This review contains spoilers
It's very hard to quantify a 42 year old game with a score. But, what's important with a game this old is that it's still fun! The very simple premise of getting into a castle, stealing their chalice, and running it back to your own castle still holds up. The game's of course very simple though perhaps best experienced blind. Not everyone's gonna be able to really get into it, but you may be surprised at how the intended emotions the game wants to give off, are still effective to this day. So as funny as it sounds, spoiler warning. All you really gotta know going in is that pressing select on the screen with a number cycles between 3 different quests, intended to be played in order.
I like how you hold the items differently depending on how you run into them, adding a small wrinkle to combat / item management / tools. The first level is the smallest one. It serves to teach you what all the items do, and allows you to learn the goal of the game on a smaller map with less obstacles. The second doubles the size of the map with more mazes and another castle. I like that the second level makes the bridge a mandatory item. Kinda cool to be able to walk through any wall as long as you place the bridge on top of it.
The biggest addition though to quest 2, is bats. They fly around and will sometimes swoop in and steal the item you're holding. If they're already holding an item they'll swap it, basically trading you. These can be a bit obnoxious, but if you've got the patience for a bat stealing your key mere steps away from opening the final castle, they do add some much needed depth to the game. I like to see it as non-scripted story telling. Items begin being taken all over the map and shuffled around, who knows what the bats are doing off screen. Seems like they sometimes drop the items off at a designated spot (I think, if they just happen to cross into that room, not sure they're actually coded to GO there on purpose)
The antics that can happen with the bats is pretty wild. For example the bats can actually carry the dragons. Scary stuff. Had an interaction where a bat used a dragon to eat me while I was holding an important key. I didn't want the bat to drop the dragon and steal the key so I grabbed the bat, while in the dragon's stomach. This gave me some movement. Allowing me to grab the key, (which dropped the bat, making it fly me around, still in the dragon) I dropped the key in a good spot and once the bat was far enough away I pressed the respawn button. Walked back and the key was right where I left it.
Absolutely wild interactions like this feel like they really capture the imagination in a way many modern adventure games struggle to do imo.
The dragons are great and also the only way to die. Something fairly unique is that you don't actually die when eaten. You can twitch around in their belly. This is what allowed the freedom to play with the bat that way.
I also appreciate that there's no lives or game overs. It would be much harder to appreciate this game if it reset entirely after being eaten, as especially in level 3, they can be very oppressive. But at the press of a button you'll be taken back to your castle ready to try and squeeze past them again. Really keeps the pace up and lets you get immersed in a single playthrough since it only truly ends when you either win or give up. The dragon's piercing bitcrushed roar paired with the sudden screen transitions may actually shock you a bit at times. The way they chase you once you grab the chalice out from under them can easily feel very tense. I like that they don't just kill you with touch damage either. They actually trap you in their mouth for a moment and you have a split second to get yourself out before you're swallowed.
Level 3 is interestingly, a randomizer. Super cool to see an item randomizer built into what was among the first of its kind, as that's only really blowing up in the modern age with fan made mods for the most part. Older Resident Evil games played around with the idea but for the most part it's not something you see a whole lot even today. I hear it's technically possible to get an item layout that makes the game impossible to complete. Which isn't ideal but the game's VERY short, so it's not too big a deal imo.
There's is actually a hidden 4th level in a way. You may have heard about this game being the first example of an Easter egg. Well, fed up with Atari's policies on not crediting their programmers, the developer hid his name in the game under their noses. There's a very specific, VERY cryptic set of events you can do to access a hidden room. Involving a 1 pixel item hidden in a dark room behind a wall you need the bridge to cross and taking it to a very specific place with like 3 other items to open a wall. I love this stuff.
