Al-Qadim: The Genie's Curse: Summary and Rating

 

That horse is false advertising.

            

Al-Qadim: The Genie's Curse

United States 

Cyberlore Studios (developer), Strategic Simulations, Inc. (publisher) 

Released 1994 for DOS

Date Started: 23 June 2026

Date Ended: 24 July 2026

Total Hours: 24

Difficulty:  Easy-Moderate (2.5/5) on default, but user adjustable

Final Rating: 38

Ranking at time of posting: 477/585 (82%)

   

Summary:

     

Al-Qadim is an action RPG with minimal RPG elements drawn from the short-lived Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting of the same name. The PC is a young corsair (one of the character "kits" in this setting), engaged to his caliph's daughter, looking at a bright future. But his family is disgraced (and his bride kidnapped) when the family genie goes amok. To restore his family's honor and save his betrothed, he must discover the shadowy cabal that is freeing genies from their oaths.

    

This single-character game has fairly minimal RPG elements and plays more like an action/adventure than an RPG. Character attributes are fixed; inventory is very limited; dialogue options all seem to vector to the same conclusion. The character gains experience and levels up, but leveling doesn't make a palpable difference in battle except that the character gets a couple of additional sword moves. The titled orthographic viewpoint (single axis only) and many of the graphics (as well as the desert setting) are reminiscent of Dark Sun: Shattered Lands (1993), while the plot, Arabian setting, and some of the action sequences evoke Quest for Glory II: Trial by Fire (1990). It's a fun game for its length, but not a great RPG experience, and it doesn't feel much like a Dungeons & Dragons title.

   

****

   

Well, I never did hear back from Herb Perez. It's too bad because one of the first things I would have asked is whether Al-Qadim started as a Dungeons & Dragons game or whether they grafted the name onto a product already in development. My guess is probably it did start with D&D in mind, given the histories of the companies and the principal authors, but Al-Qadim seems to have been given more leash than any D&D title I can remember since Hillsfar. Among the oddities:

   

• Leveling only makes the character stronger to the extent that it conveys extra maximum hit points. (The "extra sword moves" are only really valuable to the extent that you stupidly let the character get surrounded by enemies.) 

• Attributes don't matter at all. I don't think the game even knows what they are. I inspected the save game files and while I found values for experience, max hit points, and current hit points, I did not find any of the attributes.

• The corsair class is supposed to be able to dual-wield, use thief skills, and employ numerous non-weapon proficiencies, none of which appear in the game.

     

Why would anyone pay for healing when you can get healed for free on your ship?

      

• The Al-Qadim setting makes extensive use of social status, which is quantified. It isn't even mentioned in the game.

• Experience points are doled out quite liberally for solving puzzles and quest steps; little of the player's experience total comes from enemies. 

• Only a couple of the other Al-Qadim-specific classes make any appearance in the game, principally sha'ir, and they don't behave like sha'ir in the manual. I didn't see any familiars, for instance.

• Zakhara is supposed to be a melting pot of races. While there was a mention of dwarves (in passages that could have easily been CTRL-H'd), I saw no one but humans in my explorations. Admittedly, the graphics perhaps aren't detailed enough to differentiate some of the races.

• Nowhere in the game does it actually confirm where the action takes place. No map appears. You sail from island to island by menu. The official map of Zakhara does have a lot of archipelagos, but none of the names match up (admittedly, many of the islands are unnamed).

        

The "game world" in list form.

         

• "Shards" seem to be purely an invention of the game. 

• What we learn about genies, the way they are called, and what they can do don't quite seem to align with the rules in the Arabian Adventures sourcebook. 

• A "Zaratan," as has been pointed out in the comments, is a giant sea turtle in the sourcebooks.

• Many of the other creatures that you would expect based on the sourcebooks make no appearance. In particular, there isn't a single camel or Arabian horse.

          

The authors made the cyclops Arabian by putting the word "desert" in front of it. Also: what does he narrow?

        

So even though "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 2nd Edition" is displayed prominently on the box, I don't really see it. That isn't necessarily a complaint—I'm hardly a D&D purist—but it does hint at why the RPG elements of this one are so under-baked. If it had started as a Prince of Persia sequel, I'm not sure I'd be surprised. 

        

Curiously, I find myself lamenting the absence of the social status system the most—not because I like such systems, of course, but because from a role-playing perspective, I enjoy defying them. While I was in the middle of Al-Qadim, I wrote a paean to American faith in individualism and individual progress. Such faith is a core part of my own ideology and identity, and thus I always enjoy stories in which an individual comes up against a rigid system and refuses to kowtow to it, leaving pompous nobles to sputter at his insouciance. I understand that Robert Jordan was planning to write a series of novels set after The Wheel of Time in which Mat Cauthon would travel to the Seanchan Empire; that's the kind of story I would have enjoyed.

     

You get some "sassy" options with the caliph, but they don't lead anywhere.

