Quest for Glory: Shadows of Darkness

Quest for Glory: Shadows of Darkness (aka Quest for Glory IV: Shadows of Darkness) is an adventure/role-playing game hybrid developed and published by Sierra On-Line in December 1993 for MS-DOS and Windows 3.x. This fourth installment of the Quest for Glory series is the sequel to Quest for Glory III: Wages of War, and it is the last game to be made in this VGA before it moved into the world of 3D. Despite being the fourth Quest for Glory game, the roman numeral was dropped from the official title. However, the game files, various collections, and fans still refer to it as Quest for Glory IV.

On September 1994, Sierra released Quest for Glory: Shadows of Darkness Multimedia, a CD-ROM version of the game that fixed game breaking bugs and added professional voice acting.

The game would be followed in 1998 with Quest for Glory V: Dragon Fire.

Plot
Drawn without warning from victory in Tarna, the Hero arrives without equipment or explanation in the middle of the hazardous Dark Caves in the distant land of Mordavia. Upon escaping from the closing cave mouth, he meets a mysterious young woman named Katrina who assists him again several times in his journey. He encounters several old foes, including the not-quite-dead Ad Avis and the ogress Baba Yaga, and makes several bizarre new allies. The Hero is ultimately coerced into assisting Ad Avis' Dark Master in collecting the Dark Rituals that will awaken Avoozl the Dark One (an obvious Cthulhu pastiche, and most likely a reference to the Slavic deity Chernobog) from his slumber underneath the Dark Caves. Naturally, the Hero is freed from this control and thwarts their plan, destroying Ad Avis in the process. During the celebration of the Hero's somewhat pyrrhic victory, the wizard Erasmus appears, summoning the Hero to the land of Silmaria.

Features
Quest for Glory IV posses unique features. It is the only game in the series that allows automated Combat (with the AI fighting on your behalf), thus appealing more to adventure players. It also introduced an unlimited Day and Night Cycle (with a few bugs).

Content
Quest for Glory IV features far darker themes while maintaining the humor of previous games through such methods as incorporating Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre parodies. Centered around a dark cult summoning an unfathomably large evil, the game was a far cry from earlier villains such as Baba Yaga. Moreover, to fight the new monsters, Quest for Glory IV implemented an entirely new fighting system. While sometimes criticized as clunky, the new system was undeniably different.

Staff Roll

 * Producer / Project Manager: Oliver Brelsford
 * Director / Design / Writing / Dialogue / Story: Corey Cole, Lori Ann Cole
 * Lead Programming: Henry Yu
 * Programming: Vana Baker, Oliver Brelsford, Neil Matz, Kevin L. Ray, Henry Yu
 * Director of Technology: Bill Crow
 * System Technologists: Dan Foy, Larry Scott, Chris Smith, Mark Wilden
 * Systems Programmers: Ed Critchlow, Ken Koch, Terry McHenry, Martin Peters, David Slayback
 * Interpreter / Development System: Steve Conrad, Ed Critchlow, Bill Crow, Dan Foy, Ken Koch, Terry McHenry, Martin Peters, Larry Scott, David Slayback, Mark Wilden
 * Combat System: Henry Yu, Marc Hudgins
 * Art Director: Marc Hudgins
 * Animation: Joan Delehanty, Marc Hudgins, Tony Margioni, Tim Loucks, Frances Anne Powell, Daryle Smith, Barry T. Smith
 * Background Illustration: Bob Gleason, Joan Delehanty
 * Character Design and Illustration: Tim Loucks
 * Music and Sound: Aubrey Hodges
 * Additional Music: Dale Stump
 * Additional Sound: Neal Grandstaff
 * Production: J. Mark Hood, James W. Thomas
 * Technical Director: Mark Parker
 * Cinematographer: Robert Ballew
 * Video Captured Actors: Terrence Falls, Dana Dean, Tim Loucks, Barry Smith, Tony Margioni, Marc Hudgins, Karin Young
 * Voice Director: Stuart M. Rosen
 * Quality Assurance: Catie Andrews, Roger Clendenning, Dave Clingman, Lynne S. Dayton, Ken Eaton, Michael D. Jones, Jon Meek, Mike Pickhinke, John Ratcliffe, Leonard Salas, Sharon Simmons, Daryle Smith, John Trauger, Douglas Wheeler
 * Manual Designers: Nathan Gams, Maria Fruehe
 * Special Thanks To: Jeanne Brink, Susan Frischer, J. Mark Hood, Al Roughton, William Shockley, James W. Thomas, Karin Ann Young

