Al-Qadim: The Genie's Curse

Really, there are few RPGs set in an 1001-Arabian-Nights-style world. This one is a very light RPG, so veterans will be disappointed. There is a perfunctory character sheet, the main protagonist getting stronger with levels, and a few artifacts to pick up that boost your attack or defence rating. Apart from the name, there is nothing to customise. Rather, this game works more as an action-adventure game. And it's a magical adventure with surprisingly good writing in parts, one that will also challenge you. There are multiple resolutions of certain quests, and you can choose whether you are polite or impolite towards everyone you meet (though the former is always better). As for the gameplay, you have your trusty scimitar whose combat moves can be upgraded to add a second and third attack as you gain experience, and consumable artifacts that act as ranged spells. There are also potions to heal you and make you immune to certain enemies or attacks. Here I must criticise the gameplay because the controls are very clumsy. You can only hit your enemy if you are facing it directly, and sometimes your character will walk backwards, refusing to turn. There are also a few stealth sequences (with instant game over if you're discovered), which are horrible in this perspective because you can't see the enemy until he's several feet away from you. Other than those few moderate complaints, the game is quite a relaxed experience: no time limit, no monster respawns (except for one screen in the early part of your adventure), quite a few funny/lighthearted moments, and a chance to take a break from the standard medieval/fantasy setting. Heartily recommended!

Al-Qadim is one of those games where the setting outweighs the plot. The plot is pretty standard - rescue your family & marry the woman you love, but the setting it takes place in makes it worthwhile. It seems Al-Qadim takes place in a distant past, in a world where genies are real, and if you're lucky enough to ensnare one, your family is guaranteed to thrive. Weirdly enough, it seems like your family's genie went rogue, attacking a rival family's ship who just happened to carry a caliph and your soon-to-be-wife, and it's up to you to discover who is behind it all so you can release your family from prison. It's an interesting enough plot to carry the game a great deal, and the game is extremely humorous, making the experience fun, but the game's mechanic just sucks the life out of this game. The Genie's Curse is one of those games where you have to save and save often. At first you're fairly weak and low on funds, so you can't buy too many health potions, making you die fairly often. It also seems that your presence attracts the various beasts & monsters that appear on the map, so trying to avoid them is fairly difficult. That is, until you encounter your first regeneration spot - a place you can stand on and get full health back. And shortly after that you discover a way of getting as much gold as you can possible want, making you able to buy dozens of health potions, just in case. You also get plenty of projectile weapons, some very powerful, the more you advance. So instead of using your sword, you can stay back and spam enemies until they die. It makes the game extremely easy. But if you didn't stock up on enough health potions, the game can become fairly difficult later on. The game's idea of a challenge is to send a horde of enemies your way, and to force you to constantly go back and forth to solve a puzzle. Wandering around aimlessly all over the map looking for something you missed was never a fun mechanic, especially when it is abused to such extent.

I remember my mom playing this game at least 20 years ago, and for the longest while I harassed her about "what was that game?" "The one with the genies, and the desert and the trials and stuff?" For years she could never remember it. I found it again here on GOG by accident and I'm so glad I did! The storyline for this game is amazing! The trials are a decent difficulty, and the gameplay is quite simple and straightforward. If you enjoyed Quest for Glory, Heroines Quest, Quest for Infamy, or Kings Quest, you will enjoy this kind of game!

I've been wanting to play this game since it was released but only just now finally tackled it. I was more than a little pleased to see that it supported native keyboard and joystick controls rather than forcing the awful mouse-centric interface that negatively impacted my ability to enjoy Ultima VII. The two-button interface (attack / special) never felt like a limitation in the way that similar Amiga games suffered during the era and the charge-to-attack system reminiscent of Secret of Mana worked well. Unfortunately, the difficulty curve is reversed so it's quite easy to get extremely frustrated early on in the game. Hit detection isn't great and enemies outclass you by a fair margin, resulting in being forced to either poke at them from just off screen with the sling or hoping your luck holds out with a brief jab of the sword before running away. Rinse, repeat. It doesn't take long to amass a couple of levels, discover areas where you can heal and grind, and accumulate enough extra supplies to give you critical mass through the rest of the game. I wish the experience point system had been removed and the game had been rebalanced for a more consistent level of difficulty, but that wouldn't have been keeping in line with the license of the time or the evolution of the genre on PCs during the era. Despite those complaints, I loved the story and the game's pace. It's not a terribly long adventure and its portrayal of genies is extremely interesting. The humor intertwined with the adventure was a welcome surprise and while none of it is on par with Minsc and Boo from Baldur's Gate II, there's more than a few pieces of unexpected comedy gold.