Kooky's Quest 2021 - New 8bit and 5200 game by Anschuetz/Weisgerber/Anschuetz

[rra]

 

Atari 8 bit Version

Kooky's Quest 2021.XEX

 

Atari 5200 Version

Kooky's Quest 2021.ROM

 

Kooky's Quest 2021 is the 9th of 14 all new assembly language game release in 2021 by the team of Anschuetz/Wesigerber/Anschuetz.   This game has spiders, bats, snakes, goblins, mummies, and skeletons, so we thought it would be appropriate for a game to kickoff the Halloween season.  (And there just might be another scary-themed game release by us later this month!)

 

The original Kooky's Quest was published as a type-in BASIC game in the February 1985 issue of Antic magazine and is available on Atarimania.com here: http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-kooky-s-quest_2834.html.  This was the first game of ours to be published in a magazine, so this game is very nostalgic for us.  Kooky's Quest  was actually the second of the "Kooky" trilogy games that we developed - the first was Kooky Klimber (whose update has been submitted to the ABBUC 2021 contest), and the third was Kooky Diver (previously released here on the AtariAge forums).   Kooky's Quest is loosely based on the arcade game Venture.  Your smiley character is based on Venture's Winky character.   We added some twists, though, such as allowing you to select various weapons to battle the enemies, and borrowed the Dungeon and Dragons concept of hit points to give various degrees of strength and weaknesses to each weapon and enemy.

 

In this fresh retake on the game, the battle rooms were made twice as large as the original version, and players/missiles were used for your main character, the monsters in the rooms, and the weapons.  The 5 levels of mazes are the exact same ones we used in the 1980's.  The map is drawn using ATASCII characters, just like in the original version.  The joystick is now used to select weapons in each room instead of the keyboard in the original version.

 

I have also attached some correspondence with Antic magazine and a concept drawing of the game that we saved from 1984.

 

We hope that you enjoy this game.  Please let us know what you think!

 

Robert Anschuetz

Eric Anschuetz

John Weisgerber

[rra]

Kooky's Quest 2021 Game Instruction Summary:

 

- Conquer the dungeon before losing lives

- Defeat monsters before getting the ring in each room

- Clear each room to get a key to go to the next level

- Clear 5 levels to get the treasure

- Only 3 weapons of each type can be used per level

- Weapons have various hit point strengths

- Monsters have various hit point defenses

- Toggle the level with the Select Key

- Toggle music on/off with the Option Key

 

More details:

Move Kooky through each level of the dungeon with your joystick.  You cannot go down to the next level until you clear all of the rooms.  The stairs to go down to the next level is indicated with a "D" on the map.  Once you go down a level, you cannot go back up.

 

Once Kooky enters a room, the player chooses a weapon to fight the monster chosen randomly for the room.  Each monster is given a different hit point values, and each weapon also has a different hit point value.  The player is shown which monster he is going to battle, then must choose a weapon to fight with.  The fireball and lightning bolt are throwing weapons with the most hit point damage.  The knife, sword, axe, and mace are swinging weapons where the player must get right next to the monster to inflict damage.  These are actually much harder to use than the firing weapons, but they inflict less damage.  Kooky only carries 3 uses of each type of weapon per level, forcing the player to use some of the less powerful swinging weapons.  The player scrolls left and right with the joystick then selects the weapon with the fire button. 

 

The monster for each room is randomly chosen amongst 6 monsters each with various levels of hit point strength – spider, bat, snake, goblin, mummy, and skeleton.  Once Kooky enters a room, he either beats the monster and gets the treasure or the monster kills Kooky and the game is over.  There are rings in every room except the last one in each level, which is a key to the stairs to go down to the next level.  The down stairway has a lock on it until the key is retrieved, when it is unlocked, the player can descend to the lower level.  The final room of the 5^th level has a treasure chest.  Getting the treasure chest plays a rainbow effect of colors and the player wins the game.

 

 

 

 

[invisible kid]

Very cool! Was there any pressure to change the name to Kooky's Kwest? ?

[rra]

35 minutes ago, invisible kid said:

Very cool! Was there any pressure to change the name to Kooky's Kwest? ?

Funny that we never even thought of that even though it would have been more alliterative.

[invisible kid]

Kooky's Quest is better.

[Farb]

This is extremely cool! Thank you creating it.

 

I have very fond memories of typing in and playing the original Kooky's Quest ?

[Thelen]

Thanks for this new remake! Very cool. Also the background information and pages from the publication are very nice! Thanks!

[800XLNZ]

You guys should publish a digital anthology of your original 14 circa 1980's creations, with modern equivalents, including all documentation, in a monetizable format.

[rra]

16 hours ago, 800XLNZ said:

You guys should publish a digital anthology of your original 14 circa 1980's creations, with modern equivalents, including all documentation, in a monetizable format.

Hmm, sounds like an idea we might be considering already?.  Stay tuned!

[Guest]

Love finding old games that are new to me. I had a fun romp playing before the wife called me for dinner. And this is the 9th out of 14! Ohh the grandson will like this. Can't wait to show him.