The Faery Tale Adventure Amiga MicroIllusions 1987 David Joiner

The Faery Tale Adventure Amiga

MicroIllusions released The Faery Tale Adventure for Amiga in 1987. The Faery Tale Adventure is a cRPG based on exploration, adventuring and real-time combat. The Faery Tale Adventure is notable for its massive medieval-fantasy overworld, smooth screen-scrolling and easy-to-use, icon-driven menus.

The Faery Tale Adventure was designed, programmed, drawn and composed by David Joiner aka Talin.

Displaying in 16-color 320x200, The Faery Tale Adventure features 8-way attack, 8-way movement and smooth 8-way scrolling of over 17,000 drawspaces 288x140 pixels in size. The open-ended overworld of Holm is 144x100 screens in size. A separate map of the overworld can be called up via an item, but it doesn't show the entire world. There is no automap or even a coordinate system outside of a hex editor, just a compass.

The world consists of grasslands, farmlands, forests, deserts, mountains, swamps, barren wastelands, buildings (and interiors), landmarks, dungeons, lakes, rivers and seas -- plus an astral world.

The copy-pasta tile-based graphics, sprites and animations are simple even for 1987, but they serve their purpose. The problem with the scrolling is that it is not avatar-centered and is of the "catch-up" kind, meaning there is not much breathing space between the character and the edge of the screen, and the screen moves even after the character has stopped.

In controlling the brother-protagonists, Julian, Phillip or Kevin, the player simply moves around the map exploring, searching, talking, using items, defeating enemies in battle (in melee and ranged mobs up to five-strong) and looting corpses and chests. Loot is mostly randomized but drawn from preset pools. Battles and looting outcomes can be save-scummed.

The main quest of The Faery Tale Adventure consists in talking to key NPCs, dungeon-delving and acquiring plot-critical items. Exploring and farming items on the overworld is required for plot progression and character power-progression.

There are terrain movement modifiers, terrain obstacles, water hazards and a day-night cycle that gradually transitions. There is also a five-line dialogue panel that displays four lines of feedback text, with one line reserved for character stats.

Example of tactical terrain usage: due to terrain movement modifiers it is possible to lure a pursuing mob into thick woods while remaining on grasslands, peppering them with arrows as they move through the forest, slowly. Likewise, it is possible to drown mobs. You can also lure a mob into the line of fire of an enemy archer.

If there was strafing and increased simultanenous spawns, combat would be a lot more fun; an open-world Diablo-like, if you will. The Faery Tale Adventure's action-engine is proof that the Amiga could have handled a Diablo-like game almost a decade before Diablo came out.

By using magical items the player can stop time, teleport, illuminate (infravision), heal and reveal secret doors. Eventually, high-speed sailing and flight is possible (turtle and swan).

Character Stats

The three protagonist brothers are constituted by four cRPG stats + wealth. All stats can be increased in-play.

• Bravery (Brv): Damage / AC: Increased by killing enemies
• Luck (Lck): Governs the amount of lives before a brother is vanquished
• Kindness (Knd): Charisma (NPCs): Increased by giving alms
• Vitality (Vit): Health, HPs: Increased by killing enemies; drained by getting hit, hunger and drowning
• Wealth (Wlth): gold, GP

Max Bravery is 999. Then, it wraps back to 000. Bravery increases 10 times faster than Vitality.

The characters' "lives" are based on Luck. Upon his untimely demise Julian is followed by his two brothers, Phillip and Kevin (the stats of the brothers differ). The deadliest thing on the overworld is getting hit by a stream of arrows fired by an archer, which can drain many points of Vitality in the blink of an eye.

The Faery Tale Adventure supports mouse, joystick or keyboard control. Hokeys are extensively employed.

The Faery Tale Adventure requires an Amiga with 512K RAM and was distributed on 1x 3.5" 880kB diskette. Back in the day, it was not hard disk drive-installable.

Back in 1987 The Faery Tale Adventure was quite a wonder. In 2024, it is a little bit tedious and dull to play, with unsatisfying combat. The Faery Tale Adventure will filter most players within a few minutes due to its initial difficulty and clunky combat. The game becomes much easier once Bravery and Vitality have been raised and key items have been looted from the slain.

Overall, I give The Faery Tale Adventure 8.5/10 because it was basically developed by just one person.

Weapon-Based Hotkeys

Weapons can be switched on-the-fly. Arrows must be found or bought for the bow (and ammo depletes).

• Dirk (1): Equip Dagger
• Mace (2): Equip Mace
• Sword (3): Equip Sword
• Bow (4): Equip Bow
• Wand (5): Equip Magic Wand
• Key (K): Use Key from color sub-menu

Magic-based Hotkeys

• Stone (F1): Use Blue Stone: Stone Circle Teleportation
• Jewel (F2): Use Green Jewel: Light-source
• Vial (F3): Use Glass Vial: Restore Vitality
• Orb (F4): Use Crystal Orb: Reveal secret door
• Totem (F5): Use Bird Totem: Call up partial world map
• Ring (F6): Use Gold Ring: Stop Time
• Skull (F7): Use Jade Skull: Kill enemies

The Faery Tale Adventure manual: 16 pages.

The Faery Tale Adventure copy protection: text input manual reference.

The Faery Tale Adventure source code has been released.

The Faery Tale Adventure IBM PC MicroIllusions 1989

The IBM PC version of The Faery Tale Adventure was released in 1989. The IBM PC version displays in 16-color EGA 320x200 and was distributed on 2x 5.25" 360kB floppy disks. Coming out two years after the Amiga version -- and only in CGA/EGA -- the IBM PC version is not historically significant.

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