''Companions of Xanth'' is an

adventure game An adventure game is a video game genre in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and/or Puzzle video game, puzzle-solving. The Video game genres, genre's focus on story allows it to draw ...

published in 1993 by

Legend Entertainment Legend Entertainment Company was an American Video game developer, developer and Video game publisher, publisher of computer games, best known for creating Adventure game, adventure titles throughout the 1990s. The company was founded by Bob ...

Gameplay

The game is based on

Piers Anthony Piers Anthony Dillingham Jacob (born 6 August 1934) is an American author in the science fiction and Fantasy (genre), fantasy genres, publishing under the name Piers Anthony. He is best known for his :Xanth books, long-running novel series set in ...

's ''

Xanth Xanth ( ) is a series of novels by author Piers Anthony, also known as ''The Magic of Xanth''. Anthony originally intended for Xanth to be a trilogy, but a devoted fan base persuaded the author to continue writing the series, which is now open-en ...

'' novels and loosely follows the plot of his 1993 novel ''

Demons Don't Dream ''Demons Don't Dream'' is a fantasy novel by American writer Piers Anthony published in 1993, the sixteenth book in the ''Xanth'' series. The ''Companions of Xanth'' computer game was marketed in a box set along with the novel. The game and no ...

'', in which a young man uses a

computer game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device to gener ...

to enter and explore the world of Xanth. Typical of Piers Anthony's novels, the game is filled with puns and visual gags, and some knowledge of the ''Xanth'' universe is helpful; for those players who haven't read any of the Xanth novels, an in-game 'Com-Pendium of Xanth' is provided to the player for the majority of the game. The game uses 2D graphics in

8-bit colour 8-bit color graphics are a method of storing image information in a computer's memory or in an image file, so that each pixel is represented by 8 bits (1 byte). The maximum number of colors that can be displayed at any one time is 256 or 28. Color ...

and was available on both

floppy disk A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, or a diskette) is an obsolescent type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined w ...

and

CD-ROM A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains data. Computers can read—but not write or erase—CD-ROMs. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold both comput ...

. The game was re-released in July 1997 in a bundle with Legend Entertainment's ''

Death Gate ''Death Gate'' is an adventure game loosely based on Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman's fantasy book series ''The Death Gate Cycle''. Legend Entertainment released it for MS-DOS compatible operating systems in 1994. It received several awards. The ...

'' and ''

Shannara ''Shannara'' is a series of high fantasy novels written by Terry Brooks, beginning with ''The Sword of Shannara'' in 1977 and concluding with ''The Last Druid'' which was released in October 2020; there is also a prequel, ''First King of Shann ...

''.

Reception

Computer Gaming World ''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American computer game magazine published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 1993. It expanded greatly through ...

'' stated in February 1994 that ''Companions of Xanth'' was "a very funny game based on an interesting literary license", with "traditional adventure game puzzles". The magazine's Scorpia was less positive in March 1994, criticizing the forced choice of Nada Naga as a Companion, puzzle quality ("uneven at best, and in some cases, downright poor"), and short playing time. She concluded that ''Companions of Xanth'' was "the weakest Legend game to date". In August 1994 the magazine said that ''Xanth'' "was somewhat weak as a game, but full of Piers Anthony-style humor". The game was reviewed in 1994 in ''

Dragon A dragon is a reptilian legendary creature that appears in the folklore of many cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but dragons in western cultures since the High Middle Ages have often been depicted as ...

'' #204 by

Sandy Petersen Carl Sanford Joslyn "Sandy" Petersen (born September 16, 1955) is an American game designer. He worked at Chaosium, contributing to the development of ''RuneQuest'' and later creating the acclaimed and influential horror role-playing game ''Call ...

in the "Eye of the Monitor" column. Petersen gave the game 3 out of 5 stars.

Reviews

*'' MikroBitti'' (Jan, 1994) *''Play Time'' (Feb, 1994) *''Quandary'' (Jul, 1996) *''Power Play'' (Jan, 1994)

References

External links

*
''Companions of Xanth''
at

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{{Xanth 1993 video games Adventure games DOS games DOS-only games Legend Entertainment games Point-and-click adventure games Single-player video games Video games based on novels Video games developed in the United States Xanth