Hero Quest was an adaption of the Milton Bradley board game of the same name released by Gremlin Graphics in 1991.
This game is also based on Games Workshop's Warhammer franchise (as Space Crusade is based on Warhammer 40k).
This version remained very faithful to the board game, right down to the turn based movement and combat system.
Gameplay
The game could be played either individually, or with team mates, each player picking one of more characters from those available - Barbarian, Elf, Dwarf and Wizard.
These were referred to as the 'Heroes' of the title.
The game was quest-based, each quest seeing the heroes battle through one dungeon in search of an exit, enemy, or some other objective.
The main advantage of playing on a home computer was that the board game required one player to act as the 'Evil Wizard' player, who would have full access to the game map and control over all of foes the players encountered.
The computer fulfilled this role in this version.
In its computer incarnation, the game stood up very well as a light-weight RPG in its own right (a kind of game rarely produced on Amstrad CPC), and received very favourable reviews.
An expansion, 'Return of The Witch Lord' was later released, consisting of ten extra quests based directly on the Milton Bradley expansion of the same name.
Amstrad Version
Technically, Hero Quest is a Speccy port, or more accuratly a Spectrum co-developpment games (because it is good and graphics were slightly modified).
The gameplay is close to the 16 bit version, yet the choice for a "Joystick as mouse" GUI is slow to use as it lacks a real Mouse.
Also, it shares the same graphics with Monocoloured Spectrum version, yet slightly re-coloured in 3 shade of Blue. A clever use of the Mode 1's 4 colours as in Head Over Heels wouldn't have hurt... Because as it is, the Amstrad CPC's version of Hero Quest lacks in contrast and visibility.
Information
| Title: | Hero Quest |
| Company: | Gremlin Graphics |
| Type: | Adventure |
| Year: | 1991 |