This has always been one of my favorite Atari games, first played on one of those plug and play consoles in the 2000's. It feels kind of weird to score it so high for some reason, but I really don't see a reason to arbitrarily score it lower for its age. I think it succeeds very well in what it set out to do, in ways that still feel ahead of current year. I'm just impressed by how not-aged it feels. Of course, coming from someone who really appreciates the less structured nature of classic niche adventure games. It's not something that's going to hold your attention for weeks or anything but what it accomplished so long ago is more than I can ask for. Rad game :)
I like how you hold the items differently depending on how you run into them, adding a small wrinkle to combat / item management / tools. The first level is the smallest one. It serves to teach you what all the items do, and allows you to learn the goal of the game on a smaller map with less obstacles. The second doubles the size of the map with more mazes and another castle. I like that the second level makes the bridge a mandatory item. Kinda cool to be able to walk through any wall as long as you place the bridge on top of it.
The biggest addition though to quest 2, is bats. They fly around and will sometimes swoop in and steal the item you're holding. If they're already holding an item they'll swap it, basically trading you. These can be a bit obnoxious, but if you've got the patience for a bat stealing your key mere steps away from opening the final castle, they do add some much needed depth to the game. I like to see it as non-scripted story telling. Items begin being taken all over the map and shuffled around, who knows what the bats are doing off screen. Seems like they sometimes drop the items off at a designated spot (I think, if they just happen to cross into that room, not sure they're actually coded to GO there on purpose)
The antics that can happen with the bats is pretty wild. For example the bats can actually carry the dragons. Scary stuff. Had an interaction where a bat used a dragon to eat me while I was holding an important key. I didn't want the bat to drop the dragon and steal the key so I grabbed the bat, while in the dragon's stomach. This gave me some movement. Allowing me to grab the key, (which dropped the bat, making it fly me around, still in the dragon) I dropped the key in a good spot and once the bat was far enough away I pressed the respawn button. Walked back and the key was right where I left it.
Absolutely wild interactions like this feel like they really capture the imagination in a way many modern adventure games struggle to do imo.
The dragons are great and also the only way to die. Something fairly unique is that you don't actually die when eaten. You can twitch around in their belly. This is what allowed the freedom to play with the bat that way.
I also appreciate that there's no lives or game overs. It would be much harder to appreciate this game if it reset entirely after being eaten, as especially in level 3, they can be very oppressive. But at the press of a button you'll be taken back to your castle ready to try and squeeze past them again. Really keeps the pace up and lets you get immersed in a single playthrough since it only truly ends when you either win or give up. The dragon's piercing bitcrushed roar paired with the sudden screen transitions may actually shock you a bit at times. The way they chase you once you grab the chalice out from under them can easily feel very tense. I like that they don't just kill you with touch damage either. They actually trap you in their mouth for a moment and you have a split second to get yourself out before you're swallowed.
Level 3 is interestingly, a randomizer. Super cool to see an item randomizer built into what was among the first of its kind, as that's only really blowing up in the modern age with fan made mods for the most part. Older Resident Evil games played around with the idea but for the most part it's not something you see a whole lot even today. I hear it's technically possible to get an item layout that makes the game impossible to complete. Which isn't ideal but the game's VERY short, so it's not too big a deal imo.
There's is actually a hidden 4th level in a way. You may have heard about this game being the first example of an Easter egg. Well, fed up with Atari's policies on not crediting their programmers, the developer hid his name in the game under their noses. There's a very specific, VERY cryptic set of events you can do to access a hidden room. Involving a 1 pixel item hidden in a dark room behind a wall you need the bridge to cross and taking it to a very specific place with like 3 other items to open a wall. I love this stuff.
This has always been one of my favorite Atari games, first played on one of those plug and play consoles in the 2000's. It feels kind of weird to score it so high for some reason, but I really don't see a reason to arbitrarily score it lower for its age. I think it succeeds very well in what it set out to do, in ways that still feel ahead of current year. I'm just impressed by how not-aged it feels. Of course, coming from someone who really appreciates the less structured nature of classic niche adventure games. It's not something that's going to hold your attention for weeks or anything but what it accomplished so long ago is more than I can ask for. Rad game :)
Jogo que fez minha infância feliz, apesar de nunca ter chegado ao fim rsrs
The most ambitious game of its time, but that does not make it the best.
genuinely curious if theres anybody that has this as their favorite game of all time
Played through a couple of the maps on the PC fan remake, Adventure 2600 Reboot. I have not played the Atari 2600 version, and do not intend to.
