Quest for Quintana Roo

Quest for Quintana Roo
Title screen of the game
Game No.	515
Voting	5.40 points, 5 votes
Company	VSS, Inc. (Video Software Specialists)
Publisher	Sunrise Software
Release	1984
Platform	Atari 2600/5200, Atari 400/800, C64, ColecoVision
Genre	Actionadventure
Gamemode	Single player
Operation
Media
Language

Description[edit | edit source]

In the game "Quest for Quintana Roo", the player, as the treasure hunter Yucatan Sam, explores a Mexican temple complex in search of hidden riches. He must beware of snakes, giant spiders, and mummies lurking in the dark halls and must briefly leave the buildings every 90 seconds to catch his breath. If he collects a series of colorful orbs and solves a small puzzle in the central vault by correctly placing them in matching recesses in the wall, he can continue his search in the next of three different temples.

Design[edit | edit source]

After starting the game, the player, as the treasure hunter Yucatan Sam, finds himself in front of a Mayan temple, which fills the screen and is bathed in moonlight against a black night sky. Snakes patrol this temple, and the moon god occasionally hurls lightning bolts — yet the player must dare to climb the building on the left or right side: only via the platforms can they reach the five entrances on each side leading to the temple's interior.

Inside the temple, the player moves through a series of vertically stacked chambers connected by slides. Switching between these chambers and the slides is done via a flick screen. Each chamber contains a secret door behind which treasures and useful items await — but behind these doors, as well as in the chambers themselves, snakes, giant spiders, and walking mummies lurk, waiting for the intruder.

Once the player has traversed all the rooms stacked on top of each other — depending on the level at which they entered the temple and which level they are on, these extend over up to seven floors — they will find themselves back at the base of the temple. They can then climb back up and start a new traverse, either through the same or a different entrance.

From the highest platform, the path leads back to the base of the temple through five stacked rooms.

Even on the ascent to the temple platforms, dangers lurk...

...and inside, mummies and snakes await the intruder.

Graphics[edit | edit source]

During the game, the program switches between the overall view of the temple, individual rooms within the temple, and the slides that connect them. These three parts of the game world are displayed in very different ways: The exterior view of the temple uses monochrome text mode (video RAM at address $F800, character set at $E000), as do the slides (but with video RAM at address $2000 for the slide from top left to bottom right, at $2400 for the opposite slide, and character set at $2800). The interior of the temple chambers, on the other hand, is displayed using the rarely used Extended Color Mode, with the screen memory always located at address $5800, while a raster line interrupt periodically switches between three character sets: $7000 for the walls (raster lines 4-83), $7800 for the floor (raster lines 84-155), and $5800 for the status display (raster lines 156-199). The player character, the enemies, and all projectiles are sprites; the remaining elements of the game are part of the text display.

Sound[edit | edit source]

Numerous events in the game are accompanied by short, monophonic melodies (see section "Theme"). In addition, the player character's actions, such as using the slides or tapping the temple walls with a chisel, produce characteristic sounds. Although these sounds are frequently repeated, they are so brief that they are not, or at least hardly, intrusive or monotonous.

The third voice of the sound chip SID is used to generate random numbers, for example, for the varying distribution of treasures within the temple at the beginning of each game.

Hints[edit | edit source]

The goal of the game "Quest for Quintana Roo" is to search a series of Mayan temples in Mexico for hidden treasures and to achieve the highest possible score by collecting them. Each temple has up to 50 chambers, each containing a secret door at a different location. These doors can be opened either by throwing a bottle of acid against the chamber wall, or — especially if no more acid bottles are available — by painstakingly tapping the wall with a chisel. Behind each secret door, one finds either a treasure, five new bottles of acid, or one of five colored orbs.

The colored balls can be used to solve a puzzle in the central vault of the temple, thereby opening the door to the next level (right animation in the gallery below). A code for direct access to the next higher level also appears in this opening door (obscured in the animation), which can be entered when starting subsequent games. To solve the puzzle, a ball of the correct color must be placed in each of the circular recesses in the temple wall; if the color is incorrect, the ball disappears and reappears later somewhere else in the building. If the ball is the correct color, this is rewarded with 1000 points, and the corresponding hole in the wall disappears. An additional 5000 points are awarded for completely solving the puzzle and opening the door to the next level. The required color of the inserted balls changes from game to game and from level to level.

