail was invented almost 1,200 years after the death of Jesus Christ, and it wasn't even "holy" at first.
         
We don't know when the first grail story was written. We do know that in the 1180s, French poet Chrétien de Troyes began work on Perceval, ou le Conte du Graal ("Perceval, or the Story of the Grail") using some lost text as a source, but he never finished it. In it, the naive young knight Perceval happens upon a mysterious castle owned by the Fisher King. The king invites Perceval to dine with him. During the dinner, a servant walks into the dining hall carrying a lance with blood dripping from its tip. He is followed by two more servants carrying golden candelabra, and they are followed by "a girl . . . holding a graal-dish in both her hands." The word means "cup" or "dish" in old French, going back to the Latin gradalis. It isn't the Cup of Christ; it isn't holy; it isn't even the.
    
It certainly isn't the secret to eternal happiness.
       
The episode is deliberately meant to be confusing. Perceval has all kinds of questions--Who is the Fisher King? What is his real name? Why is he injured? What was the purpose of the little procession? Where were they going? Why is the lance bleeding? That dish has food in it! Who are they taking it to?--but he sits there in silence because he's been warned that to ask too many questions is rude. Unfortunately, the whole episode has been purposefully designed to make him ask questions--it's the only way to break a curse--so it's with more than a little consternation that the Fisher King and his staff watch the silent youth ride away the next day.
    
The graal here is just a prop--one of many that Perceval sees during his visit, and if Chrétien hadn't called it out in his subtitle, we probably would have thought no more about it than the candelabras. When he died and left the work unfinished, dozens of authors stepped forward with their own fan-fiction, which of course had to explain why the graal was of particular importance. Some of them went pretty wild with it, and I wish I could spend time talking about all the variants of this story (look up Diu Crône or Perlesvaus if you get a chance, or Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, where the grail is a stone), but for our purposes, the most important bit is that an author named Robert de Boron, writing about 10 years after Chrétien, had an "aha!" moment and drew a line between the graal and Jesus's cup at the Last Supper, and he we are. At some point, some moron decided that even the innocent Perceval was too worldly to be the knight that solves the quest, so the useless Galahad appeared and has contributed absolutely nothing to the Arthurian cycle ever since.
      
Neither has a certain 1975 film.
      
One constant remains in almost all the Arthurian stories of the Grail (and the non-Arthurian ones need not be considered, as the Grail is an Arthurian plot device; it would be like considering Mjollnir without any connection to Thor): The so-called Quest for the Grail, holy or otherwise, is never about finding the Grail, or possessing it, or bringing it back to Camelot. It is about understanding its mysteries. In Chrétien, those mysteries are pagan; in de Boron and his followers (including Malory), they are Christian. The quest is about being worthy enough, whether by blood or deed, to stand within the Grail's presence. It is about concluding a ritual that must be concluded for a stasis (represented in some sources by the wounds of the Fisher King and the ailing of his lands) to be lifted. It is a fictional object, and I am an atheist, and yet even I bristle at the sacrilege when some adaptation has the hero touch the Grail or--gods help us--drink from it. That's the kind of imbecility that got Perceval in trouble in the first place.
     
You can imagine my reaction, then, to a backstory that says, "The quest is to locate the Holy Grail, the golden cup that holds the secret to eternal happiness." I can almost see the Fisher King doing a face-palm. No, it didn't really affect my enjoyment of the game, such as it was. I just wanted an excuse to write about the Grail.  
    
Superior Software was a rare company that made its programs completely transparent to the user.
          
The backstory in question comes from the introduction to The Quest for the Holy Grail, an early adventure-RPG hybrid recently analyzed--it feels like I say this a lot lately--by El Explorador de RPG, whose entry offers a more thorough analysis of the specific statistics and mathematics than I'm going to attempt. Authors Thorne D. Harris III and Mark Ben Hattier advertised it as "fully listable and modifiable," which no doubt contributed to the fact that the most common extant version online has its title and victory screens vandalized by some "warez" jackass; as El Explorador points out, it's possible that he may have made changes to the contents of the adventure as well. Fortunately, reader LanHawk was able to locate a clean copy for me. Not only does this copy have the proper screens, it includes in-game documentation that the more common version does not. 
         
Character creation has you either roll random values for bravery, fame, wisdom, virtue, and wealth (the first four on a scale of 1-5; the last on a scale of around 100-600). Well, it's clearly supposed to roll random values, but you always get the same ones no matter what. You can also just type in your own values if you'd like. El Explorador noted that this ability reminded him of the character creation process in The Temple of Apshai, and Harris told me that he had indeed played that game.
           
I'm lonely, but at least I'm not sick.
       
