Games can and should entertain. They can be frivolous or deep. They can be artistic or irreverent. They can be funny or they can be grim dark and serious. Sometimes, a game can inspire. Swordquest is one of those inspirational games.
First of all, a quick confession. I have never played the Swordquest series, but being inspired by this series isn’t quite as simple as just the games themselves, but their whole construction, what approach they took and the wider context of their release.
Swordquest was a series released for the Atari 2600 in the early 80s when video gaming was still finding its feet and developers were still experimenting with what they could do. Just about everything that came out for the Atari were highly abstract due to the limited technical prowess of the console and when looked at today appear almost like impressionist art. In fact, a lot of indie developers today are enraptured by the impact of pixel art that stems from playing games on machines like the Atari. The Swordquest series is no exception to these trends on the machine but represents something greater and shows a potential for games that has yet to be realised again.
Swordquest was a competition. It was a game where players would ultimately be fighting against each other to win real world treasures made of actual precious metals and gems and the fighting would take the form of a series of punishing puzzles and lateral thinking exercises. This is nothing short of exceptional.