       

As I head into the GIMLET, my feelings about the game are relatively neutral. It was easy to play and write about; it moved along at a good clip; and it offered a more complex plot than the typical RPG. On the other hand, it didn't really have any of the things I like about RPGs, so it felt like I was doing something that was modestly fun but otherwise unrelated to this blog. I would expect the GIMLET to hover just at or below the "recommended" level (say, 35-40), but with such low scores in the core RPG categories (2, 5, and 6) that it doesn't really qualify for that label. Let's see: 

         

Category	Assets	Liabilities	Score
1. Game World	Setting in Arabian mythology is rare among RPGs.  Strong story. Character's place in the world is clear. NPCs generally react to plot developments.	Not a lot of lore to the setting explained in the game. Some major elements left enigmatic, such as the basic nature of the human-genie relationship.  Game world is small and limited.	5
2. Character Creation and Development	Standard experience and leveling. Some levels come with a new sword move.	Only character creation choice is the name. Attributes not used. Character does not get intrinsically much more powerful.	2
3. NPCs	Large number of NPCs, many with strong personalities. Talking with them advances the plot and fills in the lore. Full-sentence dialogue options with some minor role-playing choices.	Dialogue options are mostly illusory.	6
4. Encounters and Foes	A few original monsters. D&D bestiary is always well-varied. Light navigation puzzles and a few role-playing encounters.  Can encounter as many enemies as you want via traveling.	Game does not incorporate most special attacks/defenses. Puzzles are mostly facile and role-playing encounters are rare.	5
5. Magic and Combat	A couple of combat options: sling, sword (with different attacks), shards.	Not nearly enough options. Battle is not tactical; just a lot of running around.	2
6. Equipment	Sword, sling, Ring of Protection all get some enhancements. Potions and shards.	Very under-developed. No armor, wearables, choice of weapons. Many of the potions don't seem to really work.	2
7. Economy	It exists, and there's a gambling game. Potions and shards are a money sink.	No complexity. Far too generous. Only really need it to buy quest items.	3
8. Quests	Clear, multi-stage main quest. Some side quests and side-areas. A couple of places where the player has multiple ways to approach a quest or quest-stage.	Quest path is generally linear and does not offer many choices. No ending choices or alternate outcomes.	4
9. Graphics, Sound, and Interface	Nice graphics. Not "immersive" but definitely pleasant. Adequate sound effects. Support for keyboard, mouse, and joystick.	Mapping both attacking and other actions to the same key was a bad decision. Menu does not adequately differentiate selected and unselected options.  Sound effects relatively rare. No background sounds.	4
10. Gameplay	Good length. Flexible difficulty.	Very linear. Not much replayability.	5
Other/Total			38

       

Longtime readers will know that I don't include music in category #9, and I usually play the game (as I did here) with the music turned off. However, I took the time to listen to the soundtrack later, and there are some unbelievably good compositions on it. I don't know a lot about eastern music (other than the double-harmonic scale, quarter tones, etc.), so I can't tell you what references it makes or what traditions it evokes, but it's complex and subtle, with beautiful MIDI work that really draws out the individual instrumentation. You can listen to it here; I particularly recommend Track 6, with its complex drum rhythms. Credits go to Eric Heberling, Rob Wallace, and Nada Lewis; Heberling also did The Elder Scrolls: Arena from the same year and is currently working on The Wayward Realms, a forthcoming game from Arena's developers.

       

"Al-Qadim whisks away traditional role playing on its magic carpet" is how Petra Schlunk's August 1994 Computer Gaming World review begins, which is an accurate sentiment. The review echoes everything I've said about de-emphasizing exploration, character creation and development, equipment, and combat tactics in the name of more streamlined action gameplay. She liked the originality of the setting, as I did. "Some might appreciate the attempt to lighten up role-playing," she concludes. "But many hard-core fans won't be amused." She lumps the music in with sound, though, in saying that they "could be a bit more robust." I think that's fair for sound effects but not the music.

       

I don't think much of "a complex, pre-generated character," and "tightly-woven storyline" just signals there are no player choices. But they're right about "grand cinematic musical themes."

          

I looked over Wikipedia's and MobyGames's summary of other reviews, which average around a B-/C+, but the general theme is that it's an inoffensive enough action game but not much of a CRPG. I gather it generated the same type of discussion as the simplification of character attributes and the move towards more action-oriented combat in Skyrim or Fallout 4. Some reviews worried that the game was a harbinger of the future, and they already started to lament the loss of more traditional titles, both RPG in general and D&D in particular. Many who think that RPGs hit a major slump in the mid-1990s (I don't have an opinion on this yet) will find common ground in these reviews. But, honestly, it's a bit obnoxious to blame an individual game for an industry-wide trend. Al-Qadim did well with its own intentions.

          

Despite it selling nearly 100,000 copies, my sense is that Al-Qadim didn't leave much of a legacy. Any influence it had is impossible to detect among hundreds of console games that were already offering the same approach to gameplay. I don't think there was an explosion in Arabian fantasy among CRPGs in the later 1990s. It certainly didn't do anything to prop up the Al-Qadim tabletop setting, which aside from one 1998 offering published its last module the same year. 

    

SSI will continue to squeeze everything it can out of the D&D license for a couple more years, and I will dutifully play all of them. We may see an SSI/Cyberlore partnership again as early as 1995, with World of Aden: Entomorph; otherwise, Cyberlore will go off in its own direction, specializing in fantasy strategy and simulation games before getting out of the business in 2005. 

    

I'm a bit annoyed that we never had any resolution on the duck.

  

****

   

Previous entry in this series

     

For further reading: 

 

My index of games played by lineage has all other Dungeons & Dragons titles.

The Internet Archive has the Al-Qadim: Arabian Adventures source book. 

 07/30/2026

Game 580: Al-Qadim: The Genie's Curse (1994)

I'm going to go with the usual way of representing the game, but the opening screens separate the series title and game title, and the manual refers to it as Genie's Curse (without the definite article).

