Quest is an old fashioned Colossal Cave variant originally written in 1979 by Roger Plowman. The original version was written in RSTS/E, using a time-sharing operating system on the PDP-11 16-bit minicomputer. The version I am playing is however a TADS v 3.0 from 1986 via DOS and was updated by David Betz. The game comes bundled in an ADVSYS folder which I downloaded via the if-archive web site. Included are notes about the game together with the source code and details of how to program in TADS.
The first problem I encountered was that save games slots via DOS-Box-X corrupt the game file. Try and restore a same game state in this way and it subsequently crashes with an "error reading message code" reply. Fortunately the game allows the "save" and "restore" commands which do work ok. There is another glitch in the inventory state as the game unusually shows (or at least tries to) the number of items you are carrying at any one time with the message "OBJ=X" on screen after each command. Unfortunately this does not seem to increment as you collect objects so stays at 0 throughout the game. The inventory limit seems set quite high as I have yet to be told my hands are full.
The basic premise is that you have stolen a scroll from a wizard and he has cast you into a valley full of dangerous creatures and traps as a punishment. Can you escape? Amongst the NPCs beside the savage wolf are a mysterious red-headed woman who hides behind a tree and vanishes if you try and pursue her.
If you are as fond of old-style text adventures as I am you will be delighted with the quality of the writing in this. The descriptions are both long and compelling and it appears to have the difficulty quotient set somewhat higher than Willie Crowther's game. Early on the aforementioned savage wolf appears randomly and it takes a lot of dodging and saving to reach a stage where you can send it to its lupine afterlife.
This is definitely worth a place in the Museum Of Old Classic Text Adventurers".
A number of location items cannot be referred to but the verb list seems reasonable. The descriptions are certainly above average in length and quality.
The encapsulatory feel of a claustrophobic valley that you can't escape is well created. At one stage you try and climb out but the walls of the cliffs slope inwards and the sense of frustration is cleverly handled. It reminded me of that movie masterpiece of claustrophobic horror "And Soon The Darkness" from 1970.
Softlocks and sudden deaths are manifold. Save often!
The ones I have come across so far seem very tough. I can't comment too much on their quality or originality yet but I am guestimating they will be of a higher difficulty level than Colossal Adventure and at least as tough as Zork.
A lovely piece of unpolished arcana from the early days of mainframe programs, floor-strewn cables and noisy dot matrix printers.