Quest for Infamy

Developer: Infamous Quests | Publisher: Phoenix Online Publishing | Release Date: 2014 | Genre: Adventure / RPG / Indie | Website: Official Website | Purchase: Steam

Quest for Infamy stars William Roehm, a sarcastic opportunist who finds himself temporarily stuck in the valley of Krasna. A dalliance with the daughter of a baron in the East means Roehm can’t go back the way he came without risking his head while his route forward is blocked by a destroyed bridge. While waiting for the bridge to be repaired, Roehm hangs about the town of Volksville and it is not long before he is drawn into a crazy plot involving cults and ancient artifacts, all thanks to a mysterious woman.

The game is based around the classic point & click adventures of the 90s, so if you have never experienced the glory of hand drawn artwork at a resolution of 320X240 you are in for a shock. Anyone that has spent countless hours with the early Sierra adventure games, especially the Quest for Glory series, will feel right at home though. The developers have definitely nailed the visual side of things and the retro art style is very authentic.

Quest for Infamy is set in a fantasy themed world with magic, monsters and mysteries, but injects plenty of humor into the formula as well. Roehm is definitely no goody two shoes and his attitude had me laughing out loud a few times. He’s smart enough to know when to be charming in order to get his way, but doesn’t shy away from being a complete bastard either. Stealing from people, flirting with everyone from the opposite sex and insulting everyone is second nature to Roehm and he has no qualms resorting to murder either if it will save his own hide. Kudos to the developers for creating a character that remains likeable, even when going around doing twisted things like breaking someone’s neck because they reprimanded him for stealing. Of course, most of the things Roehm can get up to will probably offend people if they take it too seriously, which is why having a good sense of humor is essential for enjoying this game. There are plenty of other games where you can play as a knight in shining armor if you find Roehm offensive after all.

As in the Quest for Glory games, Quest for Infamy combines traditional point & click adventuring with some role playing elements. This means that in between all the talking to people and solving puzzles you will also have to fight enemies or take the time to eat and sleep. To make things even more interesting you can choose between three different character classes which influence how you have to approach certain situations in the game. As a brigand your strength will be your greatest asset while rogues employ stealth, and magic is the domain of the sorcerer. Your class doesn’t’ change the storyline from what I can tell, but opens up new side missions and requires slightly different solutions to some puzzles. This is great from a gameplay standpoint as it means you can replay the game with a different class and experience new content.

Don’t let this fool you into thinking that the game is lacking in content though. With over 50 non player characters to interact with and 200 rooms to explore the game will keep you busy for a very long time. In the first two acts you are pretty much given free rein to explore and it is possible to completely overlook the class based sidequests if you rush through the game. If you take your time and explore all the locations you can lose yourself in this game for days. The game even has a day and night cycle, so visiting certain places at different times might yield new interactions. Your quest is centered on the town of Volksville, city of Tyr and the surrounding valley, which includes forests, swamps, plains and other interesting locations. Each scene is packed with so much detail that you will quickly forget about the low resolution. The hand drawn artwork is great and many characters also have their own portraits which are displayed when you talk to them. Hotspots are not marked however, which means it is possible to overlook small items, especially if you play the game in a window to avoid pixilation. Navigation can also be a bit tricky at times as it is not always immediately obvious which screens you can exit and which ones are dead ends until you try.

The interface is taken straight from the Sierra classics, so you can cycle through the available actions such as sneaking, walking, running, interacting, looking, talking or fighting by right clicking, using the scroll wheel or moving your cursor to the top of the screen. The puzzles are generally good and you are given plenty of clues, although I did find myself stumped a few times because I overlooked something. You can’t lose or waste objects that are vital to the quest which means you are free to experiment, but you can do things that are so monumentally stupid that it results in an instant Game Over. Changing into a disguise right in front of the people you are trying to fool or breaking into a place in full view of guards for example. You can die during combat as well, but this usually just result in Roehm waking up back in town and tipping the healer some coins. You can also stock up on health potions, which are quite cheap to avoid this situation. Combat is a turn based affair where you select your attacks and watch the action unfold, but I managed to avoid most of the random encounters in the game as these don’t really add much to the experience.

I really enjoyed the audio in Quest for Infamy as it has quite a varied soundtrack with plenty of great tunes. Some of the tunes, such as the track that plays while you explore the forest have been stuck in my head for days, which is not something that happens very often when it comes to game soundtracks. The voice acting on the other hand is a bit of a mixed bag. While it is great that every single character in the game is voiced, not all of them do a particularly good job. This could be intentional for all I know as I recall some really terrible voice acting from the days when developers first discovered they can stick anyone in front of a microphone and make them read lines in order to make their game “multimedia.” If the goal was to emulate these types of performances, complete with uneven audio recording quality then the developers have certainly succeeded.  I still found myself clicking through some of the conversations though to speed things up, although I did read every shred of dialogue as the writing is quite good. Some of the lines are brilliant and the snarky narrator is always on hand to comment on your actions or to question your intelligence.

Overall I enjoyed Quest for Infamy enough that I am really looking forward to a sequel. The developers may have been heavily inspired by the Quest for Glory games, but they have managed to create an interesting gameworld and compelling characters of their own. Roehm is certainly not without his faults, but he is definitely not a boring protagonist. The last chapter of the game also felt a bit rushed, but at that point I had already spent so much time playing that I didn’t mind too much. The point & click genre has delivered some great new titles lately and Quest for Infamy can definitely be added to this growing list.

*Review originally published July 2014.