Arthur: The Quest for Excalibur is an illustrated interactive fiction video game written by Bob Bates and published by Infocom in 1989. It was released for the Apple II, Amiga, Mac, and IBM PC compatibles. Atypically for an Infocom product, it shows illustrations of locations, characters and objects within the game. It is Infocom's thirty-fourth game and is the second of two Infocom games developed by Challenge using Infocom's development tools. Paul Rigby of The Games Machine also commended the parser and text, and stated that the ability to transform into animals aided the inventiveness of the puzzles. Keith Campbell of Computer & Video Games personally ranked the game as among the best from Infocom, and cited the added intrigue lent to the game's puzzles by the transformation feature. Nick Walkland of Amiga Format was impressed by the game's graphics and felt that they made the game "atmospherically supreme". He also noted that some of the game's puzzles were "brain-tickling", yet not "especially devilish". Advanced Computer Entertainment commended the game's detailed graphics and high-quality parser and text. Lucinda Orr of Amiga Computing lauded the help menu as the "best help system in the world", the parser as "very good" and the graphics as "pleasing throughout". Commodore User stated that the game's transformation mechanic led to "nicely constructed" logic puzzles and humor. Andy Mitchell of Amiga Action was pleased by the game's mapping facility and colorful graphics, and cited the transformation feature as "great fun".
Scorpia of Computer Gaming World deemed the Apple II version "Infocom's most poorly produced game ever", criticizing the high number of disk swaps (sometimes to print a single sentence or to redraw the automap) and the "mediocre" Apple II graphics.
References
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External links
- Gallery of package and feelies for Arthur