         

Al-Qadim: The Genie's Curse

United States 

Cyberlore Studios (developer), Strategic Simulations, Inc. (publisher) 

Released 1994 for DOS

Date Started: 23 June 2026

     

As we've previously covered, Strategic Simulations' license to publish D&D content was in its waning months in 1994. TSR was almost frantically trying to squeeze everything they could out of the license. Having exhausted its own development bandwidth with Eye of the Beholder III (1993) and the two Dark Sun titles (1993 and 1994), they happily took proposals from other developers who agreed to publish through SSI. Many of these proposals resulted in games for niche campaign settings, such as Spelljammer (1992), Warriors of the Eternal Sun (1992), and the forthcoming Ravenloft (1994). Into this milieu came a new developer, Cyberlore Studios. It was formed by Lester Humphreys, Herb Perez, and Ken Grey, the first two of whom had worked on The Dark Queen of Krynn (1992) for MicroMagic. They began working on Al-Qadim (whose tabletop manual had just been published) almost immediately. I haven't been able to find any information about where the project originated, but the speed at which they got set up and running suggests to me that SSI already knew they wanted the game and essentially funded the new studio.

     

The game title.

         

"Three distinct visions of Arabia have helped give shape" to the Al-Qadim campaign setting, according to its 1992 guide: (1) the historical Arabia, "home of great warriors, explorers, and traders, as well as great knowledge and civilization"; (2) the mythology and stories of these people, "the world of genies and ghuls"; and (3) the "Araby" of Hollywood, reflected in films from The Thief of Bagdad (1940) to Sinbad's Shazaam! (1991). Scheherazade may go back 1,300 years, but the image you have of her has more to do with Maria Montez than any Arabian author. TSR had a bit of luck releasing the Al-Qadim tabletop materials in the same year as Disney's Aladdin (1992).

      

The source manual.

                  

Al-Qadim ("the ancient") was a brief lark for TSR, never intended to exist for more than a few publications—probably a good thing given its phonetic similarity to "Al-Qaeda," which was about to become a big part of most Americans' vocabularies. Although the land of the setting, Zakhara, is nominally set in the Forgotten Realms (somewhere south of Faerûn), it could be plugged into any campaign setting where some Arabian flair was needed. My understanding is that it was the first campaign setting to offer character "kits," and that some of its monsters and rules live on in fifth-edition D&D. Those more experienced in tabletop D&D will certainly be able to contribute more.

        

In some ways, Zakharan society represents an idealized American model rather than anything historically Arabian. Zakhara is such a melting pot that even orcs, goblins, and other monster races are integrated with the rest of the civilization. There are no racial enmities (although, the book notes, elves do seem to prefer other elves). There is a strong hereditary caste system, with "social status" measured on a scale of 1 to 20 along with standard D&D attributes, but adventurous types are explicitly given a certain social mobility.

      

The manual's depiction of a meeting between a Dao djinni and an efreeti.

         

The "kit" system—a combination of class, alignment, proficiencies, magical abilities, and special skills—are a particularly interesting addition. They had been introduced in The Complete Fighter's Handbook (1989) and continued in the other class-based handbooks of the late 1980s and early 1990s. This was the first time they were baked into a campaign. They include such evocative titles as "corsair" (sea-based, dual-wielding fighters with some thief skills but no heavy armor), "sha'ir" (mages who specialize in summoning genies), "barbers" (rogues specializing in identification, language, and medicine), and "mystics" (chaotic nomad priests who can use edged weapons and who receive their spells through revelation rather than divine gift). There are new proficiencies for characters, including begging, grooming, camel-riding, and genie lore. Heavy armor exists, but given the heat of the setting, those who wear it suffer significant penalties. Hydration is carefully tracked. 

   

"Genies" are not specific creatures but rather a class of creatures, from elemental familiars to powerful efreet. (To forestall wasting time in the comments, these entries are going to follow the D&D convention of djinni and efreeti for the singular and djinn and efreet for the plural, regardless of what actual Arabic does.) They can be summoned and provide benefits to their summoners, which only at the highest levels include wishes. The game's backstory (as the title suggests) involves these beings. A mysterious force has been freeing genies from the magic that binds them to human servants, but a seer who serves one of the genies has predicted that this same mysterious force will yoke the genies for itself. I guess the titular "curse" is the ability for the genies to escape their former masters, although the genies themselves see it as a "blessing."

            

A mermaid later explains it to me.

        

An arrogant efreeti named Mirza Gubishbuskin used to serve a sha'ir named Farid al-Mutan, a resident of Sorcerer's Isle. Mirza unexpectedly found himself freed from servitude in the middle of an invasion. He refused to help the island, and it was sacked by ogres, ettins, and other monsters. The seer has predicted that a son of the protector of Sorcerer's Isle, Al-Hazrad, will be the key to defeating the mysterious force and returning the genies to bondage, but it is not clear that all genies see that outcome as preferable.

    

The son, of course, is the player character. He starts the game not as an inexperienced youth but rather as a Level 2 corsair, having already seen plenty of adventure serving the Master Corsair Sinbar. He's even wooed Kara, a caliph's daughter, and plans to marry her.

     

The character's starting statistics. One more goblin, and he's Level 3.

       

Character creation is thus not much; the player gets to give the kid a name (Sunduq in my case) and choose a difficulty level. The character has attributes, but they're the same for every new game: 18(74) strength, 17 dexterity, 16 constitution, 14 intelligence, 15 wisdom, 14 charisma, 3900 experience points, 22 hit points.

     

The strength statistic seems justified.

