Do you remember games like Zork, Beuracracy, Infidel, and all those other great text adventures? Remember choose your own adventure novels? Ever wished you could create awesome interactive stories like that, and better? If so, you should check out Quest, free software that can help you out in looking back on those games and looking toward the future of that style of game on your desktop or mobile.
Quest allows you to create your very own adventures in a couple of different ways, and you don’t have to know how to code or hack or anything beyond basic computer literacy to use it, all for free!
Way back in the day, as it has been put, there were games that let you go on adventures and fantasies called ‘text adventures’ and they were a huge hit among the early computer generations.
The games were related, and perhaps even based on, the concept of a style of book that had become popular at the time in which you could make choices in how the story would progress while you read it. This was a really overwhelmingly fun idea for many fans of the genre and the style of storytelling, so to speak, was carried over into the world of early computer games. Prehistoric PC gaming, if you will. For, as the programs were entirely text based, and therefore deeply rooted in the concepts of world creation, lore and reader/player immersion, they provided the ‘bones’ of modern MMO and other RPG games on the PC and of course the consoles.
So, if that era of history interests you, as it does me and so many others, you may want to take a look at the program called Quest. It costs nothing and allows you to create your very own stories in the ‘choose-your-own-text-adventure’ format, which I like to refer to as ‘CYOTA’ games for love of unnecessary acronyms.
First, the best part: yes, it’s really free. It’s what they call ‘open-source’ programming, which means to you, dear reader, that it will always be free and you won’t have to register or license it at any time. Secondly, it really is supremely easy to use. It consists of a few basic steps, which produce an end result that can be played in the web browser of your choice, or even downloaded and passed around on portable media. As the web site for Quest itself says: “You can sell the games you make with Quest. You can use the Quest source code inside closed source commercial applications.You don’t need to ask for permission – you already have it.” which is some of the best news I have heard all day. The program guides you through the basic steps of choosing format, characters, story sequence, etc. It’s all there, in the program, just waiting for you to fill in the blanks, as it were. But these games don’t have to just be text, remember! There can be pictures, sounds, links to videos on Youtube, the list of features is surprising and robust! You can even create an ‘app’ with this thing!
Upon loading the desktop version, which you can download for free too, you’ll see a listing of other games created using the Quest program. You can download and play these games for examples and ideas of what you can do with the Quest system. It’s pretty amazing what can be accomplished so easily now, with programs like Quest.
Yes, I am in love with this program, and therefore, I could go on and on about it and how awesome all its features are and the like until I am blue in the face but with this one, I will simply let my enthusiasm speak for itself and just say ‘you must try this out’ because it’s true! You have to try this thing! It only takes a few minutes of your time to get it going and before you know it you will surprise yourself by having a fun game to play that you created! This is the kind of software I love so much because it brings out creativity in us without making it difficult to do so! It’s like having a great teacher to guide you along a process, and get to a great ending created by you. Try it out! Until next time, my friends!