The game begins at King George's Inn, where you have the option to hire additional people for your party, including a barber, a minstrel, a juggler, a jester, and a friar. Each of them has skills useful for various encounters. You can also buy up to 6 unknown potions for 10 gold pieces each. There are other random encounters to be had in the inn--a wizard threatens you and your bravery goes down; a barmaid flirts with you and your wisdom goes up (?)--if you linger.
    
The game then takes you to a relatively faithful map of Great Britain, though denizens of the Scottish Highlands may have some objections. Seven monasteries--all claiming to have the Grail--are marked on the map: St. Ben, St. John, St. Sebastian, St. Stephen, St. Michael, St. James, and St. Mark. These do not correspond, as far as I can tell, with any real locations. The location of the Grail is randomized for each new game. Your location is represented by a little blinking dot. You start in the center of the island, in modern-day Yorkshire.
      
How is there no St. George?
      
Your first choice is the monastery that you want to visit. The little dot moves across the map and, as it does so, is frequently interrupted by random encounters in the forest. Some examples:
    
  • A rabbit blocks your path. You can either kick it aside, spear it, go around it, or ask your companions to help. Whatever you do, the rabbit could be a regular rabbit or a killer rabbit (the only nod to Monty Python and the Holy Grail that I saw, though I'm hardly an expert on the film). 
       
Except I didn't know it was innocent until now.
       
  • A dragon blocks the path. There's a chance that it will just kill you instantly. Otherwise, you have options to fight, walk on by, or ask your companions for help. A minstrel seems to help in almost all these cases, but I'm not sure how. Maybe he lulls the dragon to sleep with a tune.
       
The dragon encounter is one of few preceded by a graphic.
       
  • You find a tavern. Some of your companions might disappear permanently. You might meet Sir Lancelot, who tells you a letter that the name of the monastery with the Grail contains.
          
The game features the trope of the ale-loving friar nine years before Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.
      
  • You meet a fair maiden. You can approach, walk on by, or ask your companions for help. She may turn out to be an innocent maiden or a seductress or witch.
  • You come up against a man-eating tree, a group of sirens, a cesspool, or the Black Knight. You can fight, walk around, or ask companions for help.
      
How do you fight a cesspool?
     
  • You find a chest that may or may not have gold pieces. Sometimes the chest is covered by a tangled mass of vines.
    
Your choices in these encounters can make your attributes go up or down, although not always in predictable ways. You might lose bravery for trying to kill what turns out to be a regular rabbit or gain fame from trying to walk away from a killer rabbit, having it attack you, and then winning the subsequent battle. I lost 2 virtue and 2 fame for just opening what turned out to be an empty chest. Successful outcomes tend to reward you with bravery, fame, or wisdom. 
       
The game frequently recaps your status.
     
When you finally arrive at a monastery, you have to pay to enter unless you have a friar with you. The monastery says you have to leave by sundown, which is enough time to search three rooms of five: kitchen, library, chapel, great hall, and room of penance. Like the wilderness, these come with their own random encounters:
   
  • You meet a peasant girl delivering eggs to the monastery's kitchen. The game has you automatically violate her, without even a role-playing choice, and consequently lose all your virtue.
  • In the kitchen, you find a pot of stew. You greedily grab it and burn your hand, losing wisdom.
  • In the library, you accidentally open the "Necronemcon" and get cursed for a decrease in random attributes.
  • In the library, you find a map to the Holy Grail (as with Lancelot's clue, you can only make out one letter). The game has you automatically steal it, which costs you almost all your virtue but raises your wisdom.
       
That narrows it down to two.
      
  • In the library, you find "books to aid thee" and your wisdom goes up.
  • In the chapel, you're asked to donate even more money to the collection plate for a chance to gain virtue.
  • In the chapel, there is a funeral for a brave peasant who challenged the Black Knight. Just watching the procession, your bravery goes down.
      
That seems a little arbitrary.
       
  • In the chapel, you join monks in prayer and increase your virtue.
  • In the great hall, monks are shooting dice. You can join in (and have a chance to win or lose about 150 gold) or decline. Declining increases wisdom.
  • Wandering into the Room of Penance, you are mistaken for a sinner and tortured by the monks.
  • In the same room, you find a maiden who the monks claim is a witch. You can free her, with consequences depending on whether the game decides she is a "true witch" or not.
       
Potions, which you can purchase at inns, can sometimes forestall the negative effects of these interactions.
     
A potion neutralizes the "Nemocron."
     
When you're done with the monastery, you can set off for a different one, re-enter the one you just left (for another donation), or save the game (the only place you can do so). When you reload, you'll be back in a tavern again and have a chance to recruit new companions.
    
