Hero's Quest: So You Want to Be a Hero

Balancing

Some people preferred to complete the game using this version -- opposed to the VGA remake -- because you could allocate magic points for any character class you chose, guaranteeing a somewhat powerful character for the rest of the series.

Development

From Hero's Quest I Hint Book:

You may be interested to know what goes into a game like Hero's Quest I: So You Want To Be A Hero. Development took over a year, with up to four programmers and four artists, a musician, and a designer-director. Hero's Quest I contains:

• 111,000 lines of source code (well, so 30,000 of them are blank!)
• 535,000 bytes of background pictures
• 1,560,000 bytes of animation
• 1,980,000 bytes of program code
• 375,000 characters of text messages
• 314,000 bytes of music and sound effects and over 200,000 bytes of compiled system code

And you thought this was easy!

Gags

• The book that Kaspar, who runs the dry Goods store, is reading, is titled "Quest for Glory: A Hero's Death"
• If you're a thief, try picking your nose with the lockpick.. but make sure you save your game first!
• Attack the Antwerp with your sword and it will bounce high above your head and out of the area. However, when you leave the screen and enter a new one, a shadow will appear over you from above. Things aren't looking too good! If this Antwerp has it's way then he's gonna flatten you.. so, quickly pull out your dagger\sword and hold it above your head. the Antwerp will land on your blade and explode into lots of little baby Antwerps!
• If you right-click on the scorpion walking across the main menu the message: "Congratulations! You have found the first bug in this game." will appear.

Title

Quest For Glory was originally named Hero's Quest, but the name was later changed due to a conflict with Milton Bradley over their board game Hero Quest.

References

• Erasmus' house contains many 'relics' from other Sierra games:
  • A suit of armor bequeathed by Colonel Gulden Dijon (a reference the first Laura Bow game, The Colonel's Bequest).
  • A little chopper from the Lytton Police Department (a reference to Police Quest).
  • On the sarcophagus is a hieroglyph starring Rosella from King's Quest 4.
  • There is also a shield in the room that belonged to one of those "Once and Future" kings (a reference to the famous King Arthur novel "The Once And Future King" by writer T.H. White).
• The moose head and 'Maltese Falcon' appear in this game, as they do in each Quest For Glory title (Courtesy of the Sierra prop department).
• The Three Stooges make a minor cameo appearance in the game.
• A creature called "Antwerp" appears in this game, which is the name of an actual city in Belgium (Europe).
• The guildmaster of the Adventurer's Guild, Wolfgang Abentuerer, mentions "two guys from Andromeda" when you ask about the antwerp trophy. It is a reference to the two designers of Space Quest, another Sierra game
• If you visit Mirror Lake twice a submarine will emerge on your second visit. This is a plug for the Sierra adventure Codename: ICEMAN. In the VGA remake the submarine is replaced by Delphineus (the dolphin from EcoQuest) and the monster of Loch Ness (a plug for Conquest of the Longbow).

Awards

• Amiga Joker
  • Issue 01/1991 – #2 Best Role-Playing Game in 1990
• Computer Gaming World
  • September 1990 (Issue #74) – Adventure Game of the Year
  • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) - #73 in the “150 Best Games of All Time" list
  • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) – #15 Most Innovative Computer Game

Information also contributed by Belboz, Boris Stovich; Itay Shahar, Jiguryo, PCGamer77, Roedie, Roger Wilco and Timo Takalo