        

Gameplay begins in Sinbar's palace, where he's complimenting Sunduq on his accomplishments, noting that only Sunduq's brother, Tarik, "has ever shown your skill and bravery." Sinbar regrettably dismisses Sunduq from his service: "You must put aside thoughts of adventuring and prepare for your wedding to the Caliph's beautiful daughter, Kara." All Sunduq has to do is negotiate a maze to a teleporter that will take him home to Zaratan on Sorcerer's Isle.

   

Sunduq gets a chance to talk with Sinbar a bit; the game features full-sentence dialogue options. (SSI introduced them in the previous year's Dark Sun: Shattered Lands.) In them, we learn that the seer referenced in the back story, Khatarina, is Sinbar's daughter. "She said she had a vision of you as a great hero," he tells Sunduq before leading him to the maze.

      

"Wait. I meant that the other way around."

       

Controls are simple; Al-Qadim is more of an action game than an RPG. Everything can be done with the mouse; right-clicking to move in the direction of the screen cursor, left-clicking to swing the character's weapon or initiate dialogue (I guess the game figures out which you want to do based on who you're next to). The numberpad and its ENTER key can be used instead. I'm not sure which I find easier yet.

    

The graphics are not a million miles removed from Dark Sun, if Dark Sun featured only one character and the icons were a bit larger.  

    

Entering Sinbar's maze.

     

The "maze" turns out to be less a maze and more an obstacle course intended to teach the controls. In order, the character faces:

     

• A force field that comes from behind and teleports you back to the beginning if you linger too long. 

• Rocks protruding into the hallway that the character must navigate around.

• Spikes protruding from the ground that he must navigate around.

• Spikes that go up and down, requiring him to time crossing them.

      

Sunduq gets hit in an unfortunate place.

        

• Fireballs shooting from a hole in the corridor.

• Pressure plates that activate jets of flame from the floor.

• Jets of flame in a row that activate in sequence.

• Spikes that shoot up from the floor in the character's path. There's no way to predict them, so you just have to react fast and not walk into them.

• Spikes blocking the corridor that have to be lowered by choosing the right pressure plate.

• Large jars blocking the path that must be smashed. 

       

I wasn't fast enough.

         

• Wandering balls of flame that must be avoided.

• Traps in the floor that must be avoided.

• Circular saw blades running back and forth along the corridor. They must be timed and avoided.  

      

The penitent man shall pass.

         

• A corridor where you can pick up a lot of gold, but if you do, you can't avoid the teleportation field and you lose the gold. 

• A pit that must be crossed by activating invisible tiles.

• A bunch of jars that must be flown over by finding a lever that temporarily turns you into a bird. 

     

I avoid a lot of smashing.

         

• Spikes coming out of the floor.

• Chasms opening unpredictably in the middle of the corridor.

• Rolling rocks. 

• Much faster saw blades, much closer together. I couldn't even begin to avoid them.

     

Getting killed by these obstacles results in a message that I die "with dishonor," which seems a bit harsh. In any event, I eventually make it through to a large treasure chest. Sinbar's voice congratulates me; I earn 450 experience points, which gets me to Level 3; and I get Oil of Water Elemental Invulnerability, Oil of Air Elemental Invulnerability, and 200 gold pieces. 

     

I have to look up who this "Loregiver" is.

          

A teleporter whisks me home to Sorcerer's Isle, on a sandy beach outside the city. My sister, Aliya, meets me and escorts me through the guarded gates to a giant cistern. My father, standing next to it, greets me warmly, and I learn that he sent me the sword I carry. Aliya says she has to practice her magic, but I should visit her in her house. Finally, I can play.  

     

I've been using it to smash jars.

          

The manual includes a helpful map of Zaratan and its various buildings. I explore the town and talk to NPCs, including various members of my family. In most interactions, I have a humble and respectful option, a proud and haughty option, and a mercenary option. I'm not sure how much those options matter. The few times that I saved and tried every option, I got different NPC responses but ended up in the same place. For instance, when the Qadi asks me to deliver a peace treaty, I can say:

    

• "Yes. I will do your bidding, wise Qadi."
• "I am a Corsair, not an errand boy!"
• "The Al-Hazrads will never make peace with the Wassabs!"

      

Dialogue options with my neighbor. The middle version of Sunduq really wants people to know that he's a Corsair.

        

The Qadi has a negative reaction to the second two, but I still end up with the treaty in my pocket, awaiting signatures. 

      

Everyone's talking about my forthcoming wedding. My brother, Tarik, is on the way home from his work as a merchant marine. My bride-to-be has written me a love note.

        

The game's depiction of Zaratan, the capital city of Sorcerer's Isle.

         

It's clear from my dialogue that my family's business is in the sea trade. We own a captive genie named Muliban and use him to protect the city but also to create fair weather for our trading vessels. We have an ongoing rivalry with the Wassab family, which thinks our use of the genie gives us an unfair advantage. The town Qadi (the magistrate) is concerned that our family feud will lead to violence in the streets, and he wants both families to sign a treaty to behave honorably. 

              

Thanks, Qadi! I swear by the nose of Bozo the Clown you haven't aged a day!

         

Other findings:

   

• In further conversation with my father, I learn that my sword is called the Sword of Honor. It will grow more powerful if I can find a "special shard of the Moonstone." He also tells me our neighbor Babazar's daughter is terribly ill. Tarik, my brother, isn't here yet but is on his way for the wedding.

• The inn is run by a confused man who mistakes me for my brother and thinks I'm marrying the Caliph's mother. 

• One of the inn's residents heard that there is a fabulous treasure on a nearby reef. He talks himself out of trying to claim it himself.

    

Don't let me discourage you.