When you finally find the monastery that has the Grail, you get a "strange feeling" when you enter any of its rooms. Only one room has the Grail. The game asks whether you want to use a potion to aid your search or donate some money to the poor box for a last-minute boost in virtue. You then get a choice to humble yourself, take a potion again, or "summon thy bravery and fame" to aid in the search. I'm not sure exactly how these options affect your ability to find the Grail. When I got to the monastery that had it, I took a save state, tried all the options, and found it no matter what I did. However, my attributes may already have been high enough. I suspect that as long as at least one of your attributes is over a certain threshold, you're able to find it.
        
The final game options.
      
The endgame shows a series of screens of different colors, then an image of the Grail with beams of light coming out of it. Finally, you're taken to a recap of your statistics. At least the game doesn't say that you drank from the Grail.
    
The glory of the Grail.
      
The Quest for the Holy Grail isn't much of an RPG, but I don't think that's what the authors were going for in the first place. I think the chaotic randomness of the game is intentional. There's a certain fun in watching your statistics rise and fall in response to the game's fortunes and misfortunes, but for the most part the encounters and their results are too random to allow for any real strategy or role-playing. An expanded game of this nature, with more varied encounters, more role-playing choices, and a more interesting combat system, could be authentically enjoyable. I was struck by how much it anticipated the later Legend of the Red Dragon (1989) in many of its elements and its overall tone. As for Grail's own sources, I can't identify any for sure. In a vague way, it feels like a "campaigner" (see the glossary). I would have said that the authors could have been exposed to the Robert Clardy titles or (as El Explorador guesses) to the Maces and Magic series, but when I asked the principal author of any previous games he had played, he mentioned only Apshai.
     
My final statistics.
          
The game has an interesting origin story, told to me by Thorne D. Harris III, a New Orleans-area attorney now in his 70s. In 1980, Harris developed a brain tumor and went through a 12-hour surgery to remove it, which caused deafness in one ear and paralysis in half his face. In the midst of a long recovery, his wife bought him an Apple II to give him something to do. He taught himself programming from books and magazines and started writing a legal column for Nibble magazine.
      
A 1982 ad for the game.
             
In 1981, Harris was joined in his recovery by his brother-in-law, Mark Hattier, then 15, who had broken his leg in a motorcycle accident. Hattier learned to create graphics in Applesoft Basic, and the two of them decided to collaborate on a game. They initially called their company HHH enterprises (Harris, Hatier, and a third friend, Burt Hortsmann), but someone beat them to that trademark, so they went with Superior Software, Inc. (not to be confused with Superior Software, Ltd. or Superior Software, Inc., out of Minneapolis). They published programs from several other authors throughout the early 1980s, selling their titles primarily through magazine ads. These included Asteroid Belt (1982) and Doom Valley (1982). Superior's philosophy, as articulated by Harris in a 1982 letter to Softside magazine, was to publish its games unlocked and freely listable and modifiable, so that budding programmers could learn from their inspection of a game's code. They also offered a portion of the royalties to anyone who wanted to write new modules and encounters for Grail, but Harris says that no one ever sent anything in. Harris became something of an expert in software law and wrote The Legal Guide to Computer Software Protection (1984) and The Software Developer's Complete Legal Companion (1994). Hattier went to Harvard University, became successful in finance, and according to Harris is now "semi-retired" in New Orleans.
    
I'm coincidentally in New Orleans as this entry publishes, trying to get the first four Riftwar books read before I start Betrayal at Krondor late next week. I think I'm going to make it.
   

77 comments:

  1. Interesting article for a mediocre game. Not so long ago, after reading the projects of two Russian to play every single Star Wars computer game (I think they covered more than 250 now), I pondered which non-historical "theme" had such breadth that you could make a whole blog about it. I saw only 4: Star Wars, Star Trek, D&D and LOTR. I had forgotten the Arthurian theme, certainly smaller than the other 4, but still long enough to keep you going in all genres (Adventure, Arcade, RPGs, Strategy, Tactical). Speaking of which, it is absolutely not a RPG in any possible interpretation, but Chet I believe that for your personal enjoyment you should have a look at Chris Crawford's Excalibur (1983) - or at least at the manual [which is a novella from which you need to understand the rule of the game ^^].

    I liked the intro on the Grail. A long, long time ago I read Perceval, ou le Conte du Graal (Chrétien de Troyes is or at least was a compulsory reading in secondary school in France) but I had missed it was this Graal, and never associated it to the Holy Grail, because I never read de Boron, nor about this history, nor the "history" of the Grail itself.

    I chuckled at: "the only nod to Monty Python and the Holy Grail that I saw, though I'm hardly an expert on the film." and one paragraph later "A dragon blocks the path. There's a chance that it will just kill you instantly. Otherwise, you have options to fight, walk on by, or ask your companions for help. A minstrel seems to help in almost all these cases, but I'm not sure how."

