Super Quest is a massive dungeon crawler developed by Jeff Hurlburt and published in Softside Magazine for the Apple II in 1983. It is a spiritual successor to Quest I developed by Brian Reynolds.
Softside Magazine was a unique publication that ran from 1978 to 1984. It offered articles and line by line programs that users manually typed in. Subscriptions were offered that included the print magazine and a cassette tape, and later floppy disks to literally be loaded and played. The TRS-80 edition was first launched in 1978, an Apple II version in 1980, followed by more individual versions supporting the Atari 400/800 and IBM-PC. Super Quest is not the first game that I’ve covered from a Softside publication however it is the first game that was larger and rivaled many commercial releases of the time.
Super Quest is a gigantic dungeon crawler that consists of 1,024 rooms spanning four unique sections of dungeon.
The ultimate quest is to traverse the large dungeon to find and obtain the Mega Crown. There is a very long Mega-Crown Narrative at the beginning of the game that spans several screens. The Mega Crown is in the fourth section of the dungeon and it can be reached only after gaining a tremendous amount of experience and strength.
Super Quest sports an overhead view of the dungeon as depicted above and the graphics are reminiscent of the Temple of Apshai and other dunjonquest games. The speed of play and fluidity are actually much better than any of the dunjonquest games. The one grievance I have with this game (and it is a big one) AND all of the dunjonquest games is that I found them very frustrating to map.
I LOVE graphing these old dungeon crawlers by hand. I am sure there are many who feel the same way just as I am aware that there are many who despise mapping by hand and who fell to their knees in praise when automapping was invented. The reason that this game and the games in the dunjonquest line were so difficult to map is that they were difficult to scale properly.
When playing a Wizardry game for example (and most other early dungeon crawlers) each step taken represents 10′ feet of progress. This translates easily to graph paper. Super Quest sports extremely long hallways and large rooms and movement does not seem to equate to 10′ per step. I found myself constantly erasing and spatially redrawing the dungeon until it does work which is maddening. If Super Quest were turn based then I could easily take my time with these mapping chores but alas the game occurs in real time with no way to pause the game at all. You can only save the game by returning to a Bazaar so I found that I actually had to save the game via my emulator in order just to get up and use the restroom.
Luckily Kipley Fiebig’s incredibly accurate maps saved me hours of work. I was able to use these maps as reference points while I traversed the dungeon and battled foes in real time. I am not even going to pretend that I drew my own maps for this one. This is the first time I have opted to use a map other than my own. There are no secret doors, pits, teleporters, or spinners however and thus the nature of the dungeon did not have me feeling guilty at using another’s maps.
Character creation involves you getting to choose your character’s name and then race. The four races you have to choose from are human, elf, dwarf and hobbit. Each of the races provide strengths or weaknesses to melee combat and ranged combat. Once your character is created you then start in the Bazaar. The Bazaar is a shop that allows you to purchase equipment and you can save your game from here. When you save your game it resets all of the rooms and the fixed encounters reset as well. There is a strategy involved in this and I’ll expound more on this a bit later.
I began the game as a dwarf thinking it would be necessary for melee combat because there are no spells in the game. You can see my beginning character depicted above in the Bazaar. I soon discovered, however, that melee combat was largely a risky affair and one of diminishing returns. I found myself resorting to ranged combat with both iron quarrels and magic quarrels until I reached very high levels.
Your combat choices are somewhat limited. You can choose to press F and fight toe to toe with your enemy but this is a hazardous undertaking and you can suffer significant damage even from weaker opponents. It is recommended that you keep your distance and fire upon your opponents from afar. You’ll discover that some of the monsters in the dungeon can only be affected by magic quarrels and that others can only be affected by tossing tana powder at them. Below is the list of creatures and which attack strategies work on each of them:
The quest of the Mega Crown is so massive and the dungeon so large that it requires quite a bit of grinding in order to build your character up. To that end I wish there were more different types of creatures to encounter. You’ll note that there are only 13 different kinds of creatures that you encounter. This is a rather small number for such a large game. Mathematically speaking however there is a logic and strategy behind the limited number of denizens. You’ll note as you progress through different areas of the dungeon that the fixed encounters are placed there to whittle down your inventory and make things very difficult for you. Money does not come easy in this game and you’ll find that you will never have an abundance of it. You will use all that you find to replenish your inventory so that you can move forward. Economy in this game takes center stage more so than most.
