Swordquest

Swordquest is an unfinished series of video games produced by Atari, Inc. in the 1980s as part of a contest, consisting of three finished games and a planned but never released fourth game. Each of the games came with a comic book that explained the plot, as well as containing part of the solution to a major puzzle that had to be solved to win the contest, with a series of prizes on offer whose total value was $150,000. The series had its genesis as a possible sequel to Atari's groundbreaking 1979 title Adventure, but it quickly developed a mythology and system of play that was unique. The comic books were produced by DC Comics, written by Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway, and drawn and inked by George Pérez and Dick Giordano. All 3 Atari box covers were illustrated by Atari in house illustrator, Warren Chang. A special fan club offer was provided, allowing those who wanted the game, to also get a T-shirt and poster for each game.

The games of the Swordquest series (along with Atari 2600 Raiders of the Lost Ark) were some of the earliest attempts to combine the narrative and logic elements of the adventure game genre with the twitch gameplay of the action genre, making them some of the very first 'action-adventure' games. However, the series was unable to hold the last two contests along with the grand finale contest, as well as release the final game in the series, due to Atari's financial problems leading up to and being a part of the video game crash of 1983.