I have a soft spot for games that are clearly trying to do something ambitious without necessarily having the budget of a massive studio behind them. Give me a strange little RPG with an interesting visual style, a sword, some questionable enemies, and a world that looks like it might have something worth exploring, and I'm probably going to give it a chance.
That is pretty much what drew me to A Short Quest, an open-world RPG from Mad Mushroom. The name immediately caught my attention, but so did the premise. I'm a huge fan of Oblivion and Skyrim, so whenever I see a smaller game attempting to capture some of that open-world RPG feeling, I'm interested. The question is whether A Short Quest can actually scratch that itch or whether it is simply borrowing the familiar ideas without having enough substance of its own.
My first impression was surprisingly positive.
The game uses a dithered, modern-retro visual style, and that's something I have always been a fan of. There is something appealing about a game that doesn't try to look photorealistic and instead leans into a specific visual identity. A Short Quest immediately has that going for it. Even during the opening section, I found myself wanting to poke around and see what was hidden nearby rather than simply following the obvious path.
There was a cave almost immediately, so naturally I went into the cave.
Inside, I found a blade that looked enough like the sword from The Lord of the Rings to make me wonder if it was supposed to be a reference. I wasn't about to complain. You give me a sword and an RPG world and I'm going to start swinging it at things. The game even has a voice commenting on my character's behavior, including calling him a child.
I'm going to stop right there and make something clear: don't call me a child. I'm a grown man.
Although, considering how much I was enjoying saying "stamina" like it was some kind of magical word, maybe the game had a point.
The opening section functions as a fairly straightforward introduction to the game's mechanics. You learn how to sprint, how to dash, how to interact with things, and how the various items work. The game also encourages you to pay attention to item descriptions because many of them have hidden properties.
That became important almost immediately.
I came across some moss caps and, naturally, decided to eat one. The description basically suggested that it looked edible and asked what could possibly go wrong. This is exactly the kind of item description that makes me want to eat something in a video game even when I know perfectly well that I probably shouldn't.
It turns out the mushroom applies a small amount of poison.
So, not exactly a five-star meal.
The interesting part is that the game doesn't simply treat its items as generic health potions and mana potions. There appears to be some thought put into what these objects actually do and how you might use them. The moss caps, for example, seemed like they could have uses beyond simply eating them, including crafting and potentially applying poison to weapons.
That kind of system is what makes me curious about an RPG. Even if the mechanics are relatively simple, I like when a game gives me a reason to experiment.
The game also has a quick-save system mapped to F5, which immediately felt familiar to anyone who has spent a lot of time with Bethesda-style RPGs. There is definitely an Elder Scrolls influence hanging over the experience, and I don't mean that as an insult. If you're going to make an open-world RPG, Oblivion and Skyrim are pretty obvious games to take inspiration from.
Then I met my first enemy.
And immediately got my ass kicked.
The first enemy I encountered was apparently a one-armed guy who was significantly more dangerous than I expected. I went into the fight without really understanding the combat system, and it did not take long for me to find out that I was doing something wrong.
I died.
The funny thing is that I initially couldn't figure out how the healing items worked either. The mushrooms could restore health, but they also had their poison-related properties, while the blueberries I found turned out to restore mana instead. That would have been useful if I had magic.
I did not have magic.
So I had a collection of blueberries that were basically useless to me while I was desperately looking for something that would restore my health.
Eventually, I started figuring out the combat.
The right mouse button functions as a parry, and once I understood that, the combat started making a lot more sense. My initial reaction to the combat system was that I wasn't sure how I felt about it, but successfully landing a parry made it considerably more tolerable.
The problem was that I was also terrible at it.
There were multiple enemies later in the area, and fighting two of them at once was enough to completely destroy me. The combat relies heavily on stamina, and that's something I've noticed I'm not particularly good at dealing with in games. If I'm fighting something and I have to constantly keep track of my stamina while also worrying about attacks, blocking, positioning, and everything else, I'm probably going to make some very bad decisions.
And I did.
Several times.
The enemies also seemed incredibly strong compared to me, which turned some encounters into less of a heroic RPG battle and more of a desperate attempt to run away while yelling at the screen.
At one point, I simply tried to run past them.
That didn't work particularly well either.
I couldn't help but wonder if these guys had infinite stamina because I certainly didn't.
Still, the combat system did give me something to work with once I understood the parry mechanic. The fact that I could successfully block attacks made me feel like there was a skill curve there, even if I personally was getting absolutely dominated by it.