    The game looks incredibly goof...

    "You meet a peasant girl delivering eggs to the monastery's kitchen. The game has you automatically violate her, without even a role-playing choice, and consequently lose all your virtue."

    Uh! That's coarse. Is it possible that you were lacking virtue or temperance or whatever when meeting her?

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    1. Add Warhammer to your list.

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    2. I got the peasant girl encounter when I had very high virtue and it still played out the same way.

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    3. Yeah, yikes. "This game casually informs you partway through that your character is a rapist" would probably be worth an ad hoc -50 adjustment to the Gimlet if I was the one playing these.

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    4. This game certainly hath lost an eighth.

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    5. A contemporary reviewer in Softalk of July 1982 doesn't make things better. The way he describes this element is that "the monasteries also contain hazards of various kinds (including a foxy lady or two), which can reduce one or more of the hero's characteristics".

      That review also mentions that your friar may choose to join a monastery rather than stay with your group. Overall it finds the scenario good, but the mechanics less so.

      Another short review in Core Magazine Issue 3 (1983) is even more critical: "[...] it rapidly becomes boring. I first solved the game in ten minutes."

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    6. Randomly raping a peasant seems particularly bizarre in context, given that the Arthurian/Grail mythos taken as a whole* show a restained sexual ethic: chastity in both sexes is a Big Thing and courtesy sets hard boundaries on what is acceptable. When sexual transgression happens in Arthurian stories it's generally a major plot point (e.g. Lancelot's adultery with Guinevere and seduction by Elaine), and the concept of what was transgressive was pretty narrow.

      If this story were set in Bronze Age Greece or a Game-of-Thrones-esque corrupt version of the Middle Ages, this would still be a pretty bizarre decision to make on the player's behalf but at least it'd be in line with the setting.

      *I use this phrase blithely, smashing together centuries of writing by authors from distinct cultures, but it does seem to be something of a constant.

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    7. ""This game casually informs you partway through that your character is a rapist" would probably be worth an ad hoc -50 adjustment to the Gimlet if I was the one playing these."

      It would be me for me, too, if it wasn't an all-text game from 1982. I extend a little leeway to games set during the "Dark Ages," when "role-playing" was a concept still foreign to CRPGs. While you know my feelings about sexual violence vis-a-vis Rance, it's a bit different (to me) when presented as a simple line of text with no graphic description.

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  2. The character of Friar Tuck is about as old as the Holy Grail though. The game should have had him drinking ale from it.

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    1. Is Friar Tuck particularly known for being a drunkard in those early Robin Hood stories, though? My knowledge of Robin Hood stories does not equal my knowledge of Arthuriana.

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    2. I'm not exactly an expert in Robin Hood folkore either, but my understanding is that yes, he is. At the very least, he's definitely a drunkard in Ivanhoe.

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    3. If you're referring to the "ale-loving friar" trope, if I'm not mistaken that one already existed back in the 14th century with Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" - not connected to Arthurian legend, but it definitely existed as an image in public memory way back then.

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    4. Brewing's been a major monastic industry for about as long as there were monasteries, so it's not surprising that "monks are all total boozehounds" was an established trope early.

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  3. There is no "fan-fiction" in Mythology. Any and all interpretations are equally valid because it is all folk lore and tales in the first place. There is no sacrilege to be had either - far as I know, the Arthurian Mythos has never been considered canon by the Catholic Church, or any of the dozens of different other Sects.

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    1. At The Digital Antiquarian, Jimmy quoted Pete Austin (of Level 9 Games) complaining that "“The legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table are known to all, but it is a sad fact that most modern interpretations seem to owe nothing to the original tales," and I said that Thomas Malory's contemporaries could've made the same complaint.

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    2. I realize that, Zack. I was using the phrase jokingly. Any author is free to do whatever he wants to the mythos and any reader is free to declare those elements stupid.

      I like the early, non-Christian grail stories. If you ever get a chance, read the Welsh Peredur where there's actually a severed head floating in its version of the grail.

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  4. "I just wanted an excuse to write about the Grail." Just yesterday I happened to re-read your first entry on Spirit of Excalibur and for an evening left my current reading passion of high sea piracy to spent an enjoyable time with Mallory and your blog, only to discover the little gem of an entry text today!

    Please, Chester, do write more about your Arthurian studies. I find them tremendously fascinating and engaging! Actually I have just ordered a copy fo Parzival…

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    1. Thanks, Fincas. I'll work more in as organically as I can.

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  5. Bwhahaha. The summary of the origins of the Grail legend had me cackling at how hilarious and also dead-on accurate it was. I guess I should expect no less from a genuine Arthurian scholar. Well done. :D

    I agree with you entirely on the relative merits of Percival vs. that limp noodle Galahad, BTW.

