SWORDQUEST #1 (1983) SWORDQUEST #2 (1983) SWORDQUEST #3 (1984) SWORDQUEST #4: AIRWORLD (Unpublished) (1983)

Swordquest
Sunday, August 01, 2004
written by JK

(excerpt)

As a kid, I remember how excited I was when I got the poorly designed Atari game Swordquest for my birthday. Swordquest was more than just a pixelated time waster ... it was a contest! Solve the game, win a cash prize. Did I say game? Make that games. There were actually supposed to be four of these games, and you had to solve all four of them and the puzzles within each to qualify for the cash (I don't remember the amount ... $100? $10,000? I hope I was excited about a prize of more than $100). I had the first one, Earthworld, and it totally sucked. You went from room to room to room, and you were supposed to be doing something in each of them, but hell if I could ever figure out what the point was. No wonder the fourth one never made it to stores. They were crap.

Anyway, the high point ... they came with comics! Drawn masterfully by George Perez! It was the best $30 comic of all time. And you can read all three volumes (Earthworld, Fireworld and Waterworld) at AtariAge.com, without having to figure out the point of the games. Man, if the games were only half as cool as the comics ...