         

• Another guest, Zultan, says he came to the city to study my family's genie. I tell him the genie is not an insect to be studied, and he gets all offended.

• The weapon master asks me to deal with some monsters west of town. He also agrees to spar with me, so I finally get a sense of the game's combat, which seems to consist of the opponents standing face to face and slashing at each other. The manual mentions sneaking, using missile weapons, dodging, and using spells, so I'll explore those eventually. 

          

This turned out not to be a great use of my health points.

         

• At the temple, I generously give 50 gold pieces and get 180 experience points. I try it again with 10 but get no further experience.

• I wander into a house that turns out to be the Wassabs' house. Their son, Mamoon, tries to attack me, but his father stops him. The father won't sign the treaty unless my father signs it first.

      

Given how long it took me to get through the obstacle course, that might be a fair hit.

        

• I can hit ENTER when next to some furniture and baskets, but I'm spared the ethical dilemma of looting them by the fact that none of them have anything of value.

      

Food is not a requirement in this game.

         

• My sister gives me a Sling of Seeking, "which can be increased by finding the correct Shards of the Moonstone." Aliya has been accepted by Zaratan's Sorcery Guild. Its founder, the efreeti's owner from the backstory, fled town after his genie disobeyed him. "He hides in that strange tower to the northwest of town."

• A poor resident asks me for 30 gold to help fix his house. I give it to him and get another 180 experience points.

      

This might be a good time to remind readers about Patreon.

         

• Another guy tells me I borrowed 5 gold from him before going off to be a corsair. I return it and get 90 more experience points. 

• A guy tells me that he's going to "turn into a tiger, say the magic words, and turn back again!" Then he turns into a tiger and stays that way.

      

I knew there was a problem with your plan.

        

• There's a potion shop where healing potions go for 50 gold each. I've spent so much money by now that I don't want to spend any more here. 

• At Babazar's house, he says that his daughter is sick and needs herbs that grow "wild in the oasis." Monsters there have driven everyone back. Again, I have some role-playing options. I say I'll do it. He says to ignore the red and blue berries and get the purple berries. He also gives me a Sunfire Shard. From the manual, shards are like wands, with limited uses. I don't think this type of shard is the same thing as the Shards of the Moonstone. 

      

I hate to break it to you, Babazar, but your daughter has a 67% chance of dying.

       

• At my aunt's house, she's standing on a chair, avoiding an infestation of frogs caused by a spell gone wrong. She gives me a wedding present of 10 gems and 100 gold pieces.

• At the Sorcerers' Guild, I learn how to walk through secret walls. A sorceress asks me to smash a bunch of urns so she can practice magicking them back together. 

          

You can't see me because I'm in the middle of this wall.

        

I head outside to check out the monsters and to try to find the berries, noting with some trepidation that my health never recovered after the fight with the weapon master. I thought it might regenerate slowly on its own. Not only does it not do that, but there is also no way to restore health by sleeping, whether at home or in camp. It looks like I'll need to pay for those potions at some point.

 

As I head west, I am attacked by what the manual calls werehyenas, miniature air elementals, and at least one giant boar. "Miniature" elementals and some other creatures (e.g., desert cyclops, acid blob, giant Zakharan rat) were created specifically for this game and have full-page Monster Manual-like descriptions in case the player "would like to incorporate them into your own campaign."

      

I'm not sure that the world needed these.

         

There are also plants that shoot missiles at me, but it doesn't seem that I can kill or even engage them. Similarly, there are trees with beehives that disgorge swarms of bees if I get too close. 

       

Some bastard plant nails me for no reason.

      

What follows could be characterized as a "Bacchanalia of Reloading." It takes me a long time to get used to the combat system, and even then I'm not sure that I really have it. Attacking in melee range with the sword usually involves an unavoidable hit point loss unless I dance around a lot, and my fingers haven't gotten that agile yet. (I can't decide at this point whether I have an easier time with the keypad or mouse.) The sling can theoretically shoot enemies from afar, but it has a bit of a wind-up period in which they can close the distance, especially if I face multiple foes. The Sunfire Shard will kill a lot of enemies at once, but only once, and it has to be carefully aimed.

     

This seems like a lot to handle.

            

Obstacles help, and sometimes enemies will just mysteriously stop in their tracks, giving me a chance to nail a few of them with the sling until they come to their senses. If I can get the timing exactly right on melee attacks, I can sometimes keep them at bay. (This seems to work better on the horizontal than the vertical.) Even though the character can move diagonally, he cannot face diagonally, so I have to make sure I'm attacking along straight lines.

     

I keep having this very annoying problem where I need to turn around to face an enemy, but the game insists on making the character walk backwards. It can be fatal when it happens, and I can't find anything in the manual or my experimentation with the controls that makes a solid difference between the two types of movement. The game just seems to pick randomly.

           

What, exactly, do I have to do to face east?

         

It turns out that there's a particularly wussy way to survive: Mince along, firing sling bullets every few steps. When the bullet goes off at an angle, that means it's detected something. Keep firing and hope to destroy the enemy off-screen. 

      

The whole experience reminds me (not pleasantly) of a console action RPG or action game like Deadly Towers or The Legend of Zelda. What makes Al-Qadim technically an action RPG and not an action game is the use of character attributes and levels to determine success in combat, but the attributes are pre-determined. It appears that the only thing the player has any agency over, when it comes to the character, is how many of these side-quests to do, which I guess might contribute an extra level or two here or there.

          

The bards singing of my quest doesn't sound bad . . .