    I still have yet to finish reading my translated copy of Wolfram's Parzival, but even 3/4 of the way through, IMO it knocks the dull characters and nonsensical plotting of Malory into a cocked hat.

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  6. I loved this post!
    Thanks for the lit lesson!

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  7. I was wondering if you would still be able to get in contact with Mr. Harris to ask him if he happens to still have any copies of Doom Valley lying around that he would be willing to donate or sell to someone who would be willing to dump and preserve it? It's a somewhat infamous "lost" Apple II text adventure that has a really interesting backstory around the young teenagers who wrote it (they ended up being involved in a very Wargames-esque hacking escapade that made a decent amount of news at the time). Any help would be greatly appreciated!

    By the way, have you read any of Arthur Machen's "graal"-related stuff? I'm no expert on the subject itself, but he was one of the great decadent/supernatural authors, and his writing was wonderful.

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    1. What is "Arthur Machen's "graal"-related stuff?"

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    2. Check this out for a good overview:

      http://wormwoodiana.blogspot.com/2022/02/arthur-machen-and-mysteries-of-grail.html?m=1

      The author of that essay, Mark Valentine, is considered by some (myself included) to be one of the greatest living authors of (and authorities on) supernatural fiction, so check his books out too, if your tastes run in that direction!

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    3. I'm assuming that you've tried with the author of the adventure who was involved in the hack? He seems to be pretty easy to find. Though I guess his computer was seized at the time.

      (By the way, are you the Rob who is currently giving helpful information about El Diablero at Blue Renga? Hi!)

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    4. Hi Matt, yeah, same guy who comments over on Renga! I commented a few times here years ago too as "Brain Breaker", although I can't even remember what about anymore...

      Anyway, I did suss one of the game's authors out a couple of years ago (I think I actually might have mentioned it in a random comment at Renga at some point), and found a seemingly inactive Twitter account and a page for his computer security company. I did try to contact him through that (one of those online question form things, IIRC), but never got a response. I hadn't even thought about it again until I read this entry, so I thought I'd take the chance to bring it up once more, since Sir Addict mentioned having talked to the head of the company that released it. It's really one of the weirder "lost" adventures out there, in that it even made it into Kim Schuette's very popular solutions book, and the kids who made it became infamous enough that their shenanigans ended up in a NYT article. But here we are over 40 years later, and it's vanished without a trace!

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    5. Ah yeah, when I said "pretty easy to find" I meant that I found his LinkedIn and his security company. It may be hard to actually get a message through that way though!

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    6. @Rob, thanks for the link. I read quite a bit of Machen some ten years ago and except for "The Great God Pan" which has aged badly, I liked what I read. I missed his Grail novels, though. Fortunately they are available on Gutenberg, so I can read them on my Kindle.

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    7. I sent a message to Mr. Harris.

      I've read a lot of theories connecting the Grail to various Celtic horns and symbols such as the Horn of Plenty that Arthur and his men plunder in Preiddeu Annwfn. And it's clear to me that at least some of the Grail authors were thinking along these lines, as some of them say that the Grail supplies never-ending food or drink, or the food that the wielder most desires, or whatever. I'm not necessarily convinced that's what Chretien himself (or his source) had in mind. Cups in general are hardly specific to any one culture.

      In fact, despite writing everything I did above, I've always suspected that if Chretien had finished the story, he might have connected the Grail to the last supper cup. (And I also think it's possible that Robert de Boron didn't make up this element but instead had Chretien's source.) I base this belief on Chretien's grail procession starting with the bleeding lance, which of course has to make you think--and subsequently did make many Grail writers think--of the Lance of Longinus. There's also lots of other Christian language in the story. If Chretien already had a Christian connection to these holy artifacts in mind, then any Celtic connection becomes (for me) pretty weak.

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    8. And he's already responded that, alas, he does not have Doom Valley.

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    9. Oh well, the search continues... Thanks very much for taking the time to ask him!

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  8. I'm about to finish 'Magician: Apprentice', book one of the Riftwar Saga, and as far as I can tell, it's a bog-standard hero's journey in generic lands with some of the common names switched around (=the non-elves). I'm not sure I'm able to finish or bother with the following three books.

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    1. I may be mistaken because it has been around three decades that I read them, but the Riftwar books, which I only started to read because I enjoyed Betrayal at Krondor so much, really start to shine after the first couple of books.
      It starts as a totally obvious Tokien pastiche, but then develops into something unique. I don’t want to spoil your reading, and I may judge it differently from today’s viewpoint, but past-Fincas considered them good enough to inspire countless tabletop rpg sessions!