Classic. Still to this day haven't completed the third level. I still love going back to this game for some reason.
adventure is cozy. picking this back up to try and speedrun it like i did when i was like 10 feels like coming back home. shit, do i have nostalgia for old atari games?? that's screwed up. i'm only 18.
Oh boy i sure hope someone starts a genre based on this
here's a fact i bet u never heard before. did you know that... tame impala... is just one guy...?
Adventure is a horror game. Those fucking duck dragons have filled me with existential dread since I was 6 years old. Moving thru walls as they please. Flickering in the corner of your eye for a moment before disappearing like some creepypasta bullshit. And then one eats you, and that's it. No GAME OVER text, no flashy effects or sounds. You just sit there in its translucent stomach pushing at the sides to no avail even though you already know. Unrelated, but have you watched Nope? It's a great movie.
Terror aside, Adventure is still very fun to navigate through. Its simple formula of labyrinths and items is so beautifully streamlined and creates so many interesting moment-to-moment scenarios that I'm surprised Atari didn't try to make 50 more of these. There's no need to hook up a second controller to manage your inventory, if you see an item just pick it up, and put it down when you're done with it. And thanks to clear, iconic sprites and well-thought environmental placement, you can intuit the purpose of every item the game throws at you without having to check the manual. It doesn't sound that impressive talking about it now but it surprises me how many Atari games in the years following seem to have evolved backwards from this 1979 prometheus.
Everyone say thank u Warren Robinett. He brought a golden chalice into the castle of video game development (and his name into a secret room), refused to elaborate and left. And he's just one guy.
For some reason on my Flashback 6, when I'm holding the sword the dragons run away from me. I don't remember that ever being a thing, and in all of the gameplay videos I've watched that never happens. Is my game cursed??
Adventure is a horror game. Those fucking duck dragons have filled me with existential dread since I was 6 years old. Moving thru walls as they please. Flickering in the corner of your eye for a moment before disappearing like some creepypasta bullshit. And then one eats you, and that's it. No GAME OVER text, no flashy effects or sounds. You just sit there in its translucent stomach pushing at the sides to no avail even though you already know. Unrelated, but have you watched Nope? It's a great movie.
Terror aside, Adventure is still very fun to navigate through. Its simple formula of labyrinths and items is so beautifully streamlined and creates so many interesting moment-to-moment scenarios that I'm surprised Atari didn't try to make 50 more of these. There's no need to hook up a second controller to manage your inventory, if you see an item just pick it up, and put it down when you're done with it. And thanks to clear, iconic sprites and well-thought environmental placement, you can intuit the purpose of every item the game throws at you without having to check the manual. It doesn't sound that impressive talking about it now but it surprises me how many Atari games in the years following seem to have evolved backwards from this 1979 prometheus.
Everyone say thank u Warren Robinett. He brought a golden chalice into the castle of video game development (and his name into a secret room), refused to elaborate and left. And he's just one guy.
For some reason on my Flashback 6, when I'm holding the sword the dragons run away from me. I don't remember that ever being a thing, and in all of the gameplay videos I've watched that never happens. Is my game cursed??
A true gem when it comes down to game design, allowing also a very early type of emergent situations (es.: the bat can save you from the dragon if you are really lucky; you can push two items at the same time, circumventing the 1-item-inventory limit)
A really neat piece of video game history.
