''Monty Python & the Quest for the Holy Grail'' is an

adventure game An adventure game is a video game genre in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story, driven by exploration and/or puzzle-solving. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based m ...

created by

7th Level 7th Level was a video game development company based in Dallas, Texas and founded in 1993. Notable game titles by the company include: the three Monty Python games (with the aid of Python member Eric Idle); '' G-Nome'' (1997), a ''MechWarrior''-s ...

in 1996 for

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

. The game is based on the 1975 film ''

Monty Python and the Holy Grail ''Monty Python and the Holy Grail'' is a 1975 British comedy film based on the Arthurian legend, written and performed by the Monty Python comedy group (Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin) and ...

'' and was the second of three

Monty Python Monty Python, also known as the Pythons, were a British comedy troupe formed in 1969 consisting of Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin. The group came to prominence for the sketch comedy ser ...

games created by 7th Level. The game's aesthetics are a mixture of photo realistic rendering and the comic style of

Terry Gilliam Terrence Vance Gilliam ( ; born 22 November 1940) is an American-British filmmaker, comedian, collage film, collage animator, and actor. He gained stardom as a member of the Monty Python comedy troupe alongside John Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Pa ...

. The objective is to move through the world and collect a series of objects in order to cross the bridge of death. The game also contains a series of sketches and audio clips not present in the film, including an alternative reason for the minstrels' disappearance.

Gameplay

Many mini-games are available to play along the way, including a

Tetris ''Tetris'' () is a puzzle video game created in 1985 by Alexey Pajitnov, a Soviet software engineer. In ''Tetris'', falling tetromino shapes must be neatly sorted into a pile; once a horizontal line of the game board is filled in, it disa ...

clone using dead plague victims, a Whac-A-Mole game where a knight has to spank virgins in a bed (points are deducted for spanking the bare-cheeked women) and a

Simon says Simon Says is a children's game for three or more players. One player takes the role of "Simon" and issues instructions (usually physical actions such as "jump in the air" or "stick out your tongue") to the other players, which should be foll ...

game where the player has to remember the order in which four different coloured burning witches scream. The majority of the game is a point and click interface, where the player must also collect items to complete puzzles, and complete the missing planks on the bridge of death.

Reception

Global sales of ''Holy Grail'', ''Complete Waste of Time'' and ''Desktop Pythonizer'' surpassed 650,000 copies by November 1997, which accounted for revenues above $15 million at 7th Level. A '' Next Generation'' critic said ''Monty Python & the Quest for the Holy Grail'' "lacks any semblance of decent gameplay". He elaborated that since there is no indicator of where the hot spots are, the gameplay consists of little more than blindly clicking everywhere on the screen to see what happens. Despite this, he said that enthusiasts of the film would probably still enjoy the game due to the previously unseen video clips included on it. ''

MacUser ''MacUser'' was a monthly (formerly biweekly) computer magazine published by Dennis Publishing Ltd. and licensed by Felden in the UK. It ceased publication in 2015. In 1985 Felix Dennis’ Dennis Publishing, the creators of MacUser in the UK, l ...

'' named ''Quest for the Holy Grail'' one of 1996's top 50 CD-ROMs, while

Inside Mac Games ''Inside Mac Games'' (''IMG'') started in 1993 as an electronic magazine about video games for the Mac. It was distributed on floppy disk, then CD-ROM, and eventually became a website. History In 1992, Tuncer Deniz, who was unemployed, decided ...

declared it the year's best comedy game. The latter publication's editors wrote, "Non-''Python'' fans will probably wonder what the big deal is, but even casual followers will be rolling on the floor." The game was a finalist for ''

Computer Gaming World ''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American Video game journalism, computer game magazine that was published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 199 ...

''s 1996 "Classic/Puzzle Game of the Year" award, which ultimately went to ''

Baku Baku Animal ''Baku Baku'', released in Japan as is a 1995 falling block puzzle video game developed and published by Sega for arcades. It is Sega's first network compatible PC game. A Sega NetLink compatible version of the game was also announced, but n ...

''. However, it won the category's Reader's Choice award that year.

Reviews

*''

Pyramid A pyramid () is a structure whose visible surfaces are triangular in broad outline and converge toward the top, making the appearance roughly a pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid can be of any polygon shape, such as trian ...

'' #22 (Dec./Jan., 1996)

Crew

*''

'' – Director *''

Terry Jones Terence Graham Parry Jones (1 February 1942 – 21 January 2020) was a Welsh actor, comedian, director, historian, writer and member of the Monty Python comedy troupe. After graduating from Oxford University with a degree in English, Jones a ...

'' – Director / voice actor *''Steve Martino'' – Creative Director *''Alex Yevgenyev'' – Technical Director *'' Charles Otte'' – Producer *'' Robert Alan Ezrin'' – Executive Producer *''

Eric Idle Eric Idle (born 29 March 1943) is an English actor, comedian, songwriter, musician, screenwriter and playwright. He was a member of the British comedy group Monty Python and the parody rock band the Rutles. Idle studied English at Pembroke Co ...

'' – Executive Producer / Writing Consultant / voice actor *'' Trent M. Wyatt'' – Lead Software Engineer *''Hollis Leech'' – Supervising Producer *''Jon M. Greenwood'' – Line Producer *''Bert Jennett'' – Writer *''Peter Crabb'' – Writing Consultant *''

Ron Wasserman Ronald Aaron Wasserman (born September 2, 1961), also known as Aaron Waters and The Mighty Raw, is an American musician who composed the original theme songs for ''Mighty Morphin Power Rangers'' and '' X-Men: The Animated Series''. He was also a m ...

'' – Music *''

Michael Palin Sir Michael Edward Palin (; born 5 May 1943) is an English actor, comedian, writer, and television presenter. He was a member of the Monty Python comedy group. He received the BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award, BAFTA Fellowship in 2013 and was knig ...

'' – Voice actor *'' Kurt Heiden'' – Sound Designer

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail 1996 video games 7th Level games Adventure games Classic Mac OS games Monty Python video games Parody video games Single-player video games Video games based on films Video games developed in the United States Windows games Monty Python and the Holy Grail Adaptations of works by Terry Gilliam