Quo Vadis (1984)

Name:Quo Vadis
Number:225
Year:1984
Publisher:The Edge
Developer:Steven T. Chapman
Genre:Side-Scroller
Difficulty:5/5
Time:1 hour 30 minutes
Won:No (96W/71L)

Skipping over my previous choice of game, Lonesome Tank, which despite being competent was uninteresting to talk about, we have Quo Vadis. Almost every comment was complaining that the game was awful, and when I check a few other games that looked like they were of interest, the sentiment was the same. "The Edge is an awful publisher" is a direct quote. Let's see if it's any better than his musical efforts.

The story, told in slightly overwrought fashion, is that the Dark Lord has won over the forces of good, but he is not without mercy. Mankind is allowed one final hope, the player. There is an underground cave network containing the Sceptre of Hope, which you need to find, as well as the Words of Power. Then you can fight the Dark Lord. Or you could turn tail and run away.

The game controls oddly. To quote the manual, "You find yourself equipped with a glowing sword possessing such energy that it pulses in your grip. This sword, like no other you have ever seen, emits a continuous stream of pulses of pure white fire, destroying all evil in its path." AKA you fire in the same direction you move. Jump is done by moving the joystick up. Josytick down, outside of shooting, only goes down.

To start the game off, we get not one, but two ways to die before you've even done anything. Going up causes a game over, you coward. But if you fall off the rope, because your air control consists of nothing, you are going to die in the lava below. Your air movement is awful too. You go forward about three/four body lengths, then go straight down. This is actually oddly unmerciful of the game, once you get past it it takes a while for you to die. No lives.

As you explore, shooting in the direction you're going in, enemies spawn in. Four enemies spawn whenever you enter the room they're in. Each guarding passage or a treasure chest. Treasure chests restore health, so they aren't just points. As you kill them, they eventually drop down to one that seems to not stop spawning. Some shoot, some don't. They're this false variety you get in some games, many different graphics, but they seem to be all the same.

So, how do you win? You don't, at least not anymore, because this is a contest game. What you're supposed to do is find all the riddles and the location of the scepter, then write down those locations and mail them to the developer for the chance to win the scepter worth $10,000. Why USD and not pound? I don't know, but I suspect nobody actually won the prize. Because this game is way too merciful for the time in general, let alone for a prize.

From the topmost right entrance, is a big room with a passage down and a passage right. The passage right is very tricky, being a series of jumps over lava. Precise jumps. It's here I learn that you don't get any control over your jump, period. Not even shorter height depending on how quickly you let go of the jump. So you have to walk back slightly on each pillar, taking care not to walk off, then jump over.

I don't remember how I got here, just that it was past the aforementioned series of jumps. This place is confusingly laid out. My first riddle. Tour d'force using only a knife to eat an A1 solution. A1 is a type of sauce put on steaks by barbarians. At least that's what I think of. So the answer is "steak"? Probably not. There's something to be said about a game with overwrought intro text only to have a very modern riddle.

Starting over again because I was in too bad a shape to continue, I go one down from the start, this time to the left. I go through the area methodically, not finding much more than treasure in these rooms full of convoluted platforms. It's not even logical for me to be grabbing treasure, I'm fighting for humanity, not personal profit. But because it heals, I guess I have to.

It's over here, beginning a long and tedious descent down that I discover that maybe the game wasn't so generous with health after all. You really, really need to get those chests in order to have any chance of surviving down here, which, given that it's an endurance test, means you need them. Aiming your weapon is really difficult, especially if you don't want to die. One shot on-screen. I'm also pretty sure that the enemies have smaller hitboxes than their sprites, which really fits what the contest game vibe, because that usually only happens with player sprites, and even that's not a guarantee.

The enemies have some nice-looking sprites, about all that is nice-looking here. This game is really believable as the evil lord's underground cave network, because it is depressing, even outside the endlessly respawning hordes of enemies. The game plays some classical piece in the background because there is no other sound, which just constantly plays, it doesn't even stop when you die. Constantly looping. If it were sinister, it might work, but it just becomes meaningless background noise. So, working as an evil lair, but not in a fun way.

I figure out the trick to the game eventually. Never fight an enemy if you can help it, which means don't stop to fight. This goes further, don't stop to have to navigate. That means that those awkward platforms all around? They're preventing you from getting away from the hordes of enemies. Every time you jump is time you aren't running away. Every time you aren't running away is time you're losing health.

Even with this, I'm still dying in the same places, so I look up a map. I had heard the game was a thousand screens big, but I don't think I quite realized the scope of that until I took a look at a map. The good news and the bad news is that I am about halfway down...the bad news is that's about as far as I can go...this map didn't really help. If I did go all the way down, it really would have, because the scepter is at a corner piece, down-right, next to a riddle you can see if you zoom in.

Despite this, I find that this is where I'm ending it. This game is so unbelievably tedious and uninteresting. The size of the game might have been impressive, but it might as well have been something like Hall of the Things where everything is randomly generated, but interesting for a few gos. It's just big, and in an era where I can play something considerably larger, this doesn't really appeal. All I'm left with is something that just drains my energy playing it. Kind of fitting considering the subject.

Weapons:
Simple projectile weapon. 1/10

Enemies:
A neverending horde of various things which chase after you. 1/10

Non-Enemies:
None.

Levels:
It's big, but without much substance inside of it. 1/10

Player Agency:
Awkward jumping, awkward aiming, but I guess movement is responsive. 2/10

Interactivity:
None.

Atmosphere:
So boring. 0/10

Graphics:
I am so sick of staring at this ugly game. 1/10

Story:
Awkward purple prose as a backstory, with nary an element of it to be seen inside the game. 0/10

Sound/Music:
I don't know what classical piece they used, but the next time I hear it, I'll hate it. 0/10

That's 6, the lowest...since Arctic Adventure, not too long ago.

So, what about the challenge? Online we can find the rest of the messages:

• Tour d'force using only a knife to eat an A1 solution.
• A thousand added to everything loses fifty.
• Losing the Dutch one, royalty appears before me.
• Binary Indecisions between silent beginnings and quiet terminations.
• Be sweet and be quick to go backward.
• At last you think you are there.

The answers to these somehow spell out "Honi soit qui mal y pense", which is the motto of the Order of the Garter. In English, I see it translated as "shame on anyone who thinks anything evil of it". I have no idea how these are the actual answers or if they aren't. No one ever won it, at least, no one has ever claimed so publicly.

That said, I discovered an interesting aspect about the publisher I didn't notice until I searched for a map that publisher The Edge would become Edge Games, the infamous company known less for making any games and more for sitting on the trademark of Edge in video games. Knowing this, I start to suspect that there never was a sceptre. I'm not really shocked that there was a shady contest going on in the '80s, I'm more shocked that the company responsible is still going today.

Next up, I think I'm going to try to finish up the unplayed 1992 FPS I have left, so, look forward to a Apple IIGS game, an Acorn Archimedes game, an arcade FPS, and finally another Mike Singleton game.