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Quest for Glory: So You Want to Be a Hero

1989 video game

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 14, 2026
Entity authorityQ2268809
Source-derived summary

Quest for Glory: So You Want to Be a Hero (originally released as Hero's Quest: So You Want to Be a Hero) is a 1989 adventure game/role-playing game hybrid, designed by Corey Cole and Lori Ann Cole and published by Sierra On-Line for MS-DOS. It is the first game in the Quest for Glory series, and established the series' trademark mix of graphical adventure gaming with role-playing-like elements such as statistic building (strength, intelligence, health) that would affect the ability to accomplish certain tasks in the game. The game has a satirical and silly tone. Ports for the Amiga, Atari ST, and NEC PC-9801 were released in the early 1990s. A VGA remake with enhanced graphics, titled Quest for Glory I: So You Want to Be a Hero, was released in 1992 for MS-DOS, and later in 1994 for Mac OS.

Gameplay

The original release was an adventure game with a text parser, with players typing commands for the character to perform. The remake is a point-and-click adventure game.

The game advertised itself as "three games in one" since it was the first Sierra game that (according to RPG customs) allowed the selection of a character out of three classes: Fighter, Magic User, and Thief. What class the hero assigns to a character largely determines with what equipment the character begins, how they can solve puzzles and what quests they will run into. However, the distinction between classes was not an absolute one; players could add skills to a character and allow them to complete quests related to other classes in this game and others in the series.

In Quest for Glory, the passage of time is tracked; the situation can be different between day and night, and the scenery adjusted to match. The main character had to eat on a regular basis, and would become tired from running and fighting which required rest and sleep.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Quest for Glory: So You Want to Be a Hero” as 1989 video game. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Quest, Glory and Want.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1989, 1992, 1994—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1989-01-01. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Quest, Glory and Want providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Quest for Glory: So You Want to Be a Hero”, the useful work is to connect “1989 video game” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2268809. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1989, 1992 and 1994.

Critical limits

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Quest for Glory: So You Want to Be a Hero” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.