Swordquest

We're finally covering a topic I said we would go back to! When discussing the video game crash of 1983 I mentioned that Jack Tramiel plays a role in Atari's greatest event in which players could win real life treasure! His part will become clear later as we look at Atari before the crash.

Atari ran a competition for players to win four treasures worth $25,000 each across four different games. The first game in the series was Swordquest: Earthworld, this game has the player running around rooms that all look the same but just with a different colour background meant to resemble the signs of the zodiac. The purpose of the game is to find clues to reveal a secret message and in this game the idea was to leave certain items in certain rooms to activate a clue. This clue would simply be two numbers, this is the time to mention that the games came with more items including a poster, a T-shirt and a DC comic book. The number displayed on the screen refers to page and panel numbers in the comic book. Hidden in these panels would be a word, there were 10 words to find in all. However, 5 of the words were not part of the overall clue and to find the real ones the player had to find a clue on the front page of the comic book. The words "prime" and "number" were a different shade of red to the rest of the text meaning only the words which were prime numbers were the real words. The winners of this completed a different version of the game in 90 minutes and the winner of that recieved a golden talisman encrusted with jewels and gemstones.

The second game was Swordquest: Fireworld, the game was seemingly easier than the last as Atari had almost 50 winners. To reduce these numbers Atari made the winners write what they liked about the game and from these answers a winner was chosen who recieved a golden chalice encrusted with jewels and gemstones. Sadly, the third installment Swordquest: Waterworld was the last game made and the competition never took place. Waterworld followed the Hindu structure of life and all the rooms and traps in the game had aquatic themes. The winner of this competition would have recieved a golden crown encrusted with jewels and gemstones.

So why did this competition never take place? The video game crash of 1983 was taking effect and Atari sold their company to Jack Tramiel, under his leadership the competition was cancelled. The final planned game was Sworquest: Airworld, the winner of this game would have recieved a gold plated jade philosophers stone encrusted with jewels and gemstones. The true final event would have been the winners of the four games playing a special version of these games to win a $50,000 sword. The blade of the sword was platinum, the hilt of the sword was golden and encrusted with jewels and gemstones. In all, the value of all the treasures was $150,000.

So what of the the missing treasures? According to some Atari employees at the time many claim that Tramiel had them in his house after he closed the competition. Everyone who put those games into their Atari 2600's had a chance of winning, it was something to dream about. But with the competition unfinished it is a sad end for waht would have been the greatest event in gaming history.

#atari #DCcomics