Quest for Glory is a series of hybrid adventure/role-playing video games, which were designed by Corey and Lori Ann Cole. The series was created in the Sierra Creative Interpreter, a toolset developed at Sierra to assist with adventure game development; the series combines humor, puzzle elements and characters borrowed from various legends and memorable characters, creating a 5-part series in the Sierra stable. The series was titled Hero's Quest. However, Sierra failed to trademark the name; the Milton Bradley Company trademarked an electronic version of their unrelated joint Games Workshop board game, HeroQuest, which forced Sierra to change the series' title to Quest for Glory. This decision meant. Lori Cole pitched Quest for Glory to Sierra as a: "rich, narrative-driven, role-playing experience"; the series consisted of five games. New games referred to previous entries in the series in the form of cameos by recurring characters; the objective of the series is to transform the player character from an average adventurer to a hero by completing non-linear quests.
The game was revolutionary in its character import system. This allowed players to import their individual character, including the skills and wealth s/he had acquired, from one game to the next. Hybrids by their gameplay and themes, the games feature serious stories leavened with humor throughout. There are real dangers to face, true heroic feats to perform, but silly details and overtones creep in. Cheap word play is frequent, to the point that the second game's ending refers to itself as the hero's "latest set of adventures and miserable puns."The games have recurring story elements. For example, each installment in the series requires the player to create a dispel potion; the games include a number of easter eggs, including a number of allusions to other Sierra games. For example, if a player types "pick nose" in the first game, if their lock-picking skill is high enough, the game responds: "Success! You now have an open nose". If the skill is too low, the player could insert the lock pick too far.
Another example is an allusion to The Castle of Dr. Brain, in the fourth game; each game draws its inspiration from a different culture and mythology: with the hero facing powerful opponents with help from characters who become more familiar from game to game. Each game varies somewhat from the tradition; the second game, which uses Middle Eastern folklore, introduces several Arab and African-themed characters who reappear in the third game based on Egyptian mythology. Characters from every game and genre in the series reappear in the fourth and fifth games. In addition to deviating from the player's expectations of the culture represented in each game, the series includes a number of intentional anachronisms, such as the pizza-loving, mad scientists in the games. Many CRPG enthusiasts consider the Quest for Glory series to be among the best in the genre, the series is lauded for its non-linearity; the games are notable for blending the mechanics of adventure video games and roleplaying video games, their unique tone which combines pathos and humour, the game systems which were ahead of their time, such as day-night cycles, non-playable characters which adhered to their own schedules within the games, character improvement through both skill practice and point investiture.
The website Polygon and the Kotaku blog have characterised the game as a precursor to modern day RPGs. Fraser Brown of the Destructoid blog considers the games: "one of the greatest adventure series of all time". Rowan Kaizer of the blog Engadget credits the games' hybrid adventure and roleplaying systems for the series' success. "The binary succeed/fail form of adventure game puzzles tended to either make those games too easy or too hard," he wrote, "But most puzzles in Quest For Glory involved some kind of skill check for your hero. This meant that you could succeed at most challenges by practicing or exploring, instead of getting stuck on bizarre item-combination puzzles"; the first four games are hybrid Adventure/Role playing video games with real-time combat, while the fifth game switches to the Action/RPG genre. The gameplay standards established in earlier Sierra adventure games are enhanced by the player's ability to choose his character's career path from among the three traditional role-playing game backgrounds: fighter, magic-user/wizard and thief.
Further variation is added by the ability to customize the Hero's abilities, including the option of selecting skills reserved for another character class, leading to unique combinations referred to as "hybrid characters". During the second or third games, a character can be initiated as a Paladin by performing honorable actions, changing his class and abilities, receiving a unique sword; this applies when the character is exported into games. Any character that finishes any game in the series can be exported to a more recent game, keeping the character's statistics and parts of its inventory. If the character received the paladin sword, he would
The MDZ Shield is a safety device for school buses, consisting of a two-piece polyurethane guard that encloses the upper wheel well opening and covers the gap in front of the right rear wheels, designed to deflect a person out of the path of the wheels in order to prevent injury or death. The "danger zone," which the shield acts to mitigate, refers to the area extending 10 feet to the front and sides of the school bus, where children are at most risk of being hit by passing vehicles or by their own bus. Invented and developed by Mark B. Barron of Public Transportation Safety International, developer of the similar S-1 Gard for transit buses, distributed by The C. E. White Company, the MDZ Shield first came to market in 2011. On average, fatal injuries occur outside the school bus at a rate of four times those occurring inside the bus. Since the 1970-1971 school year, the Kansas State Department of Education has compiled an annual National School Bus Loading and Unloading Survey, detailing fatalities occurring in the danger zone surrounding school buses on which an MDZ Shield is not present.
