The Classic PC Gaming Era (1977-1989) - The Fool’s Errand
Don't miss this amazing puzzle game that's loaded with secrets and which tells a one of a kind story!
RELEASE DATE: 1987
DEVELOPER / PUBLISHER: Cliff Johnson / Miles Computing
PLAYABILITY TODAY: Fairly playable
BEST VERSIONS: Macintosh
Puzzle video games have long had a tendency to fall into one of two camps: games built around a defined set of mechanics (think Tetris, Bejeweled or Lumines) or collections of varied minigames (think Castle of Dr. Brain, the Professor Layton games or Brain Age). The Fool’s Errand is definitely in the latter category, but it stands apart from other games like it by including a narrative that’s amusing, engaging and a little pretentious, in part because it was based on an interactive puzzle book written by the game’s author, Cliff Johnson, a filmmaker who’d never made a computer game before The Fool’s Errand and who somehow managed to create one of the most intriguing Macintosh puzzle games of the 1980s.
The premise of The Fool’s Errand involves the titular Fool wandering through a journey populated by characters drawn from a tarot deck. The story (which can be read in its entirety on Cliff Johnson’s website) opens up some of the initial sixty puzzles. Completing those allows players to begin unlocking tiles for a master puzzle called The Sun’s Map, which contains 81 pieces and is the starting point for a far more devious brainteaser where the player has to locate fourteen treasures by using the map and the cryptic clues from the story.
While many players will probably gloss over the written portion of the game during their initial playthrough, they’ll find that the details about the kingdoms (based on the four suits) and the major Arcana are extremely important to understand if they want to complete the game. This interlocking design is part of why The Fool’s Errand is so special – every aspect of the game has a specific purpose, and nothing feels superfluous or wasted.
The initial puzzles range from word searches to trick mazes to a tarot deck duel against an old man who’s keeping the actual rules to himself, but what’s notable about each puzzle is how little instruction the game gives, instead relying on the player to work things out through discovery and trial and error. You might be presented with a word search where you have to locate a bunch of words but find you have little idea what sort of words you’re looking for. You might encounter a puzzle where you have to fit pieces together while also aligning words embedded in the titles. You might be given a crossword where all the letters are scrambled and the answer is anything but obvious. You might encounter a maze where the walls begin shifting or where unseen winds whisk you off to another portion of the labyrinth. Fortunately, you can select the order in which you complete the puzzles as they unlock, and some are easy enough that they’re winnable on the first try, which helps The Fool’s Errand to feel like a challenge that can be overcome, even if it’s a bit tricky at times.
The original Macintosh version is the definitive way to play The Fool’s Errand; the Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari ST and MS-DOS versions are imperfect adaptations developed by another team and each feel like they’re missing something, in part because the graphical fidelity is lower, but also because the game was coded in an extremely unusual way and the ports don’t quite recreate the same experience. The Fool’s Errand was also originally built for the Mac’s elegant point and click interface and the ports don’t handle the cursor as well. Fortunately, Cliff Johnson has even made the game available for free on his website pre-packaged with a Macintosh emulator along with his two subsequent games At the Carnival and 3 in Three, which are both also a lot of fun and recommended if you enjoy the puzzling aspects of The Fool’s Errand.
Johnson has also self-published a sequel called The Fool and His Money which is available on the same site, and while I have not yet played it, I’m certain it’s a worthwhile purchase if you find yourself wanting more after you finally solve the puzzles The Fool’s Errand has to offer.
As Our Series Continues…
In the coming weeks, we’ll wind down our look at the classic PC era as we talk about puzzle games and unusual games before we begin delving into the arcade and console games you missed from the 1980s.
If you’ve missed the earlier entries in the series, which cover ASCII games, adventure games, wargames, strategy games, role-playing games, sports games, fighting games, brawlers and more, you can find the entire archive at https://greatestgames.substack.com.
Anything I don’t share here will be in my upcoming book, tentatively titled The Greatest Games You (Probably) Never Played Vol. 1. Subscribe to this newsletter so you won’t miss it!