How to play Swordquest: Waterworld online
- Move your figure: arrow keys
- Start the game, enter a room, pick up an object or open your pouch: 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
Waterworld is the smallest game of the series: seven rooms, numbered I to VII in the manual and themed on the chakras, with 16 magical objects to move between them. Many suit a royal court: a crown, a sceptre, a throne, a royal seal and a money purse among them. You carry up to six in your pouch. Walk your figure onto an object and press the button to take it; to put one down, step onto the pouch symbol, press the button and choose the object to leave in the room.
Between rooms you face three action tests: swim across a sea of sharks, slip through a school of octopi to an opening at the bottom, and jump from one slippery ice floe to the next by pushing the joystick up. Each test has a time limit. If time runs out, you still arrive in the next room, but not all of its objects will be visible, and an object you try to move there may disappear.
Every room has its own set of seven objects. Place at least four of them and a numerical clue flashes briefly at the bottom of the screen. Watch out: three of the clues are decoys. Unlike the first two games, Waterworld resets after a clue appears instead of letting you carry on.
Tips
- Write everything down. Note which objects were in each room when a clue appeared, because the game resets right afterwards.
- Four out of seven is enough. You do not need the complete set to see a room’s clue.
- Beat the tests. Failing one hides objects in the next room, which makes the puzzle harder to read.
- Use save states. The manual suggested leaving the console on overnight to keep your progress; a save slot does the same.
The contest that never finished
The prize for Waterworld was the Crown of Life, a gold crown set with diamonds, rubies, sapphires and aquamarines. After the 1983 video game crash, a loss-making Atari cancelled the series, but its lawyers said the advertised Waterworld contest had to go ahead. To limit entries, the game was offered only through the Atari Club. Sources disagree on the date: Atari Archive gives October 1983, Wikipedia February 1984. AtariProtos says it was sold in shops later, after the contest had been cancelled.
What happened next is unclear. AtariProtos says the national final was never held. Atari historian Curt Vendel said the crown was awarded quietly to a winner whose name was kept private. Better documented is the settlement: the ten Waterworld finalists received $2,000 each, and the earlier winners of Earthworld and Fireworld were compensated for the sword final that never took place. The planned fourth game, Airworld, was never finished.
AtariProtos considers Waterworld a clear step up from the first two games, with more detailed graphics, musical cues, and sound effects that are far kinder on the ears than Fireworld’s beeping.
Similar games to play next
- Swordquest: Earthworld – the first game, with twelve zodiac rooms
- Swordquest: Fireworld – the second game, built around the Tree of Life
- Adventure – the game Swordquest was meant to follow
- Raiders of the Lost Ark – another early mix of puzzles, objects and action