Finally, an old-school adventure game that’s nothing but stairs
Here’s a quick blast of nostalgia and frustration (or “frustalgia,” if you’re feeling neologistic or prone to portmanteau): A game based on the most irritating and deadly parts of old-school adventure games, like Kings Quest or Quest For Glory. Published by Sierra Entertainment back in the 1980s, those games tasked adventurers—armed with little more than their wits, some magic items, and a text parser that didn’t know what the word “USE” meant—to battle a variety of fantastical foes. Depending on the setting, those could be evil witches, rampaging demons, or sci-fi supervillains armed with millions of cloned insurance salesmen. But whether you were playing as King Graham, Princess Rosella, or poor old Roger Wilco, each Sierra hero had one enemy that trumped all the rest in terms of sheer lethality: Stairs.