#festers quest

Oh nooooo….I guess it was bound to happen eventually.

On top of everything else, this has got to be the worst title screen I’ve ever encountered.

In the enormous pantheon of “games based on licensed IPs that absolutely no one asked for,” Fester’s Quest really stands out. The reasons for its development are legitimately clouded in mystery - it’s the first game of any kind to be based on the Addams Family, and came out at a time when nothing was happening with the franchise. The TV show had been off the air for decades, and the 90s movies were still a few years away. Very little of its gameplay really fits in with the franchise, though there’s no evidence it started as anything else. In summary, what the hell is up with this game? Let’s find out.

The storyline of Fester’s Quest is, and I am entirely certain of this, not what you think it is. Uncle Fester, the Addams family member that everyone loves and wants to play as the most [citation needed], is enjoying a pleasant evening when he suddenly comes upon an alien invasion and is somehow the person that needs to handle it.

I’m not really sure how to even describe the gameplay, because it’s a rather unique combination of weird and bad. The object of the game is to Fester has some sort of blunderbuss, which you use to kill aliens while wandering around like a strange man/tank hybrid. You move slowly, die easily, and figuring out where to go is a real slog. You can thankfully upgrade the gun a handful of different times, and it’s quite essential - even the simple enemies take a ton of hits to kill early on. Eventually, you defeat a handful of bosses and save the world - pretty standard stuff, save for…well, almost everything.

At various points, you need to duck into a labyrinthine sewer area, which needs to be lit using light bulbs (what?), otherwise it ends up looking like this:

Because I am extremely smart, on my first couple of attempts and assumed it was just like this. I partially blame the game for this - it’s unreasonably difficult at times, and it has enough other iffy design choices that I could see it just being a “fun” maze in the dark. I was glad to be wrong about that. You can also occasionally use items to summon other members of the Addams Family, who help out in various ways like giving you items:

Classic Wednesday. Apparently Fester uses them to cure paralysis caused by enemies…somehow. How he does it is one of gaming’s greatest mysteries.

Speaking of mysteries, I still don’t really know what’s up with this weird-ass game. Fester’s Quest leaves me with just so many questions, the chief of which is just...why? Why does Uncle Fester have a blunderbuss? Why do you have to start from the beginning any time you die? Why was this game even made? This article, which has many of the same questions, also notes that because the game has no end credits isn’t even fully known who made it. Perhaps it’s just…always been here.

Despite its mysterious origins and highly questionable quality, Fester’s Quest was a pretty big hit, remarkably selling over a million copies. There are certainly elements of a good game there - the music is quite good (albeit not very Addams-y), and there are a few different gameplay elements to switch things up, but it just doesn’t come together. This game has a rather polarizing reputation, appearing on a handful of both “best games” and “worst games” lists. I lean towards the latter, but I imagine that given enough time I could see myself becoming able to see past some of its more glaring flaws.

Here it is: An arrangement of the chiptune music from the game Fester’s Quest. This and a couple other edits can be found for free on my new Bandcamp page. Enjoy?