             

(I honestly wonder if the attributes are even "real." Since every character starts with the same attributes, are they even part of any of the game's formulas? Could I hex-edit them to improve my success? Or are they just for show?)

   

Here's a phenomenon for which I think there ought to be a term, but for which I'm not going to coin one until I get some confirmation that other people think the same way. It's complex, but it goes something like this: You're playing a game in which healing is rare or expensive. You're motivated to save after every success. You're also motivated to reload not only when you die, but when you've taken a significant-but-unnecessary loss of hit points. What's "significant?" Roughly half your hit point total before taking the damage. If the character is fresh, you might accept a 50% loss as the cost of doing business with a particularly hard foe. After that, it's 25% (or 50% of the remainder). Then 12.5% Then 6.25%—okay, you're not actually calculating to two decimal places, but you get the idea.

      

What?! What did I do that was dishonorable? I got eaten by a pack of jackals!

          

Knowing that this is going to happen means that, paradoxically, there's no point in bringing the character to maximum health. Eventually, you're going to get to the point where you're reloading with practically every hit anyway. Might as well live on the edge and use it as an excuse to master the combat system. So that's what I did—which is why the health bar in the screenshots hardly budges. Only I never really "mastered" it. I just reloaded a lot.

        

I found the oasis with the berry plants. The game solved my colorblindness issue by not even letting me pick the red and blue berries. When I went to pick the purple ones, a mermaid appeared and welcomed me to the Oasis  of the Pahari. She asked if I was a man of honor, and I said yes. She said I could heal myself as often as I liked in the oasis if I did her a favor: Take a message to the Qadi of Zaratan that the mermaid's master, Farid (from the backstory, now living in exile in a tower) wants to speak about the monsters infesting the oasis. She went on to say that my family's genie, Muliban, "has rid the oasis of monsters many times, but somehow they return." She further asked that I not tell anyone else of her existence, lest "greedy men" try to capture her for their own profit.

       

How about you let me heal first, then take your message?

      

Having a free place to heal sounds like the solution to a lot of problems, so I prepare to head back to town even though I haven't killed all the monsters yet. At this point, I run into a problem where the game freezes every time I try to walk off the screen and back to town. So I guess I'll wrap up while I try to solve that problem.

   

So far, I like the setting and plot. The NPCs are fun and remind me pleasantly of those in the Quest for Glory games, while the early experience exploring the city feels a bit like Conan the Cimmerian (1991), but both impressions might have more to do with the themes of the setting than any actual influence. I am not a fan of the controls, so far, and I suspect the RPG elements are going to turn out to be somewhat illusory.

   

Time so far: 3 hours (this included a lot of reloading in the oasis); I probably only made an hour of real progress).

   

****

   

Next entry in this series 

        

For further reading:

   

• My index of games played by lineage has all other Dungeons & Dragons titles.
• The Internet Archive has the Al-Qadim: Arabian Adventures source book. 

07/08/2026  

Al-Qadim: Master of None

The family genie screws us all.

         

I couldn't solve the crashing problem that I reported last time, even with a new version of the game that I bought from GOG. I thus started over, and it only took me about 20 minutes to get back to where I was. It's a good reminder that the second attempt at a game is often incredibly faster than the first, which is why it seems crazy to me that HowLongToBeat doesn't make any distinction. [Ed. Apparently they do, in a way. See LanHawk's comment.]

   

This time, I didn't sacrifice a bunch of health to the sword master and I bought a couple of potions before heading out to the desert. The potions are a scam, by the way—each expensive one of them only heals about 25% of the character's health bar. The bigger help was commenter TheOrz's intelligence that the ALT key toggles backing up and turning around when you reverse directions. This kept me alive longer in battle, though I still found it difficult. 

      

I fought in the oasis for a while before determining that it's not possible to clear it; enemies just keep respawning. I visited the mermaid and got her quest. On the way back to town with the purple berries, my mentor, Sinbar, apparated in front of me and said that his daughter, a seer, had a vision that "fate will propel [me] to a most dangerous conflict." She sent a scroll with a phrase that I should say when I encounter my "nemesis": SALAB'LA JASUM ABA. 

       

Good thing my character isn't named "Ash."

    

I returned the berries to Babazar, who administered them to his daughter. She began to improve immediately. I got 360 experience points. Babazar wanted to know if I'd met a mysterious creature, but I lied and said no. "I'm certain I could find a way to make money off a creature like that," he said, and announced his intention to send someone to find her. 

   

The Qadi wasn't interested in talking about the mermaid's message until I got two signatures on the peace treaty, so I headed over to the Wassab house. The patriarch of this rival family refused to sign it unless Aliya and I also signed it, since the original treaty didn't bind us to the same good behavior as it did to our father, mother, and aunt.  

    

My sister accompanied me to the Qadi's house, where we both signed the treaty and swore an oath "never [to] harm the Wassabs and never to instruct the family's genie to harm the Wassabs," That seems awfully broad. What if they attack first? But the game didn't give me the option to refuse. We signed it. I earned another 360 experience points.

      

I took a document to a couple of people. Let's not go too far.

           

I delivered the mermaid's message: "Farid al'Mutan wishes to speak with you regarding the monsters that plague the once pleasant oasis. He fears it is an omen that the Genie's Curse has arisen again." That's interesting. So the subtitular curse was something that people believe happened in the past, not something that's ongoing. Anyway, the Qadi agreed to go meet with Farid at his tower. The tower, by the way, is north of the oasis, but every time I visited, a voice just refused me entry.

