One day to the end of the world. Quest for Glory

Every time they ask me to name a game with a capital letter, the same thing comes to my mind. This game can be launched into space so that the aliens have an idea of human culture. It should be studied by each computer game developer, and it simply must be in the program of relevant educational institutions. Even the Apocalypse is not an excuse not to know about it!

This game (or rather, a series of games) is called Quest for Glory – Or Hero’s Quest. Like most of the games whose name begins on “Quest”, it was released by a company Sierra In the late eighties – early nineties. But from other “quests” then it was distinguished by a whole set of very, very significant details. Which cannot be found even in the best of the role games of our time.

Higher heroic education

The tie is uncomplicated-we play for the blonde adventurer (by the way, a graduate-and-mentality of the school of the great adventurer), who decided to become, no less, a real hero. To this end, he arrives at the announcement (“The hero is urgently required, the work experience is optional”) in the small town of Spilburg, littered with fabulous problems in the most do not indulge, and the robbers are playing, and the anticipated woman-yaga flew, and the heir to the throne disappeared, and the princess disappeared. stole. This begins the first part of his adventures – and there will be as many as five of them.

► Great Sorceress Erana. Perhaps the only safe and peaceful place in the vicinity of Spilburg, where nothing bad will happen to the hero. ► goblins – opponents weak. But they can easily take the main character in a number – and literally exhaust to death.

From the typical quests "Sierra" the series inherited the interface, management, a lot of dialogs and a tendency to put a player in non-standard situations with some witty solution. From classic roofs of that time – a role system of one and a half dozen skills that grow as they use. A simple, but practical combat system (which was then changed in each part) and branded light humor were added to the resulting mixture. And static locations that are familiar to quests, where nothing changes without a plot occasion, was plentifully diluted with locations living regardless of the player’s actions – for example, the town of Spilburg, in which a dozen story characters will barely set, is surrounded by a dense forest, where it is easy to run into completely unnecessary robbers, wild animals and dangerous monsters.

► The second part of the game has never been reprinted in VGA graphics. This had to do this for a long time and stubbornly to fans – but the result was very impressive.

As a result, it turned out that the current role -playing games rarely achieve and with great difficulty is not just a living world, but a world in which you can live and you need to survive. The character here needs to eat and drink. Rest is not a means of restoring health and mana, but a natural necessity. For sleep, you need to look for a safe and more or less convenient place. And in the evening it is better not to leave the city at all, because at night the gates are usually locked, and in wild places begins to climb such that even the most that is the fattened character will eat and not notice.

Many years before Garrett

The hero’s skills are appropriate here – not the possession of three hundreds of different types of weapons, but much more general and useful: dexterity, endurance, climbing, throwing … And they develop not only with swordsmen, but also in solving the most that there are no everyday problems – completely not heroic Work with a rake on the stable in a few days will make the strongman even from a miserable squelch.

Apply skills also need to be not only in battle. For example, this is an easy task – to pull a gold ring out of a bird's nest. We climb a tree – the hero breaks and falls. Throw a stone – misses. Trying to get a spell – we do not reach a magical capture. You think we are doing something wrong? No, just the hands of the candidate for the heroes are still crooked. It is necessary to either grow up-to-do ..

… or try until it succeeds. We’ll miss the cobblestone a hundred times, but we’ll hit one hundred and the first. At the same time we will be sure that now the hero has a throwing skill at a more or less decent Spicy Jackpots Casino level. And if suddenly an aggressively configured nest comes across, it will be possible to throw it into it with something, we will not miss.

► In the third part, the hero looks better than in everyone else, and is taken by a large plan by an order of magnitude more often. ► The Werewright Magician tribe-“Leopards”-will easily penetrate confidence in a colleague in magical arts.

The title of the hero, depending on our choice, will be claimed by either a warrior, or a magician, or a thief – each of them has his own view of game tasks, his own set of starting skills and, as a result, his own path to fame. The warrior solves problems by the method that almost all the main characters of the role -player solve them to this, by force. The locked doors open it with his shoulder, meets enemies with his chest and wins in an honest battle, intractable characters and can put his face on the table with his face. The magician at least on a logical task, even if a bandit meeting has an appropriate spell – you just need to understand what and how to apply it. The thief generally tries to avoid fights, not to walk with excessive paths, to win enemies from afar and in the back, and between heroism it does not hesitate to clean the pockets of passers -by and to surround poorly locked houses at night.

► By the fourth part, the series acquired not only more or less decent details of the characters, but also voiced dialogues.

Through thorns to glory

In fact, each part of the series includes three completely different passages – after passing the game for only one character, you will not see half of everything that it has. Yes, both a warrior and a thief, even when creating a character, can be taught to conjure, and then develop this skill for use in battle. But only the magician will love the old sorcerer Erasmum so much that it will recommend it to join the Institute of Magic.

The wizard and thief can bend the horseshoes and press two hundred kilos from the chest, but only the warrior will be able to go through the test of the fighters guild – tear rusty shackles and defeat the armed guard with their bare hands. And no matter how dexterous the sorcerer with the warrior, but only the thief will everywhere find his colleagues in the criminal shop, and only he always finds out what is hiding behind the locked doors of the “background” houses in the background.

► gloomy landscapes of the fourth part are strikingly contrasting with solar savannahs from the third. ► Paladin would have posted this monster with a pair of strokes. The magician would throw spells from afar. But my hero is a thief, and he has to.

Our character (like all our decisions) will pass through all five parts of the series thanks to the import of saving – now this very well -forgotten opportunity boasts of the game from the games from BioWare. The hero will visit the deserted Shapira, where he will encounter natural anti -utopia about evil dictator. Prevent the invasion of demons on sunny savannah tarnes and get acquainted with the analogue of the Indians there. Together with us, fear in the gloomy (and through the Slavic) swamps of Mordavia will be struck and, finally, will complete his journey on the very Greek -like island of Silmaria. And those who come with him to this moment will be very sad to part with the hero. And with his friends and generally with the wonderful world of Glorian.

► The idea of a global card flashed in the third part, but was implemented only in the fifth. ► The fifth was published already in 1998, and the game switched to fashionable 3D. Alas, the graphics of this only lost.

* * *

Quest for Glory -This is a gold standard RPG, which, perhaps, can be called the first truly role-playing game in the world. Where we not just develop the character and kill the monsters, but play the role. We plunge into it until completely identified with the character. We feel like part of the world and plot history. And breakthroughs of this scale in the industry can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

Just the other day, the creators of the series, Laurie and Cores Coola successfully (albeit in the last seconds) completed the campaign to raise funds for a new game. It looks, of course, far from as impressive as Quest for Glory, but also worthy. It will be a shame if the end of the world covers an elderly couple before they have time to complete the project.

But you know what? Personally, it will be much more offensive to me if the end of the world covers me – before I have time to overlook the whole story of the hero from the very beginning. Therefore, I'll start, perhaps, right now.

What else play in front of the end of the world will tell ..