Voice Cast

 * Narrator: John Rhys-Davies
 * Katrina: Jennifer Hale
 * Dmitri Ivanov: Gregg Berger
 * Ad Avis / Bonehead / Dr. Cranium / Igor: Jeff Bennett
 * Anna: Cathianne Blore
 * Lorre Petrovich / Punny Bones: Hamilton Camp
 * Domovoi / Blackjack Davy / Nikolai: Cam Clarke
 * Boris Stovich / Hans: Jim Cummings
 * Leshy: Bill Farmer
 * Magda: Joan Gerber
 * Franz: Jess Harnell
 * Bella Markarov: Mitzi McCall
 * Erana / Rusalka: Diane Pershing
 * Yuri Markarov: Stu Rosen
 * Erasmus / Ivan: Neil Ross
 * Baba Yaga / Fenrus / Olga Stovich / Tatiana: Susan Silo
 * Tanya Markarov: Russi Taylor

Russian Tarot of St. Petersburg used with Permission of US Games Systems, Inc.

Development
Quest for Glory: Shadows of Darkness was created using the SCI2 Interpreter version 2.000.000, and it was the last Quest for Glory game to be made in VGA. Additionally, the game featured a largely original soundtrack by Aubrey Hodges using the Roland SC-55 mk II – although it did feature a reprise of the "Hero’s Theme" by Mark Seibert from previous games and a rendition of "Anitra's Dance" by Edvard Grieg which played as background music in the Mordavian Inn.

Tarot Sequence
A particularly detailed sequence in the game involved the Gypsy Magda gathering information about the hero's future and his possible enemies or allies using a deck of Tarot cards. The images used for the game were taken from the Russian Tarot of St. Petersburg, a Rider-Waite-Smith clone deck, and the layout used appears to be unique to the game.

Behind the Scenes
The game is referred to as simply Quest for Glory: Shadows of Darkness on the box, in the manuals, and the title screen in the game itself. It is installed in the QFG4 folder. It has been referred to as Quest for Glory IV: Shadows of Darkness in other sources such as the Quest for Glory Anthology.

A debug mode is accessible in the floppy version of the game. Interesting the floppy version lacks the Sierra logo on start up.

Patches

 * Quest for Glory IV Gravis UltraSound Drivers (GUS32): These Gravis Ultrasound Drivers will work with some Sierra 32 bit games. These drivers will not work on earlier Sierra games.
 * QFG4-Enhanced: See Quest for Glory 4: Enhanced Edition.

Floppy Disk Version

 * Quest for Glory IV Update 1.1a (QG4PAT): This diskette or archive file contains the necessary files to update  Quest for Glory IV: Shadows of Darkness  version 1.0, 1.0a or 1.1 to version 1.1a. This update corrects several problems:
 * Polygon problems, to include "purge is not a selector for glory"
 * Fatal "Assertion Failure" during saving
 * Fatal at the Monk's Tomb
 * Fatal at the Thieves Guild main safe
 * Fatal when Restoring from the Burning Gypsy death message
 * Fatal Lockup when Ego is caught by Ad Avis
 * Fatal in the swamp, when jumping from hummock to land
 * Saved game size and restore time has been decreased.

CD-ROM Version

 * Quest for Glory IV Update 1.2 (SHADOWUP): This 1.0.1 patch includes several updates to the original diskette version, including:
 * Fixes error 29 ("Unable to initialize your audio hardware") with SoundBlaster 16
 * Provides support for the Gravis Ultrasound Sound Card (32-bit DOS).
 * Quest for Glory 4 Note Patch (QG4NOTE): This patch fixes the order of events in the Hero's bedroom so that important events are certain to occur. In particular, the Hero should awaken from a dream to find a note signed "Katrina" 1-3 nights after rescuing Tanya. If this event does not occur, the game cannot be completed. To recover, install this patch, then restore to a saved game before Hero has rescued Tanya from the castle.
 * Quest for Glory 4 Import Patch (QG4IMP): This patch fixes character import problems. If the game cannot read some of the statistics in the character SAV file, it will prompt you to enter a value. You may enter any number from 100-300.