   

I returned to the oasis, fighting a few mini air elementals and jackals. I reported to the mermaid that I had delivered her message, and also that Babazar was looking for her. I got another 270 experience points and the right to use the oasis for healing. I returned to it frequently to avoid wasting my pathetic potions. 

       

This would be a good grinding spot, if that made sense in this game.

        

When I returned to Zaratan, all hell broke loose. Some sailors had just washed up from a shipwreck, some belonging to my family's ships, some to the Wassabs'. Our sailors reported that as the two ships passed near the island, a violent storm suddenly arose. It destroyed the Wassabs' ship while sparing my family's. Our family genie, Muliban, could be seen "commanding the storm." The ship was supposed to be carrying Tarik, my brother, but he had missed its departure.

   

The Qadi came rushing up and summoned us to his courtyard.

    

"Avengers . . . !"

     

There, both my family's sailors and the Wassabs' sailors told the same story. It then transpired that the Wassab ship was transporting the caliph and his daughter—my bride-to-be—both of whom were sucked off the ship by the genie. As the Wassabs called for our heads ("Every Al-Hazrad must be killed! THEY ARE MURDERERS!"), the Qadi ordered me to go out and search for survivors.

          

Finish that sentence, buddy.

        

I reached Level 4 as I fought some more monsters on the way to the coast. There, I found the caliph, alive, but he said a few curious things that indicated he was a participant in some kind of plot. He wouldn't answer any questions, though, except that Princess Kara was still being held by the genie. He ordered me to escort him back to Zaratan, but only after we found a golden chest lost in the wreck.

      

How still we see it lie?

         

I found the chest next to some flotsam. Within it was a locket with a portrait of Kara. The caliph claimed that as long as the picture depicted her eyes open, she was still alive.

   

Back in town, the Qadi demanded that my father, mother, and sister summon our genie so he could be questioned. He appeared—huge, floating, and cross-legged—in front of us. When asked why he destroyed the ship, he said: "I did as my masters bade me." When asked who his masters were, he said: "Those whose commands I follow." No one bothered to ask whether my family members were still his "masters" or whether we specifically ordered the destruction of the ship. But this was all enough for the caliph, who accused my family of hatching a plot to marry me to his daughter, kill him, and seize his throne.

      

If we'd wanted to kill you, my plan would have been a lot simpler than that.

        

The caliph ordered my family to swear not to summon the genie again until he commanded it, then ordered that we all be locked in chains in the dungeons of Bandar al-Sa'adat. Mullad, owner of the potion shop, protested that since I just got back in town and also saved the caliph's life, I must be innocent. "The young Al-Hazrad can join the search to find the caliph's daughter," the Qadi said, "And seek to clear his family's name." The caliph agreed but still ordered me exiled from the city. I was expecting worse. I thought my whole family would be executed like in Assassin's Creed II. 

      

I tried to get back in right away. I could threaten the guards blocking the gate, but it wouldn't let me actually attack them. Even with them standing aside, there's an invisible barrier that prevents me from moving into the town.

        

You're doing such a good job blocking the entrance, too.

            

I circled the area, found nothing to do, and eventually made my way back to the mermaid. I explained my woes. "There was more than genie magic in that storm," she said. "There is an ancient evil at work here." She told me that to the northwest, at Dead Man's Reef, I'd find the remains of a magical ship. "If you can restore the ship, it is yours." She said that after I restored it, I should seek the help of Farid al'Mutan, and she gave me the passphrase to his tower. Finally, she gave me the magic words necessary to summon a creature who could take me to the reef.

      

Maybe I should give Faery Tale Adventure another try.

        

The creature turned out to be a sea turtle. I rode his back to Dead Man's Reef and alighted on the sandy shore. The area was strewn with gold and gems, some of which turned into zombies when I approached them. There were also miniature water elementals, ghouls, and more of those damned thorn-shooting plants. I was better with the controls here, but I still had a few reloads, and I had to take the turtle back to the oasis for healing at one point.

     

Some disgusting undead.

        

The wrecked ship was in the middle of the oasis. Some guy on the deck was shooting arrows at me, and I had to run up a plank and kill him swiftly. A hatch led to the hold, but I had to find three keys first, two in hidden chests and one from the corpse of a ghoul. When I opened the doors, I met a mage who was trying to access an inner area. "I will gain control of this enchanted vessel or I will give my life trying," she proclaimed, and then did the latter. A scroll left behind indicated her name was Sashana and that her quest was "fruitless" because the ship's door would only open for the "chosen one."

      

Note the condition of the place.

       

I guess I'm the Chosen One, as the door swung right open. It brought me to some kind of platform in a void, a huge orb mounted in the center. When I touched it, it exploded and left a smaller orb behind—one apparently capable of healing my wounds.

      

This was very dramatic.

        

When I exited this area back to the ship, I found it not only asea, but also repaired and restored. A large golden statue of a corsair stood at the stern. He introduced himself as the master of the vessel, cursed into his current form when he used forbidden magic to open a portal to an "evil realm." He said he could only be freed when the power that cursed him was destroyed. Finally, he said that I could sail anywhere I wanted by simply asking him. However, when I did so, I only had two options: Zaratan and the city of Bandar al-Sa'adat.

      

Santa Catalina.

        

Following the mermaid's instructions, I decided to return to Zaratan. (Sailing brings up an animation of a ship passing a mountainous island, which is cute.) The ship stays off the coast when I arrive at a new location, and I have to board a skiff to actually land. I came ashore south of the oasis and made my way (past jackals, tiny air elementals, etc.) to Farid's tower.

