Progress Quest: Taking the "playing" out of Role-Playing Game
Fantasy adventuring for the lazy enthusiast.
You ever feel like RPGs take too much damn effort to play?
I don’t mean researching character builds, reading endless spools of text while exhausting all your dialogue options with every NPC, sorting through your inventory, comparing stats on different weapons, periodically heading back to the village to sell off all your junk to the merchant, keeping track of myriad of quests, side missions, objectives and quest items, entering a high-level area and dying to some overpowered beast, clearing out goblin caves or listening to the desperate pleas for help from innocent but ultimately annoying villagers.
No, what I mean is actually playing the game. Using your grubby little Cheeto-encrusted fingers to press buttons, paying attention to everything that’s happening on the screen, forming thoughts and acting based on them — it’s all so tiresome, isn’t it? Don’t you wish there was a fantasy RPG that would take care of all of these irritating bits for you so you can be free to actually enjoy the game? What if I told you there is, in fact, such a game?
Enter Progress Quest, one man’s labor of love. Developed by Eric Fredricksen (aka Grumdrig) and released in 2002, Progress Quest is an RPG that plays itself. You begin by building your character by choosing from a number of ridiculously-sounding races and classes, pick a name for your avatar and then you’re off to your big adventure.
Except you’re not. Because past this initial character creation stage, everything in Progress Quest happens on its own, with no player interaction whatsoever. What you see in these screenshots is really what you get: one window divided in panes for your characters stats, your spell book, equipment, inventory and quests. That’s it. You just stare at this window. This is the game.
Your character starts in a village, picks up some quests and basic equipment, then is “heading towards the killing fields”, slaughtering all sorts of mythical beasts, then heads back into the village, turns in the quests, picks up new ones, sells off all the loot, buys a new piece of equipment or two, then it’s back to the killing fields, over and over again. Your character also gains experience points and adds skill points into Strength, Dexterity, Charisma, etc. and learns new destructive spells, such as Slime Finger, Tumor (Benign), Animate Nightstand or Curse Family. All without a lick of input from the player.
It’s a tongue-in-cheek parody of EverQuest and other auto-attack MMORPGs and, as you can already tell by looking at these screenshots, the game doesn’t take itself seriously at all. By going one step further and getting rid of attacking (and any other player action) altogether, Progress Quest is able to focus on what truly matters in an RPG: watching numbers go up, reading stupid item descriptions and getting a tiny hit of dopamine whenever you pick up an epic weapon. There is even a modicum of lore to the game, and reading it feels like you’re having a brain aneurysm:
Since time before time the Vorlak had held the Crosshutch at Thraeskamp. The ancient reckoning held that the Five Skrelkampi (and their Truebine) would return when the great Trond-feast could be held anew and the Belnap reunited. But this legend became lost to all but the Papperboxen at Horbug.
One of their own was Yallow the Speldrig, who found an unlikely pupil in Torbole Understeady, the discarded illigitimate waif of Wainthane Topknox, whom Yallow renamed Grumdrig and began to school as a boar-pulmet's apprentice. ...And, as it was said by some, in aberdoxy.
The way I “play” Progress Quest is firing up my save game on my office computer at 9AM and checking out my character’s progress since yesterday. Maybe he picked up a new +25 Merman Halberd as a quest reward, maybe he learned a new spell called Tonsilectomy or maybe he had a hell of a day delivering carrots while fighting leprechauns and looting their wallets. Then I minimize the game and leave it running in the background, going about my day and forgetting it even exists. Until the next morning, when the cycle begins anew. Or I forget about it for an entire week before it randomly pops back on my mind again and I resume my incredible non-interactive adventures.
Progress Quest is definitely a quirky little experiment in game design and you might be surprised to know it has a small but dedicated cult following. The forums are no longer active, but there is a subreddit and a Discord server where you can chat with fellow adventurers. And, if you’re a hardcore fan, why not pick up a mug or t-shirt in the official store? It’s always great to see a developer so dedicated to their vision that they’re willing to keep the joke running for 20+ years and I’m very happy Progress Quest is still around. Massive props to Eric Fredricksen and I do hope you give this game a try.
You can download Progress Quest from the official website.