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    2. I read the first 12 books or so back in my younger days when they came out in the 80s... First trilogy is definitely a standard Tolkien rip off, although I enjoyed it. It does move on from there, but I think he wrote 30 books in total? Older me has not the time!

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    3. I'm a big fan of the first trilogy, it's not terribly original but it's very well constructed, perhaps the best of the Tolkien ripoffs.

      The Empire trilogy, co-authored with Janny Wurts, is widely considered Feist's best work. The many other series also follow the coming-of-age hero's journey formula in one way or another, they're fine but generally forgettable.

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    4. My assessment of the series is that it's good enough for me to be grateful that I have something to do on an airplane flight, but not good enough that I'd willingly read it if I had a lot of other options.

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    5. The Empire trilogy (possibly due to its co-written nature) is probably the best work out of the Riftwar novels, but I've always enjoyed Feist's work. Not the best author in the world, but definitely consistent.

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    6. In my memory, the first Empire book feels more like a collection of short stories; I agree the second and third Empire are very good.

      I also agree that Feist's later work gets formulaic and repetitive. I'd say Magician is his best work, because of the combination of Tolkien and the Japanese-ish culture.

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    7. I like both authors separately but for some reason not much the Empire series, maybe because magic takes a backseat (for Japanese intrigue they have good historical TV series). Political maneuvering tend to be prominent for the authors, which is maybe a bit rarer nowadays. The game in retrospect is more like an overland dungeon crawl, it could have benefitted from the SRPG format (where politics tend to figure more prominently).

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    8. past-Fincas considered them good enough to inspire countless tabletop rpg sessions!

      Which is fitting as the books themselves were derived from Feist and friends' rpg sessions.

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    9. I'd like, if I may, pose a question here, since this seems as good place as any to ask this: is it true that "Betrayal at Krondor" plot was not really written by Feist himself, but rather ghost-written by some hired authors, but later its plot was kind "adopted" and novelized by Feist? That, basically, "of Feist" are the setting and characters, but not the plot itself? (hence some OCs, too)?

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    10. Krondor was not ghostwritten by some hired authors. It's generally believed that Neal Hallford wrote the story of the game (and he's credited in the game itself, so no ghostwriting happening here), with Raymond Feist acting as an editor/consultant of sorts.

      I should also mention that prior to joining Dynamix, Hallford used to work at New World Computing on Tunels and Trolls and Planet's Edge (writing and design for the latter, manual documentation for the former).

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    11. You can read about BaK's genesis, including the roles of Hallford, Feist and others, in the Digital Antiquarian's detailed article on it. It also includes sources at the end in case you long for more.

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  9. Given your inclination for Arthurian legend, I was wondering whether you've seen 'The Green Knight' and what you think about it - maybe a possibility for one of those rare off-topic entries?

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    1. Such a great movie I thought. Really nailed the feeling of a world where the supernatural is natural.

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    2. I did see it, shortly after it came out in theaters, but only once. I remember being impressed by the quality of the filmmaking and the adherence to the original Green Knight stories. I liked that they didn't shy away from the supernatural elements. I remember thinking that there was a lot to analyze in the film and I figured I'd have to watch it a couple more times--and then never watched it again. I probably will at some point.

      I love Dev Patel. Didn't really need to see his semen, though.

      Many years ago, I worked on an Arthurian screenplay, and one of my struggles was how to reconcile the Middle English depictions of Gawain as the ideal knight with the post-Vulgate (including Malory) depictions of him as a much more venal and flawed character. My solution was to have him recount the Green Knight saga the way the poems tell it, showing Gawain as a brave, virtuous character, intercut with scenes showing what really happened, which would have been far darker. It felt like the David Lowery went through the same struggle of reconciliation.

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  10. I've hit a number of these kind of games looking to see if any are adventures (none have checked out) but I've always found them fascinating as a sort of "hidden genre" that ran through the 80s.

    They never really broke out until King of Dragon Pass and then they went into hiding again (although the same devs eventually made the two Six Ages games much later). I think there's a lot of latent untapped potential.

    The main key seems to be: it needs a crunchy enough strategy layer to work on its own like a Civ-style game or wargame, and then you direct action more from a protagonist-in-the-story-world level (even if you don't take a particular "role").

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  11. The story about the Grail is almost the most interesting part of the article (the game is not very good), although I am also glad that you contacted the author. I understand from what he told you that although the initial copyright with HHH Enterprises was from 1981, they couldn't really publish it until 1982 with Superior Software?

    And by the way, if LanHawk could tell me where the uncorrupted copy of the game is, I would be very grateful to be able to post some decent screenshots on my website...

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    1. Hi Explorador, seeing your comment here reminded me of something that came up over at Renga in Blue that struck me as possibly being of interest to you...

