''The Faery Tale Adventure'' is a 1987 action role-playing video game designed by

David Joiner David "Talin" Joiner is an American game programmer, who created games such as ''The Faery Tale Adventure'' and '' Inherit the Earth'', contributed audio to '' Defender of the Crown II'' (1993), engineering for '' SimCity 4: Rush Hour'' (2003), and ...

and published by

MicroIllusions MicroIllusions, based in Granada Hills, California was a computer game developer and publisher of the home computer era (late 1980s to early 1990s). MicroIllusions, as a company, was a strong supporter of the Amiga and typically released titles on ...

for the

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and significantly improved graphi ...

, and later ported to the

Commodore 64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in the Guinness ...

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...

, and

Sega Genesis The Sega Genesis, known as the outside North America, is a 16-bit Fourth generation of video game consoles, fourth generation home video game console developed and sold by Sega. It was Sega's third console and the successor to the Master Syst ...

. The

version is titled ''The Faery Tale Adventure: Book I''. Microillusions also released a "Book 1" version for the Amiga which was going to be the start of a series of games, according to Talin, but bankruptcy prevented it. The initial version was produced for the Amiga 1000 and featured the largest game world to that date. A sequel, '' Faery Tale Adventure II: Halls of the Dead'', was released in 1997.

Gameplay

The gameplay resembles that of ''

Ultima VII ''Ultima VII: The Black Gate'' is the seventh installment of the ''Ultima (series), Ultima series'' of role-playing video games, released on April 16, 1992. In it the player returns as The Avatar, a would-be paragon of moral virtue who faces down ...

'' (1992). It had the largest game world at the time of release, with over 17,000 screens. Each playable character has his strengths and weaknesses. Julian is a brave fighter, Phillip has luck and cleverness, and Kevin is gentle and kind. Each of these attributes affects vital game stats and the success of the quest: *A high Bravery score contributes to Vitality ("Vit"), the character's health. It can be increased by slaying enemies. *Luck determines the number of times that a brother can be brought back from death if he is killed during the quest. If Luck runs out, the next brother must take up the quest. *Kindness is important for certain key chapters in the game. It can be increased by acts of kindness, such as giving alms to beggars. The technique used to store such a huge world involved creating small-sized maps out of small blocks. Those small maps were reused and fit together seamlessly to form larger areas. Loading is asynchronous, and happens when nearing the boundary of an area, without affecting the scrolling, animation, and music.

Plot

The game is based around the quest of three brothers to retrieve the talisman stolen by the forces of evil and return it to their home village, Tambry, in the country of Holm. The player begins as Julian, the eldest of the three brothers; if unsuccessful with this character, the player then takes control of Philip, the next oldest, then finally the youngest of the three, Kevin. In addition to recovering the talisman, which is kept by an evil

necromancer Necromancy () is the practice of magic or black magic involving communication with the dead by summoning their spirits as apparitions or visions, or by resurrection for the purpose of divination; imparting the means to foretell future events; ...

, the player must complete a number of other tasks which ultimately prove vital to the quest - save the king's daughter, gain the aid of a sea turtle, and kill an evil witch in her castle - and gather a number of artefacts which enable access to the strange dimension in which the necromancer resides.

Development

David Joiner designed ''The Faery Tale Adventure'' and was also responsible for the audio of '' Defender of the Crown II'' (1993), engineering for '' SimCity 4: Rush Hour'' (2003), and contributions to '' The Sims 2: Ultimate Collection''. This game was first released on the

and then

ported In software engineering, porting is the process of adapting software for the purpose of achieving some form of execution in a computing environment that is different from the one that a given program (meant for such execution) was originally desi ...

to other systems. Eventually it was released for the

and

, although the graphics for these ports were of substantially lower quality due to hardware limitations. The Amiga version displays two screens as seen in the screenshot, one "lowres" 320 and one "hires" 640 pixels wide, allowing 64 + 16 colors. In 1988, a port was developed for the

Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and ...

with 256 color graphics (more colors than the original Amiga version of the game). The only color Macintosh model at the time was the

Macintosh II The Macintosh II is a personal computer designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer from March 1987 to January 1990. Based on the Motorola 68020 32-bit CPU, it is the first Macintosh supporting color graphics. When introduced, a basic sys ...

, which was prohibitively expensive for a successful gaming platform. The Macintosh port was never released, but a working beta was completed before the development was cancelled. Eventually

New World Computing New World Computing, Inc. was an American video game developer and publisher founded in 1984 by Jon Van Caneghem, his wife, Michaela Van Caneghem, and Mark Caldwell. It was best known for its work on the Might and Magic role-playing video game ...

acquired MicroIllusions and in

1991 File:1991 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Boris Yeltsin, elected as Russia's first president, waves the new flag of Russia after the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, orchestrated by Soviet hardliners; Mount Pinatubo erupts in the Phil ...

ported the game to the

which was published by

Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the d ...

Reception

A review in ''

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 ...

'' described the game's user interface as natural and simple, while still being an impressive and playable game. The magazine stated that the Sega Genesis version "subtly improved on the original", such as a better teleportation system, while maintaining virtues such as excellent graphics. ''

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 ...

'' gave the computer game 4 1/2 out of 5 stars, and 4 out of 5 stars for the Genesis version. In 1996 ''Computer Gaming World'' ranked it as the 63rd best game of all time, calling it "Real time adventure at its Amiga best."

Reviews

* ''

Casus Belli A (; ) is an act or an event that either provokes or is used to justify a war. A ''casus belli'' involves direct offenses or threats against the nation declaring the war, whereas a ' involves offenses or threats against its ally—usually one b ...

'' #44 (April 1988)

Legacy

The sequel, '' Faery Tale Adventure II: Halls of the Dead'', was developed by

The Dreamers Guild The Dreamers Guild was a publisher and developer of video games that operated from 1988 until 1997. History Authors Bryan Kritzell and David C. Logan reported that The Dreamers Guild was founded on an "open, consensus-driven" business model, i ...

and released by

Encore, Inc. Encore Software, LLC ("Encore") is a Delaware limited liability company focused on software sales, distribution and software development. In November 2008, Encore announced an expanded license with Riverdeep. Under the terms of the agreement Encor ...

for

and

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

in 1997. Its gameplay and graphics resemble '' Ultima VIII: Pagan''. An Amiga port was under development, but it was cancelled upon the bankruptcy of publisher Hollyware Entertainment.

References

;Notes ;Footnotes

External links

*
''The Faery Tale Adventure''
at Hall of Light {{DEFAULTSORT:Faery Tale Adventure, The 1987 video games Action role-playing video games Amiga games Cancelled classic Mac OS games Commodore 64 games DOS games Electronic Arts games Fantasy video games MicroIllusions games New World Computing games Sega Genesis games Single-player video games Video games about witchcraft Video games developed in the United States