Played on the 2600+
Played on the 2600+
somebody get this freakin duck away from me i just wanna use the "bridge" to get over the "wall" while holding my "key"
this game was not released
it fucking escaped
it fucking escaped
Very cryptic, walkthrough practically a necessity, but a decent evolution of earlier text-based adventure games.
i don't know what rating i'm supposed to give to this but i used to speedrun it on the atari handheld when i was banned from console gaming
I will forever be the #1 adventure hater ET BETTER
this game makes me happy thats all
The first great triumph of purely videogame adventure is also one of the first great triumphs of abstraction. The power of Adventure goes beyond the evocative, which is no menial thing, but embraces a wholly abstract language to build a world far more robust and plausible than any other that actively attempts to imitate reality.
It is curious for Colossal Cave Adventure to be one of the main sources of inspiration. It isn’t unexpected that it was taken as a source, as there must not have been many successful examples at the time in the search of adventure, but in how the paths diverged, almost reactionary. Adventure gets rid of words altogether to commit to a total physical world. Consequently, contrary to what abandoning immediate realism may imply, the world of Adventure becomes much more intuitive and believable. There is no longer the conflict of having to puzzle out what kind of commands a word processor is able to understand or not in order to move forward, there is instead the discovery of a system that, while allowing itself to be much simpler, is also much more transparent.
You can grab objects and drop them, birds can also carry (and steal) objects, magnets attract objects contained in the same screen, bridges allow you to cross walls (or whatever they are)... All these rules are not broken at any time and lead to a world that, as Tim Schafer says in the Atari 50 Collection, seems alive, that is able to exist even if the player is not present. Thus, birds can carry away a dragon, a key, a magnet attracting a key, or the player can peek sections of the world while traveling defeated in the belly of a dragon. This contributes in two areas: one of wit from being able to use the available elements in our favor to avoid or tackle obstacles, and another of unpredictability, chaos and life, because given the rules the dislocations of all the elements throughout the map during the game are more than certain. There is always a factor that requires improvisation while continuing the discovery.
It’s difficult to explain how well Adventure applies multiple abstractions to its advantage since many of them have been irremediably absorbed by everything that would come after. As Terry Cavanagh understood in Mr. Platformer, paying homage to similar early titles such as Atari 2600’s Pitfall or Montezuma’s Revenge, these first videogame steps that began to understand abstraction also began to use it as a liberating language. Where entering through a door into a fortress was teleporting into a labyrinth, moving past the edge of the screen was discovering a new piece of the world and doing so repeatedly on the same side discovered a spatially impossible loop.
It's a process of genuine discovery because it doesn’t attempt to clumsily replicate reality, but rather to discover new ways of navigating, interacting and understanding a world. And in the face of all these new, impossible and abstract forms remains a strong, direct and unmistakable sensation: Adventure.
It is curious for Colossal Cave Adventure to be one of the main sources of inspiration. It isn’t unexpected that it was taken as a source, as there must not have been many successful examples at the time in the search of adventure, but in how the paths diverged, almost reactionary. Adventure gets rid of words altogether to commit to a total physical world. Consequently, contrary to what abandoning immediate realism may imply, the world of Adventure becomes much more intuitive and believable. There is no longer the conflict of having to puzzle out what kind of commands a word processor is able to understand or not in order to move forward, there is instead the discovery of a system that, while allowing itself to be much simpler, is also much more transparent.
You can grab objects and drop them, birds can also carry (and steal) objects, magnets attract objects contained in the same screen, bridges allow you to cross walls (or whatever they are)... All these rules are not broken at any time and lead to a world that, as Tim Schafer says in the Atari 50 Collection, seems alive, that is able to exist even if the player is not present. Thus, birds can carry away a dragon, a key, a magnet attracting a key, or the player can peek sections of the world while traveling defeated in the belly of a dragon. This contributes in two areas: one of wit from being able to use the available elements in our favor to avoid or tackle obstacles, and another of unpredictability, chaos and life, because given the rules the dislocations of all the elements throughout the map during the game are more than certain. There is always a factor that requires improvisation while continuing the discovery.
