Flashback — Adventure (A Rectangle, An Arrow and A Key)
November 28, 2009 by Shawn Deena
Filed under Video Game Marketing
This was the best looking part of the game
For every generation there comes that moment when you say to the younger generation — “I remember when,” or “In my day.” Well in terms of videogames that translates into something like, “We didn’t have those fancy games.” Some people will take that to the extreme where they might say something like, “Videogames? All I had was a stick and a ball.”
Introducing the video game equivalent of a stick and a ball. Don’t let the wicked box cover fool you. This was what the game looked like …
Squarepants? -- Please, This whole character was square
The Story
Developed for the Atari 2600 in 1979 this was considered the first action adventure game. For anyone back in the day — it was the shizzle. To go from two lines and a blip to this — it was like SNES to PS3.
“But dude you were a flipping square!”
Yes but a square on a quest being chased by a dragon and zipping through these massive rooms trying to find a key and of course a weapon to kill the dragon. Sounds awesome right? And well it was. It’s just 30 years later if you went into a developer’s office with a storyboard like this …
watch out for the dragon duck!
They would not only call security but call a doctor to have you sent to the asylum. That red thing by the way that’s the dragon that’s so beautifully drawn on the box cover. Thanks to this pixelated version it became know as “the duck.”
The object of the game was to find an enchanted chalice and return it to a gold castle. You in your square awesomeness, explored a world that spanned many screens with castles, mazes and rooms. You had a sword (an arrow) and keys (a key) that would unlock the three castles. And lets not forget the magic bridge that let you travel through a wall, and a magnet that could pull your swords and keys toward it. They even named the three dragons that were after you (yorgle, grundle and rhindle).
Laugh if you will but when if you look at it from early videogame eyes this was innovation times 10. It was the first game to allow you to keep stuff (inventory), had the first video game Easter egg, and was a title that had three different versions of the game in one. Bottom line, without Adventure, there would have been no path for games like The Legend of Zelda to follow.
All this from a square with a key being chased by a duck.
This was one of my favorite games back when I was a kid playing on my 2600. It got intense sometimes when the dragons came after you in the invisible maze screen where you had a large square of light around you illuminating the paths close by. (think of it as the original use of a personal light like a torch in a game.
Thanks for the write up. I had no idea the dragons had names though.