It is often easy to overlook all the work, time and dedication developers invest into producing a game when we play it. Sometimes the story of the project is almost as epic as the names of those behind it. Quest for Infamy becomes the culmination of a labor of love by a group of indies with a lot of respect for Sierra, and the utmost talent to revive the best of adventure game nostalgia.

From left to right: Quest for Infamy composer, James Muvale, Steven Alexander and Steve Patrick, the voice of Roehm.

One of the group’s co-founders is Steven Alexander, who is Infamous Quests’ most known and lovable members of the adventure community. His passion drove him to consider developing a King’s Quest and Space Quest. During this process he met Shawn Mills and both got a talented team by the name of ‘Infamous Adventures’, in honor of their would-be Quest For Glory fan spin-off the project.

Today, Steven Alexander is the writer, director and producer behind Quest For Infamy, but back in 2002 he was a musician who had recently rediscovered his love and passion for adventure games. Having grown up playing Sierra games, Steven quickly plays through them all and discovers the Tierra remakes of King’s Quest I and II. Browsing the Tierra forums, he met a fellow Sierra gamer, Shawn Mills.

Shawn had grown up playing Sierra games and for a long time he had been carrying the idea of creating a Quest For Glory fan-game. It would be set in the same setting and location as the first game in the series, but this time you’d play as the villain.

Infamous Quests Co-founder, Shawn Mills

The idea involved the creation of a massive game with sandbox-like properties to it. It could be described as GTA meets Quest For Glory with the added bonus of playing as a character of dubious morality. The two quickly began working online on their project and created a small demo, which consisted of only one room and a cutscene. It was at that time the pair realized they did not have the skill to create full-fledged game yet.

The group realized they needed to gain the experience and expertise necessary to tackle a project like this. Using the free engine “Adventure Game Studio”, started a smaller project of remaking King’s Quest III which can be downloaded for free.

All this took place while was Steven waited for a transplant, he had suffered from a Kidney failure and his health was deteriorating fast. Eventually the surgery was scheduled as he received his father’s kidney. Unfortunately there were complications; his kidney and bladder were damaged by the procedure, Steven spent the following two months recovering in a hospital. Despite his health being at its worst, his passion towards his work continued.

Infamous Quests Founders Shawn Mills and Steven Alexander

Feeling they still weren’t ready to completely create a new game from scratch the two had begun working on a new project in secret, a remake of the classic adventure game, Space Quest II. In the following years work progressed steadily, but when the project was nearing its end in 2011 Steven’s health had gotten progressively worse. Not knowing if he would survive to see the project’s completion, he shared with his wife all of the Infamous Adventures passwords, notes and design documents hoping the project would continue without him. Luckily, later that very same year they had found a compatible kidney, saving his life. With the team working in full force, they were able to complete their second title, Space Quest II.

Now that Infamous Adventures had two remakes under their belt, the team finally started making plans for their own original title, Quest for Infamy. Inspired by the original vision Shawn and Steven shared, they became now Infamous Quests, and set out to create their own spin on the Quest For Glory series.

However, a project like this would require more time and dedication than any of the previous games, so, inspired by the successful Cognition Kickstarter campaign, the team looked to crowdfunding to make their dream a reality. So Infamous Adventures became Infamous Quests and launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund their upcoming project.

Quest For Infamy: The World is your oyster!

The kickstarter campaign brought in over twice as much as the team originally asked. This allowed Infamous Quests to add more content and create a bigger world for our anti-hero Roehm to explore. Creating a game from scratch, designing all the puzzles, art, world and logic is a massive undertaking, even with the successful Kickstarter, the team was still on a very restrictive budget. Nonetheless, they worked hard for two years in hopes to complete their most important project to date.

This became the team’s first commercial project and on July 10th 2014 it would finally be available for all adventure gaming fans. Received with plenty positive feedback from both the community and editorials, the future looks bright for Quest For Infamy talent.

Gonçalo Gonçalves
Social Media Associate
Phoenix Online Studios