      Check out the "Octet" fanzine near the bottom of the page here:

      https://filedn.eu/l8fxcG16N8iQwXfMASdK9c4/DAI/doctechnique/IndexRevues.html

      I stumbled onto this while doing some research on early French language adventure games, and it seems like "Super Castel" may be a previously undiscovered RPG of some sort for the very obscure (but kind of awesome) early 80s DAI computer from Belgium.

      Love your site, by the way. My Spanish is terrible, but I read it anyway!

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    2. Sorry, the above comment should have been as by "Rob" (same guy who's been rattling on here about
      Doom Valley) not as Anonymous. I know that's against the rules here, but I forgot to enter it in. Whoops!

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    3. Thank you so much!

      Of course I'm interested, I'm adding it to my 1984 list, but my preliminary searches haven't turned up anything on the internet, so it's possible that I can only describe it as they do in Octet fanzine. In any case, when the time comes I will search again. Maybe there is some DAI software repository out there with the game hidden.

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    4. I sent El Explorador an uncorrupted copy by email.

      I'm actually not 100% sure on the date. Based on Harris's story, I didn't think it could have been published as early as 1981, and the uncorrupted copy has a copyright date of 1982. My guess is that the manual you show on your page was printed just before they made the change, and they didn't want to spend the money reprinting it with a new screenshot (note that the label is from Superior Software). On the other hand, that manual does have a 1981 copyright date, so I could be wrong.

      I should have verified all of this with Harris.

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    5. Oh, never mind. I see now that it was listed in Softalk as early as 1981 as being from HHH. Clearly there were two separate releases and I have the latter one. I'll amend the header info.

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    6. Thanks to the file you sent me, I found an identical copy on archive.org.

      I fear HHH's version has been lost.

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    7. Hi Explorador,

      I think what's going on there is that the site itself, Paradai,
      actually is a huge DAI software archive. But the guy who runs it, Bruno Viviens, seems to have a kind of old-school take on abandonware, in that he will only put software up for download if the original author has been found and has given permission to share the file(s). Check out this section of the site and you'll see what I mean:

      https://filedn.eu/l8fxcG16N8iQwXfMASdK9c4/DAI/programmes/index.htm

      Super Castel is listed on there, so I think he has it. Maybe if you show him the historical work you do on your site, he would be willing to share it with you privately?

      You might also try this source:

      https://dai.hypotheses.org/

      The guy I was chatting with about early French language adventures, Hugo Labrande, mentioned that he knew some academics who were working on studying and archiving this system, and that he might try to get more info on the obscure adventure games I discovered by talking to them, so I'd guess it's these same people.

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    8. Thanks for the clues to follow, although the problem I see with the first site is that although I really believe it has the game, it seems very strict with the issue of obtaining permission from the author, and it turns out that the author of Super Castel is unknown . I'll try to request the game privately due to historical interest, but I might as well contact a member of the Belgian Microdai club that published it to try to reach its original author.

      The second site seems a little more academic, and at first I didn't think they had much interest in games, but it turns out that one of its authors is currently researching the history of video games in Switzerland, so it could be a good contact.

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    9. It seems the transition from HHH to Superior Software happened in early 1982. While the game is still listed as being by the former in Apple Orchard of March/April 1982, it is already under the name of the latter in Softalk of March 1982.

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  12. Indeed, quite the interesting excursus. For a moment, when you talked about random events decreasing character stats without the player having any choice in the matter, I was strongly reminded of the "King Arthur Gamebook", e.g. a CYOA in the Arthurian setting, which I had read in my childhood. In it, the final quest is indeed finding the Holy Grail - however, to succeed, you have to indeed leave all worldliness behind, which includes attribute scores. Accordingly, you have to balance the need to deal with worldly encounters (which obviously gets harder with lower stats) with the requirement of lowering your stats to proceed to the Grail.

    The final "trap", so to say: If you manage to reduce all of your attributes to zero, including your strength, you sadly fail at the steps to the Grail, because having your strength reduced to zero means your character dies (the game rules say so).

    No such connections to this game, though, which I understand goes with the standard requirement of minimum stats, not maximum. Would have been wild if it did.

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  13. I hope you're enjoying our fair City, Chet. God knows it's a difficult time to be outside, but because the season is not great for restaurants, there are some good deals to be had. You can find a list of restaurants participating in the "Coolinary" promotion here: https://www.neworleans.com/coolinary/listings/

    I was a food writer here for about 12 years and still semi-involved in the restaurant world if you'd like some specific recommendations.

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    1. Thanks, rd. I find that it's pretty hard to go wrong in the FQ. Last night, I ate at a place I'd never heard of until I happened to spot it walking by: Irene's. It was fantastic.

      I'm mostly keeping between Iberville and St. Peter this trip. I was planning to go to Cornet one night, maybe Maspero's the other, but I'd be happy for a recommendation for a hidden gem I might not know about, especially since neither of them are on that list.