The strategy that I used was to stay close to the Bazaar. Once my inventory was depleted or I was weak I would quickly make my way back and save the game. Once your game is saved it resets all of the fixed encounters. In this way you can once again venture out, slay your foes and collect treasure. I would learn where the best treasures were and I just kept going to those locations again and again and again. Once I started to get more powerful I would venture further and further out from the Bazaar.
Your toughest opponent is the Dragon. It breathes fire and is extremely difficult to beat even at higher levels. For each dragon that you vanquish you receive two dragon scales. Once you have collected 32 dragon scales you are then given Dragon Fire Armor. You can see it in my inventory in the screen above. The Dragon Fire Armor absorbs much damage from your opponents and protects you greatly from the dragon’s fire breath. In the third and fourth section of the dungeon you will encounter Rogue Dragons and these are greatly “beefed up” versions of a normal Dragon. They are extremely deadly and you are awarded 1000 experience points for each Rogue Dragon you defeat.
The Mega Crown is located a very great distance away from the starting Bazaar. There are two hospice areas located in the 2nd and 3rd dungeon sections where you can stop, purchase supplies, and also save your game. The cost of each inventory item at the hospice locations is double the cost of the price listed in the Bazaar. I found myself backtracking all the way back to the Bazaar to take advantage of the better prices. It was more time intensive but money in the game is very scarce.
Besides the Dragon Fire Armor, one other thing you’re going to want to be sure you do is increase your strength. My character started the game with a Strength score of 25. When I decided it was high enough to go after the Mega Crown it was 156. You can buy Strength Potions to increase your strength for 2000 gold pieces at the Bazaar. You can also haggle for a better price on all items you purchase including the Strength Potions. So there is the need for quite a bit of grinding in this game so that you can collect enough dragon scales to fashion your Dragon Fire Armor and so that you can increase your strength. When you increase your strength it does two things for you: you do not require as many hits to defeat an opponent and each blow you suffer doesn’t cause as much damage. This is important because in the beginning of the game it might take you 6 to 8 magic quarrels to slay a vampire and with a strength of 156 you slay a Vampire in one shot. When you find yourself very far from your home base in an effort to reach the Mega Crown you want to conserve as much of your inventory as you can.
My strategy of saving the game and restocking the rooms stopped working after a certain point. Once I had my Dragon Fire Armor and my Strength score up to 156 I decided it was time to begin the trek to the Mega Crown. The encounters and number of opponents becomes increasingly more difficult as you progress from the 2nd dungeon section to the 3rd and finally 4th section. This is purposeful to deplete your inventory. You thus go through a lot of inventory and find that you need to rest. So I would begin to backtrack all the way back to the Bazaar – restock supplies – and then head back out WITHOUT saving the game. I did not want all of the fixed encounters to reset. This allowed me to head deeper and deeper into the dungeon complex. You are still beset with random encounters constantly. I began to slowly make my way through the 3rd area of the dungeon and the 4th area using this strategy. It took me an entire afternoon of sitting at the computer once I made the decision to go for the crown. I finally found the Mega-Crown in the middle of the 4th dungeon area.
I still find it incredibly hard to believe that this was a shareware offering and a line by line type in from Softside magazine. In my humble opinion it is head and shoulders better than many of the commercial releases I’ve played. It IS incredibly difficult and does require a lot of patience as you grind your way towards the final goal but the real time element and the constant threat of permadeath hanging like a cloud over my head made the entire experience extremely tense. The economy is a vital part of the game and requires a specific strategy to manage yourself to victory. I am shocked that contemporary reviewers seemed to have overlooked this game. There are no room descriptions but the product that I played was extremely impressive. I doubt that many would persevere to grind themselves all the way to the Mega Crown.
It took me roughly 15 hours to win the game and that includes using the wonderful maps created by Kipley Fiebig. You’d have to add at least another 5 to 6 hours to my game play if I had to resort to drawing my own. If I am being honest, you spend so much time with the game that you quite literally have almost the entire complex memorized.
This was a big game and a difficult one and thus far it is the longest and largest shareware game that I’ve encountered so far up to 1983. I enjoyed my time with the game and I’m surprised that I’d never heard of it before.
Next up on the docket is The Standing Stones.
Until next time…