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One of the most innovative -- and obscure -- interactive fiction titles ever made, Pryority Software's Forbidden Quest is an ambitious sci-fi game that features many innovations, but falls a little flat from a few uninspired and obscure puzzles. The plot is typical enough: you are an intrepid space explorer sent to the United Alliance of Planets to find a powerful alien race to mine their knowledge necessary to restore order to the Alliance. Before you know it, you find yourself crash-landed on an unknown planet, with nothing but a trusty blaster and wits to help you survive... In many respects, Forbidden Quest is a standard text adventure, with a parser that is adequate, but somewhat inferior to Infocom's (it doesn't recognize pronouns, for example, or abbreviations such as "x" for EXAMINE). Puzzles are generally fair, although the existence of one (very huge) maze is a downside. What makes the game different, though, is the ingenious use of Artext prints -- five color drawings included inside the game box that provide clues necessary to pass certain scenes. This combination of software and drawing adds a nice touch to the game, and makes it a unique adventure. Finding clues in these prints is a lot of fun -- too bad there are only five of them. The plot and character interaction are a bit weak, but overall, the game has enough interesting puzzles (including some optional ones) to keep one interested to the end. Thumbs up! A note from Will Degelmann, game collector extraordinaire and contributor of this extremely rare underdog: "Owning the ORIGINAL CLASSIC is a REAL HONOR. Am I the only person that has this game at all for the PC in mint condition? Anyway, enjoy this game from me and Underdogs. Without Underdogs constantly badgering me you more than likely would have not gotten this game from us (six months or so to be exact). This game is for everyone to enjoy -- Home Of The Underdogs is the ONLY site worthy of this game. I would also like to thank Brett Carver for the game. Pryority Software was a client of Brett's father! The programmers gave the game to him to let Brett play it. It was sitting in his file drawer for over 20 years. Finally, Brett emailed me and offered the game to me. Thanks go out to Brett and for Underdogs for making this game forward. Enjoy the game folks; it's about time another text adventure is added to the ranks of Home Of The Underdogs!. They were in California where Brett and his father lived. The programmer William Pryor was the one that gave the game to Brett's father. Brett saw an email from me and I was looking for the game. He then sold it to me. The amazing thing is that he's let the game sit in it's ORIGINAL BAGGIE for over 20 years. The disk is PERFECT along with the glossy 11x13 cluecards (all 5) and the manual. EVERYTHING IS MINT." Well, here it is, seeing the light of day again :) Reviewed by: Underdogs | 
Forbidden Quest 
