In this role-playing game, the player begins as a peasant whose land is under attack by monsters. After killing one, a princess names the peasant champion, and issues a quest, to rid the country of enemies. She can provide no map, but says that part of the quest involves learning the layout of the land by traveling it…and so the game begins.
The ultimate objective is to find and defeat the wizard Mantor, and recover a magic book which gives him the ability to flood the land with monsters.
Questron is played on a two-dimensional top-down map. Everything is represented by tile graphics: towns, monsters, trees, hills, etc. The sprite that represents the player changes, depending on which mode of transportation is used — beginning, for instance, on foot. Dungeons in the endgame are done in a three-dimensional first-person style similar to The Bard’s Tale.
The player may be a rising hero, but even heroes need money to buy tools and weapons and even food — starvation is a real possibility! One source of food and gold is hunting game animals — some can be eaten, and many carry gold. Then there are further opportunities in the various towns.
The hero of Questron does not have to be perfect; the game makes concessions to moral ambiguity. In towns, the option of robbing the merchants is given to the player; of course, there are guards… Money can also be raised by gambling.
You can read about my experience with Questron in three different blog posts: HERE, HERE, and HERE.
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