According to the reports, from the 2004-2005 through 2010-2011 school years, there have been 48 fatalities involving the school bus while loading and unloading. Of those, half were caused by the right rear wheels. Of all fatalities involving the rear wheels, 83% took place on the right side of the bus; the reports have shown that in a majority of cases involving the wheels, children first incur injuries by coming in contact with the tire before being propelled underneath the bus wheels. In addition to the 10 feet surrounding the school bus, there is an 2 foot vertical gap in front of the rear wheels between the undercarriage and the ground, in which a child is at increased risk of coming in contact with the tire; the MDZ Shield is mounted around the right real wheel, consists of two pieces: a wheel shield, which covers the wheel well opening, a lower tire safety guard, which mounts to a receiver on the undercarriage of the bus and sits four inches from the ground. The shield can deflect a child out of the path of the school bus, thereby minimizing the extent of injury in the danger zone.
S-1 Gard MDZ Shield
Sir Keppel Archibald Cameron Creswell was an English architectural historian who wrote some of the seminal works on Islamic architecture in Egypt. Creswell was born on 13 September 1879 in London, he was educated at Westminster School before going on to study electrical engineering at Finsbury City and Guilds Technical College in 1896. During this time he developed his considerable skills in draughtsmanship, he worked for Siemens Brothers and from 1914, the Deutsche Bank in London. Creswell was interested in eastern places from childhood. By 1910 he had become so drawn to Islamic architecture that he started collecting a library, to become one of the most comprehensive private collections of its kind; as well as working at his engineering day job, he spent time studying eastern architecture. He published an article in The Burlington Magazine in 1913, soon after gave a paper to the Royal Asiatic Society, well received. Both concerned domes in Persian architecture, his interest in Islamic architecture spurred him to look for more satisfying employment, in May 1914 he applied, unsuccessfully, to join the Archaeological Survey of India.
The First World War broke out in August of that year, in April 1916 he was selected on probation for appointment as Assistant Equipment Officer in the Royal Flying Corps. Some time afterwards, he rose through the ranks, by July 1919 had been appointed as Inspector of Monuments under General Allenby's Occupied Enemy Territory Administration in Palestine and Syria. He travelled extensively, making measured drawings and notes as well as recording the monuments photographically, producing nearly a thousand photographs, he was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire in the 1919 New Year Honours. In May 1920 Creswell drew up a proposal for a History of the Muslim Architecture of Egypt, he intended this to be an exhaustive study of the subject. As well as detailed descriptions of individual monuments, bolstered with plans and photographs, there were to be chapters on the development of certain features, such as minarets and madrasas, he submitted the proposal to King Fuad I of Egypt, who recognised the importance of such a work and was an enthusiastic patron.
Creswell was granted 800 Egyptian pounds for three years to finance the work. Creswell hastily returned to England for demobilisation, returned to Cairo on 13 October 1920; the work proved to be more monumental than Creswell had anticipated. Archaeological excavations had increased the number of known monuments, no draughtsman was made available to him, he undertook all the work without assistance. Five volumes had been published by 1969, totalling 1,769 pages, with a sixth volume in preparation but unpublished on his death in 1974; this massive work was split into two: Early Muslim Architecture and The Muslim Architecture of Egypt. Creswell first started work on the Bibliography of the Architecture and Crafts of Islam in 1912; this drew together all the books and periodical volumes that concerned this wide field, comprised the listing of some 12,300 books and nearly as many periodical volumes. A supplement appeared in 1973; as well as these huge undertakings, Creswell produced an additional sixty-odd articles and other writings.
Creswell was appointed a lecturer at Fuad University in Cairo in 1931, within three years was made Professor of Islamic Art and Architecture. He held this post until 1951. In 1956 he was appointed a Distinguished Professor of Islamic Art and Architecture at the American University in Cairo. In 1939 he became a member of the Higher Council for the Conservation of Arab Monuments, holding this post for 12 years, he was keenly involved in the recording and preservation of the twelfth-century wall and gates of medieval Cairo. From 1949 until 1967 he was a Trustee of the Palestine Archaeological Museum in Jerusalem. Creswell was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1947, became a C. B. E. in was knighted in 1970, at the age of ninety. In 1956 the Suez Crisis ensured the unpopularity of the British in Egypt; the government advised Creswell to leave the country. On learning that his library could not be exported, Creswell resolved to stay; the American University in Cairo offered to house the books on his behalf, Creswell accepted, albeit with some exceedingly strict strings attached: the students, for example, were not allowed to touch the books.
In June 1973, his health failing, Creswell returned to England. He died on 8 April 1974, he never married. Creswell bequeathed his library of 3,000-plus volumes to the American University in Cairo, along with his collection of some 11,000 photographic prints; the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford received the photographic negatives. More than 2,700 prints were sent to a friend of Creswell. Buried in Acton cemetery in grave number 53BM. C. L. Geddes et al. 1965, Studies in Islamic Art and Architecture in Honour of Professor K. A. C. Creswell Cairo Grabar, O. 1991, K. A. C. Creswell and His Legacy Muqarnas, an Annual on Islamic Art and Architecture Vol 8 Leiden: E J Brill Hamilton, R. W. 1974,'Keppel Archibald Cameron Creswell 1879–1974' Proceedings of the British Academy, Volume LX, 1–20 Karnouk, Gloria, 1991,'The Creswell Library: A Legacy' Muqarnas, an Annual on Islamic Art and Architecture Vol. 8, 117–124 Creswell, K. A. C.. "A brief Chronology of the Muhammadan monuments of Egypt to A. D. 1517 ". BIFAO