Outside of combat, this is where A Short Quest started becoming more interesting to me.
The world has a nice sense of verticality and exploration, and I liked the level design. You can look over the edge of an area and see other characters, structures, bridges, and places that appear to be part of the larger world. There is a tower in the distance, a gate leading toward another area, and various little things scattered around that make the environment feel more like a place rather than simply a series of rooms connected together.
There are also plenty of little interactive details.
You can break boxes and find coins inside. You can interact with food. There are chickens running around. You can find weapons and recipes. At one point I picked up a peasant's pitchfork and discovered that it was actually a usable weapon with a strong attack.
Naturally, I tested it on a hay bale.
It worked.
I have no idea what the practical purpose of hitting a hay bale with a pitchfork was, but the fact that the game let me do it was enough to make me appreciate that somebody thought about it.
The game also has a looting system that I found a little strange at first. After killing enemies, I initially wasn't completely sure how to search them properly. It seemed like I had to keep pressing the interact button to continue searching and get everything out of their inventory.
Once I figured it out, I discovered that these one-armed bandit-looking enemies apparently carried a few coins around with them.
So I shook the coins out of the dead guys.
That's just good economics.
The exploration also has moments of humor that fit nicely with the game's tone. There was a guy stuck in a barrel, a pie sitting around that turned out to be connected to a pie thief, and various characters standing around having conversations while I was wandering through the world trying to figure out where I was supposed to go.
Eventually, I reached the King's Woods gate.
Of course, they wouldn't let me through.
What else was going to happen?
The gatekeeper had some items for sale, including a cooked meat recipe, but I didn't have nearly enough money to buy anything. So I was left outside the gate, trying to figure out what the game wanted me to do next.
That was one of the moments where the title A Short Quest made me laugh. An NPC had given me a task and specifically told me it should be a short quest. Since that is literally the name of the game, I couldn't help but wonder whether that was supposed to be a joke.
Because if the game is actually very long, that would be pretty funny.
There is also a crafting and progression system that I only got a brief look at during the playtest. I found a recipe for moss cap stew and discovered that there were skills or abilities I could use as well. I also found a scroll for Arcane Daggers, although I initially wasn't sure whether I was learning these things permanently or simply consuming them.
In my case, I simply used the item.
Which was probably not what I intended to do.
That was another recurring theme during my time with the game. I was constantly figuring things out as I went, sometimes successfully and sometimes by accidentally consuming something I probably should have saved.
Eventually, I pushed farther into the area and encountered more enemies. The combat became increasingly difficult for me, especially when multiple enemies were involved. I tried blocking, dodging, attacking, running away, and basically anything else I could think of to stay alive.
None of it worked particularly well.
At one point I ended up trying to lure enemies into a cave, which I jokingly referred to as the cave of the forbidden spider despite having absolutely no idea whether there was actually a spider in there.
There wasn't much I could do beyond that, though, because I eventually reached an area that wasn't accessible in the playtest.
And, once again, I died.
By that point, I think I had gotten a pretty good first impression of what A Short Quest is trying to be.
It's an ambitious little open-world RPG with a modern-retro visual style, an Elder Scrolls-inspired approach to exploration, a combat system built around stamina and parrying, and a world filled with small interactive details. It isn't immediately perfect, and I certainly struggled with the combat more than I expected to, but there is something here that made me want to keep exploring.
That's probably the most important thing I can say about a game like this.
I wanted to see what was behind the next gate.
I wanted to know what was in the next cave.
I wanted to figure out what all of these strange items actually did, whether the crafting system would become more interesting, and what was waiting for me farther into the world.
I also wanted to stop getting killed by one-armed guys.
A Short Quest is still a playtest, so this isn't a definitive judgment on the finished game. But based on what I played, I think it gives a pretty good glimpse at what the developers are going for. If you're someone who enjoys Oblivion, Skyrim, or smaller modern-retro RPGs, there is enough here to make it worth keeping an eye on.
For me, the biggest takeaway was that A Short Quest feels like the kind of game that could become a genuinely fun little RPG if the ideas it introduces here are expanded on. The foundation is interesting, the world is enjoyable to poke around in, and there are enough little details scattered throughout the environment to make exploration feel worthwhile.
And hopefully, by the time I play it again, I'll have figured out how to stop getting absolutely destroyed by two guys with swords.
Until then, I suppose I'll just have to use my thinker.