The Fool's Errand
| The Fool's Errand | |
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Macintosh cover art for The Fool's Errand
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| Developer(s) | Cliff Johnson |
| Publisher(s) | Miles Computing |
| Platform(s) | Mac OS, MS-DOS, Amiga, Atari ST |
| Release | 1987 |
| Genre(s) | Puzzle |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
The Fool's Errand is a 1987 computer game by Cliff Johnson. It is a meta-puzzle game with storytelling, visual puzzles and a cryptic treasure map. It is the tale of a wandering Fool who seeks his fortune in the Land of Tarot and braves the enchantments of the High Priestess.
A sequel titled The Fool and His Money was released October 25, 2012.
Created with Microsoft BASIC and ZBasic for the Apple Macintosh, the game was ported to MS-DOS, Commodore Amiga and Atari ST. The ports add color, but in a lower resolution (320×200, as opposed to the original version's 512×342). Johnson advises PC-based players to download the Macintosh version and play using an emulator, specifically mentioning Executor, but other open source emulators will work as well.
The non-Macintosh versions of the game were protected by a symbol-based code wheel. The version offered free of charge given by the author has this mechanism disabled: the challenge screen still appears, but any answer is accepted.
The Fool's Errand did not sell well at first, but after a very positive January 1988 review in MacUser it became very successful, causing Miles Computing to port the game to other platforms. 100,000 copies were sold by the end of 1989.Computer Gaming World praised the game, stating "You feel like you're matching wits with the author directly, instead of playing 'hunt the parser'"; the magazine's Scorpia described it as "one of the best games I've ever played". Historian Jimmy Maher in 2014 called The Fool's Errand "one of those singular works that defies (transcends?) the conventional wisdom", noting that "Johnson didn't know a thing about other computer games", or had it widely playtested, but "his game turned out superbly, and about as bug-free as a game can be". He praised the "generosity of spirit" of the gameplay, writing that he and his wife "enjoyed one of the most captivating gaming experiences we've ever shared".
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