Amazing Quest * Strategy Guide

AMAZING QUEST * Strategy Guide Many cultures prize moderation and find extremes worrying. You might think at first that a luminous palace would be more welcoming than a brutal outpost. But aren't both extraordinary and potentially dis-concerting? Perhaps the most auspicious place is one that is not so remarkable. A hypothetical example: a rocky island. As you continue to play and imagine your journey in more and more detail, you will have a better basis for your choices. With that in mind, some thoughts on the best approaches when arriving somewhere new: TO RAID or not is an important decision. Declining to do so does not mean safety. It can leave you vulnerable, even to losing a ship. It's best to raid when you imagine you've arrived at an inhospitable, or even deviant, place. SEEKING HELP openly could go wrong, too. It might be seen as weakness, prompting an attack! If you don't make such a request, however, you could ne seem as suspicious, even hostile, and of course... GIFTS will be more welcome in some places. You also need to consider if you've suffered recent losses, depleting what you have to offer. Finally, keep in mind: Could your selection of gifts result in mis-understanding and conflict? PLAIN SPEECH doesn't seem wise. Reveal that you and your crew are victors at war, carrying spoils? Even saying where you are from may fire anger, because a leader may have ill will toward your homeland. Still, if the ideas comes to you, there must be a reason... SACRIFICING TO THE GODS can yield insight and help you prevail. However, are you well enough supplied? Also, if you just made a sac- rifice during your last stop, will the gods consider you fawning? The gods may also aAMAZING QUEST * Strategy Guideppreciate moderation. In many adventure games, you can perform the same string of actions and be assured of winning. What you (with your cultural world-view) might think of as chance, however, plays an important role in this game. To assume a perspective more fitting to the Amazing Quest uni- verse, you can always choose to act more or less appropriately. Just as the gods initially awarded you victory at war, however, they are ultimately behind what happens during your journey home.

Amazing Quest * For Developers

Will there be great enthusiasts of Amazing Quest who will want to work with it as developers? I’m not holding my breath, but I always participate in the projects of the creative commons and of free software, because I believe in them.

Amazing Quest is a real Commodore 64 BASIC program, not “fake-bit.” While I have made all the documentation available in an accessible way (using ALT text), I could not see how to make the game itself work accessibly while running in an in-browser emulator. For me, it was essential that the game be a real C64 game. So, the best I can do is to allow anyone else to develop accessible versions in other programming languages, if anyone wishes to do so.

For those who wish to port or translate the game, I am offering all the game materials (index.html and the documentation pages intro.html and guide.html, as well as the core BASIC code) under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. As that page explains, this also allows you to expand, remix, and otherwise change things about the game. If you choose to redistribute what you did, you just need to give appropriate credit, indicate if changes were made, and release what you did under the same license.

I am also offering just the BASIC code of the game under an even more permissive license, an all-permissive license, which follows:

Amazing Quest
Copyright 2020 Nick Montfort
Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification, are permitted in any medium without royalty, provided the copyright notice and this notice are preserved. The file is offered as-is, without any warranty.

Play the game!