      How is the Court of Two Sisters on there? I could have sworn I read it closed earlier this year.

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    2. Irene's is fantastic, you lucked out getting in, though I guess it's summer. I would recommend a few places ahead of Court of Two Sisters if you're looking for Creole haute cuisine: Arnaud's and if you can stand the crowd and the noise, Galatoire's for a start. I haven't been to Antoine's in a long time but I've heard it has improved. I hope so, because I used to love it.

      One of the best restaurants in town is on Dauphine street, closer to Canal than you specified, but it's worth the trip: Bayona. I have eaten there regularly for probably 20 years and I have not had a bad meal. The chef, Susan Spicer, is one of the best people you'll ever meet and chefs who've cooked there have opened a host of other restaurants in town.

      It's not strictly a local place, but GW Fins is also great. For years my wife and I celebrated our anniversary there. It's a seafood restaurant and there are gulf fish on the menu but they've got a selection from all over the world. Last I checked, the only thing frozen on the menu was lobster and given your home I doubt you're looking for that.

      Johnny's Po-Boys is a place a lot of tourists visit but it's really good if you enjoy our native sandwich. The same is true of Deanie's seafood and ACME Oyster House, though the latter isn't worth the time it takes to get in.

      I've heard good things about Palm & Pine, but haven't been.

      That's probably more than you need, and I have to get back to billing hours, but I hope you have a good time and great food while you're in town.

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    3. The above was from me if that wasn't obvious, but I also wanted to recommend the carousel bar at the Monteleone hotel.

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    4. Hi, rd. I apologize; i probably wasted your time a bit. I just assumed (stupidly) that you'd been a reader long enough that you knew my history with NOLA. This is my 47th trip here. I'm sure I've sat on every seat at the Carousel Bar by now.

      BUT I've never tried Bayona, which is only three blocks from my hotel. So I may give it a shot. I like to eat at the bar when I'm on my own, so a lot depends on how I like the look of the bar when I walk in.

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    5. No worries. I knew you were a fan of the City, but not 47 trips. And there's no bar at Bayona as such, but I have eaten there many times by myself. I used to take some work from my office on Poydras and pretend I was being productive while having lunch and a glass or two of wine.

      Because I was a food writer, I have regularly given recommendations for restaurants down here. I could (and have) written about the subject for a lot longer than I did this afternoon.

      And honestly, I'm always grateful to anyone not born here that loves New Orleans as much as I do. The fact that I enjoy your writing so much is lagniappe.

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    6. AlphabeticalAnonymousAugust 2, 2024 at 5:08 PM

      > I ate at a place I'd never heard of until I happened to spot it walking by: Irene's.

      Technically, I clued you in to it in January:
      https://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/2024/01/worlds-of-legend-subtitle.html
      But I'm probably even less of an expert on New Orleans than I am on Arthurian tales.

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    7. Ha. Completely forgot about that. Must have been buried in my subconscious.

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    8. Come for the CRPG's, stay for the Authurian lore and deep dives of the New Orleans food scene!

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    9. And in another thread, a bunch of gaming historians who are trying to track down and document lost media, sharing research and leads.

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  14. "Wandering into the Room of Penance, you are mistaken for a sinner..."

    Well, you did violate that peasant girl.

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  15. I am an atheist, but (gods help us) drink from the grail ?!?

    An atheist invoking gods is like the Pope saying the F-word: something really crossed the limit !

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  16. You covering Betrayal at Krondor on this site is becoming my holy grail /s

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  17. The Grail discourse at the start makes me wonder what you think of the later stories conflating Arthur and the Fisher King.

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    1. I honestly can't think of any except for the film Excalibur, where I found the conflation acceptable given the runtime of the film.

      My scholarship ended with Tennyson, though, so if there are a lot of 20th-century books that do it, I never was exposed to them.

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  18. Given your knowledge of and interest in all things Arthurian and since Narwhal mentioned Chris Crawford above, I was wondering if you've ever checked out the latter's 'interactive experience' Le Morte D'Arthur?

    Besides the description on the site itself, to get an idea what it is about you can also see beforehand what he himself in a video or what others (IFDB database) have to say about it.

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  19. How is there no St. George?

    The map doesn't reach as far as Turkey. ;)

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  20. I've been slow to catch up this month, as I've recently started my own business...that said, I wanted to say, Chet, that this article was my favorite since your memorable Mechanical Anarchy entry that we both had somewhat of a shared enjoyment of. Thank you for your writings as always.

    Loved your intro about grails. The fact that they were such a fictional sham, so to speak, makes Dupre's obsession with them in the Ultima series even more humourously buffoonish.

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