Thayer's Quest

One of the drawbacks of the game is that it costs credits for time and lives. If you lose a life, you lose a credit, but even remaining alive costs credits. You start with a DIP switch-optional five credits and as time passes, the game will speak, informing you that your game credits are low.

The player watches short animated story segments and makes gameplay decisions with keypad after each one. The computer uses synthesized speech to address players by name during the game.

When prompted to type in your name, do nothing. After intervals of one minute or so, the game speaks out saying things like Do not be shy, enter your name, Have you gone to the toilet, Do not be a stranger now, enter your name, Look lively now and a whole host of other funny comments.

This game was never finished. The game includes only three kingdoms. It was simultaneously produced for the Halcyon home system in 1984. The Halcyon's Thayers Quest laser disc is double sided and it contains a great deal of material not found on the coinop version disc. Sadly, this game will probably forever remain unfinished.

In 1995, Thayers Quest was adapted and released for several common gaming platforms and CDROM under the title Kingdom: The Far Reaches. Thayers name was changed to Lathan and all the game sounds and dialogue were redone. In late 1996, Shadoan, a newly animated sequel to Kingdom, was released. In 1997 Digital leisure released Thayers Quest again under the title Reaches.

The keyboard had four standard option keys, a full keyboard, plus keys for inventory and options. The full QWERTY keyboard was used to enter your name which was spoken back to you for high scores and ingame commentary. Each one of the keys had an object labelled on it and by pressing the corresponding key at the right time during the game, you could cast spells and pickup objects. The game was only available as a kit and it went straight into a Dragons Lair or Space Ace cabinet, but did not fully utilize the LED score board. The keyboard had a flourescent tube under it, making it glow in the dark, so you could see what you were typing in the darkest of arcades. The control panel also had a headphone jack and a volume control so you could use headphones to hear the important commentary in a busy arcade.

In one of the industrial gaming magazine in the mid 80's there was a picture of Thayer's Quest in a "proto-type" sit down version. In an interview with Rick Dyer in the late 80's, he had forgotten about it and vaguely remembered it.

This game was part of RDI Video Systems Halcyon technology. However, no other games were officially released as kits for the coinop version of Thayers Quest. New games would have required one new EPROM cartridge and a new disc to function.

This games wiring harness was designed for immediate installation into a Dragons Lair or Space Ace machine.

SOUND: Different dialogue was recorded on each stereo channel of the laser disc. Depending on the players situation, the CPU appropriately chose which dialogue channel to play. Therefore, game sounds were heard in mono.

LASER DISC: Thayers Quest includes switch settings to select LDV1000 or PR7820 Discovision disc players.

The keyboard is a flimsy membrane type, like those found in rubber-key 48k Spectrums or other early 1980s home computers. There were prone to failure and a pain to fix. A common problem is the keyboard data cables are folded over and crack over time, rendering whole rows of keys inoperable. Scratch back the thin track to expose the copper and solder them back up - clamping them back up to ensure a decent connection.