1988 Infocom
Platforms: Apple II GS, PC
Quarterstaff: The Tomb of Setmoth is an RPG title that was created for the Apple Macintosh back in 1988 for Infocom. It featured text entry, but also a dynamically generated map and graphics throughout the game. The game was developed by Scott Schmitz and Ken Updike.
In the game you would control Titus, sent by the Druid Council to explore remains of an abandoned colony. Along the way, you meet and recruit friends and improve your skills as you try and progress through the game.
According to a wikipedia page on the game, the PC and Apple II developments were cancelled due to poor sales. This seems a huge shame, as the Macintosh game was very well received. Was that really the case?
Both games remained lost, but in September 2024 – archivist Ken Van Mersbergen got in touch to say that he had recovered the PC version of the game and flagged that it had been added to archive.org. So here is our GTW entry for the title and the PC version saved. Can the Apple II version now be saved as well?
The game utilizes the DOS interface for the text areas, but generates the dynamic map in a very similar way to the Macintosh edition. Some screens are replicated from that version, but there are also colour screens too and various sounds included (which I didn’t get going at the time when I was quickly testing for screenshots + a video … it utilizes Tandy DAC sound support).
Ken reveals that the PC edition was developed in the late 1980s and was ready for beta testing when it was cancelled. He suggests that the game may crash or glitch out, and some features may not work correctly. The PC edition was programmed by Ken Updike.
I have created a merged disk image file, so that you only need to mount one IMA file in Dosbox (it seems you can only mount multiple img files). Once mounted, you will need to run the setup to install to a virtual C: drive and then run the game. We have also added a solution file that we found online via wayback machine.
With huge thanks to Ken Van Mersbergen for his amazing preservation work.
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