Quest for Infamy Previewed

Quest for Infamy Previewed

By David Lins

Thanks to Kickstarter, the world has plenty of modern point-and-click adventure games. Among them, very few manage to live up to the adventure games of the 90s, with their strangely compelling dialogue, fantastic voice acting, and brutal difficulty. Quest for Infamy is a bit different from those games, because it isn’t just trying to update those games—it’s trying to be one of them.

In the short time I’ve had with Quest for Infamy, I’ve felt like a time traveler—I remembered being a kid, sitting in front of a computer for hours—hours—trying to figure out what to do in Space Quest.

The game has players control William Roehm, a charming but devious man on the run, as he arrives at the quaint little town of Volksville. The first goal of the game is to get to know the locals before attending an execution. While the build of the game I played lacked certain sound files (including dialogue), what was there was pretty solid; the characters all have unique personalities and quirks, even the insignificant ones. The narrator, in particular, does a good job of relaying information to you in a snarky, smug manner similar to that of Space Quest.

Once you’ve spoken with the locals and watched the execution, the sun goes down and what you do next determines which path you take through the game. I’m always up for a good round of drinking, so I decided to speak with Kurdt, a muscle-bound bar patron who buys people drinks when they make fun of his nosehair. After defeating him in a drinking game, he sent me to kill a beast in the woods and retrieve its silver teeth. Like a good adventure game player, I shrugged and said, “Sure.”

After slaying the creature, I used my sword to cut off its head, which I carried around for a few screens because you never know. From there, you cut out the thing’s teeth, and that’s where things get a bit… adventure game-y.

See, it’s not enough to just hand Kurdt the silver teeth. He wants you to melt them down into a medallion. I took the teeth to the blacksmith, but of course he wouldn’t melt the teeth down for me. Of course he wouldn’t, that’d be too easy. He also wouldn’t let me use his forge. After some time, I worked out that you had to scare his horse to distract him (while in sneak mode and with his back turned—otherwise you’ll get caught and it’s an instant game over. Save often!). As he ran after his horse, I made my way over to the forge, feeling a little smug that I had solved the puzzle so easily. Then I tried to use the teeth on the forge.

You can’t just put the teeth in the forge, though. The tongs aren’t good enough either; you need some sort of container. I searched around town for a while with no luck, and when I returned to the blacksmith, he had me arrested for stealing his tongs. Whoops! I reloaded a save, put the tongs back, and then searched the entire area for almost two hours. I gave up, looked up the answer online, and found out that you have to grab a helm off of a corpse in the woods to use as a container. That’s not too bad, except that when you try to examine the guy earlier in the game, his head pops off and disappears into a trunk, and there is literally no reason to assume that the helm is obtainable from that point. Oh, and when I returned to distract the blacksmith again, his horse hadn’t returned. I had to reload an older save and get the helm again.

People, myself included, actually miss dealing with crap like this in games. Can you believe that? If you answered “Yes” then congratulations, Quest for Infamy might be right up your alley!

Quest for Infamy is set for release on July 10th, 2014 on various platforms, including Steam and GOG.com.

[facebook][tweet][Google][pinterest][follow id=”Cliqist” size=”large” count=”true” ] [author image=”http://cliqist.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/david.jpg” ]David Lins is a freelance writer from Pennsylvania that has loved video games since he was old enough to hold a controller. He enjoys all sorts of games, but prefers difficult or terrifying ones. Currently, he plays too many roguelikes. When not writing about his favorite hobby, he loves to drink beer, write fiction, play tabletop RPGs or board games, and hang out with his friends and family. He also has a passion for technology and loves tinkering with his phone, computer, and other devices. Follow David on Twitter for “hilarious” or “insightful” tweets about nothing in particular. [/author]