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Steam

1987 · Port · Stainless Games · Action · Arcade

Crystal Quest

Port

Crystal Quest is a fast moving, adrenaline-boiling video arcade game from 1987 that won many awards. Now on the latest hardware.

Released: 1987
Platforms: Apple IIGS Game Boy Windows Xbox 360 macOS
Genres: Action Arcade Strategy
Developers: Stainless Games
Publishers: Casady & Greene
Modes: Single-player
Perspective: Bird view / Isometric
Themes: Action
Country: United Kingdom
Languages: English
Time to beat: 1hmain story2hcompletionist

About

Crystal Quest is an action game written by Patrick Buckland for the Macintosh and published by Casady & Greene in 1987. It was ported to the Apple IIGS in 1989 by Rebecca Heineman. Ports were also made to the Amiga, Game Boy, iOS, and Palm. It was the first game to support the color displays of the Macintosh II.

The game was based on the original shareware game Crystal Raider, one of the supporters of which had been Michael Greene, founder of Greene, Inc. (later to merge with CasadyWare to become Casady & Greene). A sequel, similar to the original game, Crystal Crazy, was released in 1993.

Players say

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Development

Crystal Quest is easier to play in color mode on the Macintosh version as opposed to monochrome, as more RAM is used, causing enemies to move slower. Improvements and features in Crystal Quest over its predecessor Crystal Raider include a two-player mode, support for color, improved sound, and a demo mode. A glitch in the demo mode for early copies of Crystal Quest caused system errors on one out of ten Mac IIs, and those affected could call Greene Inc. for a replacement copy of the game.

Reception

Macworld reviewed the Macintosh version of Crystal Quest, praising its action gameplay and colorful graphics, stating that Crystal Quest is "Fast, challenging action ... You learn to play in minutes because the game is so intuitive ... Crystal Quest is especially fun to play on a color Mac II because the vivid color-cycle graphics rival those of the finest arcade games. ...

Crystal Quest is the first Macintosh game I've found that truly compares in features and quality with a real arcade game." Macworld also praises the "clever" sound effects, stating that "some of the sounds are droll, and some are gross. Kids will love them." but criticizes one particular sound effect, saying that "The sound that accompanies the player's entrance into the gateway at the end of each wave, however, is a digitized pseudo-female-orgasmic gasp that several women I played it for found offensive."