     

Could I put an outboard on this thing?

       

The password got me in, but the voice said, "An audience [with] the Sorcerer is still farther from you than water from the desert sun." It wasn't kidding. I spent the next 90 minutes solving a long, multi-stage obstacle course. It's not worth recounting the blow-by-blow, but here are the highlights:

    

• In multiple places, there was a face on the floor I could walk over to speak to a mysterious voice. Usually it was a man's voice, but sometimes it was a woman's. It generally just told me something of the challenge to come, but a few times, it asked me questions. I generally adopted a humble and respectful response. 

• Puzzle mechanisms involved levers, switches, hidden doors, teleporters, and sliding stones that carried me across vast pools of acid. For instance, I had to find the right sequence of levers to open a path through a bunch of spikes; in another place, I had to pull switches in the right sequence to make a path across an acid pool.

     

Where do you even get this much acid?

       

• One of the more memorable puzzles had me step on a bunch of squares in sequence, chasing a blue light. The voice then asked me questions like which of the squares never lit up and which one lit up twice. I like the idea of this puzzle, but in practice it was too difficult the first time (not knowing the questions were coming) and too easy the second time. 

• There were occasional enemies: bats, giant rats, giant spiders, and acid blobs. There were pools of acid all over the floor, and if I got too close to one, it would disgorge an acid blob.

      

A giant spider approaches as I linger near one of the stone faces.

       

• There were numerous chests and smashable containers with gold, gems, and healing potions. 

    

Towards the end of the sequence, the voice told me a story of a married woman who fell in love with a man and ran off with him, leaving her husband behind. It asked me what kind of a man would steal a married woman. I had three options: "He is a man without honor!"; "He is an infidel! He should be killed!"; and "I do not know. I have not met him." The third answer seemed reasonable to me, and I chose it, but the voice was clearly upset that I didn't take a stronger stance against infidelity. 

               

The woman also asked me this one. A couple of these analogies are pretty funny.

       

Shortly thereafter, a woman's voice came through another stone face and asked me what I thought of a man who kept his wife locked in a tower with him, neither having any kind of social life. I responded that he is a jealous man who should learn to trust his wife. She seemed to like that. Later, the male voice demanded that I swear never to seek out the mermaid again, and it wouldn't let me proceed until I did.

      

Eventually, I made my way into an area with a green floor. I opened a door and found an opulent room, full of birds and a cat. A woman was stretched out on a divan while a man sat at a desk. This was Farid and his wife, and it was clear that they had been the ones speaking to me through the stone faces. I'm confused whether Farid is also the face that kept appearing in the acid, which told me towards the end of the maze that I would need "a voice, a jewel, a sword, and a stone" to complete my quest.

       

You threatened to dissolve me. Repeatedly.

         

In subsequent conversation with the couple, I learned:

   

• Farid's wife is the mermaid. I guess technically she's a pahari, a shapeshifting water nymph that often takes mermaid form. She was annoyed that Farid asked me never to speak to her again; Farid protested that he's always afraid of losing her.

• Farid: "Years ago, my own genie succumbed to the Genie's Curse and I was no longer its master. It appears the Curse has struck again." 

• To find out who is behind the curse, I will need to speak to the Genie Lords. Unfortunately, no one knows where they live. If I can find out the name of their island, the ship will take me there. A hermit who tends a library on the island of Shibaz may know the name of the Genie Lords' island. Farid gave me a magic mirror to "pacify" the hermit. That's ominous.

• The pahari asked if I would bring her a Gilded Dove from the bazaar. A side quest, maybe?

          

You may think she's happy and free from care. She's not, though she seems to be.

         

A short walk later, and I was back out in the oasis. 

               

Miscellaneous notes:

    

• Right outside the main entrance to Zaratan is a duck that attacks me if I get too close. He'll probably turn out to be important later.

       

My anatidaephobia is acting up again.

        

• While wandering around town, I took note of the round wooden roof supports partly jutting out from the sides of houses. I had noticed them on some historic buildings during my recent trip out west, and it made me curious why they exist and why they're common to both new world and old world architecture. It turns out they're called vigas, and they're left jutting out (instead of cut flush) for a few reasons: to provide support for scaffolding during roof and wall repairs; to account for shifting walls; and to hang things from. They originated in the Middle East and made their way to the New World via the Moorish influence on Spanish architecture.

       

This is what I mean.

       

• I have several shards: "Magic Missile," "Sunscorch," and "Water Blast." I found them in various chests this session. They each have between 12 and 15 charges. I haven't tried them yet.

• Here was the passphrase to summon the sea turtle. It's obviously a play on "George Jetson," but how does it make any sense in this context?

      

Did I miss that episode?

       

I hit Level 5 while in the final stages of the maze. The game manual says that the levels only go up to 8, and I started at 2, so I guess I'm halfway through the game.

             

Another one of the puzzles from Farid's maze.

         

I enjoyed the puzzles. They were a little on the easy side, but that's better than the opposite. I like that the game has opened up a little, in the sense that since I became the master of the enchanted ship, I've had two potential places I could go. Overall, though, it feels like things are going to be pretty linear, and I still don't like the combat. Maybe it will improve now that I have those shards. Plus, I'm supposed to somehow get new "combat moves" the moment I can find a trainer.

      

I think I'll go to Bandar al-Sa'adat next. I have a lot of gold to spend, and I like the sound of a bazaar. 

     

Time so far: 7 hours  

     

****

   

Previous entry in this series

   

Next entry in this series

   07/13/2026