It’s difficult to explain how well Adventure applies multiple abstractions to its advantage since many of them have been irremediably absorbed by everything that would come after. As Terry Cavanagh understood in Mr. Platformer, paying homage to similar early titles such as Atari 2600’s Pitfall or Montezuma’s Revenge, these first videogame steps that began to understand abstraction also began to use it as a liberating language. Where entering through a door into a fortress was teleporting into a labyrinth, moving past the edge of the screen was discovering a new piece of the world and doing so repeatedly on the same side discovered a spatially impossible loop.
It's a process of genuine discovery because it doesn’t attempt to clumsily replicate reality, but rather to discover new ways of navigating, interacting and understanding a world. And in the face of all these new, impossible and abstract forms remains a strong, direct and unmistakable sensation: Adventure.
More stunning than Elden Ring
level 1, which is basically a tutorial, is a perfect little distillation of the action-adventure genre. navigate a maze, find a key to open a door, pick up a sword and slay a dragon. but level 2 is just too much man. i'm trying to navigate a maze with limited visibility, which alone is a fine challenge. but i have to keep passing through a flashing room that hurts my eyes while a maddeningly annoying bat keeps stealing my items. i would gladly play variations on level 1, but the variation they made is just no fun at all.
historia: 5.6
jugabilidad: 6.4
apartado artístico: 4.5
apartado sonoro: -
multijugador: -
impacto: 6.5
duración: 8
ritmo/agilidad: 7.5
diseño: 5
8
7.5
6.5
6.4
28.4 // 7.1 || 10
3,5/5
⭐⭐⭐
jugabilidad: 6.4
apartado artístico: 4.5
apartado sonoro: -
multijugador: -
impacto: 6.5
duración: 8
ritmo/agilidad: 7.5
diseño: 5
8
7.5
6.5
6.4
28.4 // 7.1 || 10
3,5/5
⭐⭐⭐
I can totally understand the impact Adventure had on game design, especially during an era of text adventure games. And while I can definitely see kids losing their minds with this in the late-70s, having their imaginations go wild... I really wish the sword didn't look like an arrow and the dragon didn't look like a duck.
Played as part of Atari 50.
Fuck this game.
Seriously--I think out of all the games I've played so far in this collection this is hands down the worst one. I finally see the origin point of literally everything that can make an adventure game bad (ok, well, maybe this and The Colossal Cave Adventure, which I hope for my own sanity that I never play). Which is bizarre considering it's, like, maybe the only 2600 game in the overall VG canon outside of E.T. (for very different reasons) and mayyyybe Pitfall. But I just cannot get past the fact that literally every design decision made here makes my blood boil and my eyes go red.
Difficulty 1 is fine. It takes like 3 minutes to beat and it's fine. I am assuming most people are playing on difficulty 1, which is the default and (according to the manual) the easy difficulty. Difficulty 2 is the normal difficulty, and is seemingly the full game, but when you get to see all of it designed as intended, everything falls apart.
The literal nadir of "Adventure Game bullshit". You know how lots of adventure games have "that part that sucks" in them? Maybe it's a really long and frustrating maze with lots of warp points, maybe it's just an area with a lot of annoying enemies and the only save point you have is one where you've lost your sword. Well, if you're expecting anything other than those two things here you're in the wrong place. I cannot fathom anyone designing that fucking bat that steals your shit and thinking it was a worthwhile addition. And even when you are allowed to carry your single item to the spot it needs to go, have fun running through maze, after maze, after maze. That's literally the entire game.
Which doesn't even begin to mention how ill-fitted for the Atari this game is. I think a lot of the above elements would be annoying but bearable through gritted teeth on, say, an NES game of the same length, but the constant headache-inducing flashing of the 2600, the slowdown when too many things show up on screen, and items constantly glitching into walls makes this terrible in a way I have scarcely seen from any other game. It's very innovative for the time, yes, but in the end it's attempting to fit a big grand quest down on a console which was made to play Pong and other simple infinitely looping single-screen arcade games.
