Quest for the Holy Joystick1984

Quest for the Holy Joystick is a traditional text adventure and the first satirical output from the then up-and-coming zany Delta 4 Software. It spoofs the contemporary software industry and the ZX Microfairs that took place in the UK in the 80’s by sending the player on a magical mystery tour all over London

The player starts out at Downing Street number 5 and must take seemingly random journey on a red London bus to get to ‘the umpteenth ZX Microfair at Alexandra Palace’. Along the way the player encounters numerous cultural figures as well as some of the gaming press. The game also makes excessive fun of the text adventure scene of the time.

The interface is text driven with few static graphics, as it is written using ‘The Quill’ the parser is limited to verb / noun input.