Swordquest: Earthworld

How to play Swordquest: Earthworld online

• Move the warrior or the cursor: arrow keys
• Start the game, enter a room, pick up or drop an object: Space bar
• Give up an action test and move on to another room: Space bar
• Restart the game: F12 (the console’s Reset switch)
• Save and load your progress: Ctrl + 0–9 saves to a slot, Alt + 0–9 loads it

The Select switch and both difficulty switches are not used.

Gameplay

You follow Torr and Tarra, the twin heroes of the comic, into Earthworld. Its twelve chambers, from Aries to Pisces, are linked by doorways, and objects lie scattered among them: a key, a rope, a lamp, a cloak of invisibility, shoes of stealth, food, water, swords and more. You can carry six at a time. To pick one up, move the cursor onto it and press the button; to leave one behind, go to your objects at the bottom of the screen, select it and press the button again.

Some doorways lead through an action test first. You leap from raft to raft across the Aquarian rapids, dodge the spears of Sagittarius and the horns of Taurus, and run through a waterfall in the jungle of Leo. If a test is too hard, press the button to give up and go to another room.

When a room holds the right combination of objects, two numbers appear, for example 16 and 5, meaning page 16, panel 5 of the comic. The manual warns that the game contains 11 clues and that not all of them count, and it adds that one clue will help in the next game, Fireworld. A second hint was needed to tell the valid clues from the false ones: for Earthworld, only clues that point to prime-numbered pages counted.

Tips

• Keep a log. Write down which objects you left in which room and every pair of numbers you see.
• Change one thing at a time. If a room shows no clue, swap a single object and check again, so you know what made the difference.
• Save before a test. A save state lets you retry a hard rapid or spear run without walking back.
• Don’t waste time on one test. Giving up costs nothing, and another doorway may get you where you want to go.

The Earthworld contest

Swordquest began as a possible sequel to Adventure, and AtariProtos lists Earthworld’s working title as “Adventure II”. The credits are not settled: AtariProtos names Dan Hitchens as programmer, with graphics by Mimi Nyden, while other sources credit Tod Frye with the whole series.

The prize for Earthworld was the Talisman of Penultimate Truth, an 18-karat gold disc set with 12 diamonds, the birthstones of the zodiac signs and a small white gold sword. About 5,000 people sent in answers, and only eight were correct. The finalists played a special tournament version that was much easier than the shop cartridge, and in May 1983 Stephen Bell won the Talisman. Reviewing the game in The Space Gamer, Richard A. Edwards wrote that the only reason to buy it was “to try and solve the puzzle and win the prize.”