It doesn't work in the slightest and I'm baffled that the general consensus seems to be that it's even remotely good. Influential, yes, but good??? Even for the time, every single other 2600 game I have played in this collection is more fun to play, which includes games that are nothing more than button mashers. It takes like 30 minutes to beat this legit without savestates and it is one of the toughest slogs I have ever gotten through with any video game. Just completely mentally stunlocked here
Fuck this game.
Seriously--I think out of all the games I've played so far in this collection this is hands down the worst one. I finally see the origin point of literally everything that can make an adventure game bad (ok, well, maybe this and The Colossal Cave Adventure, which I hope for my own sanity that I never play). Which is bizarre considering it's, like, maybe the only 2600 game in the overall VG canon outside of E.T. (for very different reasons) and mayyyybe Pitfall. But I just cannot get past the fact that literally every design decision made here makes my blood boil and my eyes go red.
Difficulty 1 is fine. It takes like 3 minutes to beat and it's fine. I am assuming most people are playing on difficulty 1, which is the default and (according to the manual) the easy difficulty. Difficulty 2 is the normal difficulty, and is seemingly the full game, but when you get to see all of it designed as intended, everything falls apart.
The literal nadir of "Adventure Game bullshit". You know how lots of adventure games have "that part that sucks" in them? Maybe it's a really long and frustrating maze with lots of warp points, maybe it's just an area with a lot of annoying enemies and the only save point you have is one where you've lost your sword. Well, if you're expecting anything other than those two things here you're in the wrong place. I cannot fathom anyone designing that fucking bat that steals your shit and thinking it was a worthwhile addition. And even when you are allowed to carry your single item to the spot it needs to go, have fun running through maze, after maze, after maze. That's literally the entire game.
Which doesn't even begin to mention how ill-fitted for the Atari this game is. I think a lot of the above elements would be annoying but bearable through gritted teeth on, say, an NES game of the same length, but the constant headache-inducing flashing of the 2600, the slowdown when too many things show up on screen, and items constantly glitching into walls makes this terrible in a way I have scarcely seen from any other game. It's very innovative for the time, yes, but in the end it's attempting to fit a big grand quest down on a console which was made to play Pong and other simple infinitely looping single-screen arcade games.
It doesn't work in the slightest and I'm baffled that the general consensus seems to be that it's even remotely good. Influential, yes, but good??? Even for the time, every single other 2600 game I have played in this collection is more fun to play, which includes games that are nothing more than button mashers. It takes like 30 minutes to beat this legit without savestates and it is one of the toughest slogs I have ever gotten through with any video game. Just completely mentally stunlocked here
no fucking clue what's going on in this game but it's still really neat
It is so easy to see the groundwork this game would lay for the dungeon crawlers that would come after it that you could just as well call it The Legend of Zelda 0. On the other hand, there's not actually that much creativity here with the level design. Maybe all the computing power went to just being able to draw multiple tiles of the "world map", but by and large this is just a series of incredibly simplistic mazes to navigate through.
É muito interessante ao o ver como o pai dos adventures
É ruim de jogar e MUITO simples, mas para época e pro Atari é um jogo que ditou como fazer um adventure do tipo e que tem suas influências até hoje.
Modificando o estilo de adventures de textos pra um console que não tinha esse poder, com inspirações de rpg medieval, ainda é um jogo bem completo e avançado pra época com interação com itens em tempo real, além de comportamentos e ações ramdoms e padronizadas de inimigos.
É ruim de jogar e MUITO simples, mas para época e pro Atari é um jogo que ditou como fazer um adventure do tipo e que tem suas influências até hoje.
Modificando o estilo de adventures de textos pra um console que não tinha esse poder, com inspirações de rpg medieval, ainda é um jogo bem completo e avançado pra época com interação com itens em tempo real, além de comportamentos e ações ramdoms e padronizadas de inimigos.
Not gonna lie, I expected a jumpscare around every corner. That maze game spoiled me
...se os dragões fossem um pouco mais devagares seria um JOGAÇO
It's crazy that back in the day some dots could mean so much.