Within the temple, movement is only possible vertically from top to bottom through a group of rooms directly above one another. The building is therefore divided into 10 columns, each with an entrance at its apex. In the game's opening screen, these entrances are reached by climbing the pyramid-shaped temple complex on the left or right and then entering the uppermost room of one of the five levels. The player character then descends to the next lower room via an exit door and a slide behind it, until finally emerging at ground level through an exit of the temple.

Healing herb

Both in the opening screen with the overall view of the temple and in the individual chambers, adversaries lurk for the player character. Numerous venomous snakes crawl across the temple's facade in the opening screen and across the floor of the individual chambers; venomous giant spiders also lurk inside the temple. If the player character comes into contact with one of these enemies, they have only 60 seconds to find a healing herb inside the temple and collect it as an antidote (left animation in the gallery below). If they fail to do so in time, the player character loses one of their initial three lives. Fortunately, an extra life is awarded each time the player advances to the next level, as well as after collecting every 20 treasures (middle animation).

Only 60 seconds remain after a snake bite to find the antidote

An extra life is awarded after collecting every 20 treasures

The gate to the next level is opened by solving a puzzle

Inside the temple, the snakes and spiders can be destroyed with well-aimed pistol shots. The ammunition for this weapon is replenished to a maximum of only 6 rounds before entering the building and must therefore be used sparingly, especially after entering via the temple's higher platforms.

Behind the secret doors inside the temple, in addition to spiders, mummies are hidden. These mummies emerge when the doors are opened and pursue the player character. Contact with a mummy is instantly fatal; fortunately, this enemy can be eliminated by throwing a bottle of acid (middle animation in the gallery above). Defeating an enemy — whether a snake, giant spider, or mummy — is rewarded with 100 points, as is opening a secret door.

Mummy

Snake

Giant spider

Finally, during the temple ascent, an angry moon god shoots beams of light at the player character in the game's opening screen. Fortunately, these beams cause the character to fall, but do not cause any further damage and are therefore more of a nuisance than a danger.

Screen Layout[edit | edit source]

Controls[edit | edit source]

The game "Quest for Quintana Roo" is controlled partly with a joystick in Port 2 and partly with the keyboard. The program can be started either by pressing the RETURN key to begin the game from the first level, or — for direct entry into a higher level — by entering a four-digit code, which was displayed in a previous game after completing the previous level, and then pressing RETURN again. Each keystroke is confirmed with a short beep.

On the game's start screen, the character is controlled exclusively with the joystick. At the base of the temple and on the horizontal platforms, the joystick must be moved left and right. The temple can be climbed by moving the joystick upwards and to the right at the far left end of the building, or alternatively, upwards and to the left at the right end of the temple. Moving the joystick in the opposite direction allows you to move from a higher to a lower platform, for example, to avoid contact with a poisonous snake.

If you walk as far as possible towards the center of the temple on a platform and then press the fire button, you will slide down into the interior of the building. Here, the character can be moved in any direction using the joystick. The following functions are also available via the keyboard:

F1 key: Draw pistol (only possible if ammunition is available)
F3 key: Pick up bottle of acid (if available)
F5 key: Pick up chisel
F7 key: Pick up Geiger counter, turn it on, and display it
Right SHIFT key: Put away pistol, bottle, chisel, or Geiger counter
SPACE key: Pick up colored ball if the character's hands are empty. A ball can also be inserted into the puzzle using SPACE if the character is standing directly in front of a recess in the wall (i.e., the torch covers the selected target hole).
RUN/STOP puts the program into pause mode. Pressing the button again continues the game.

The fire button can be used to trigger various actions depending on the game situation:

If the character has drawn their pistol: Fire a shot horizontally.
If the character is holding a bottle of acid: Throw the bottle.
If the character is holding a chisel and standing directly against the wall: Tap the wall for a secret door.

Empty-handed:

If the character is standing in front of a treasure or a healing herb: Pick up the object.
If the character is standing in front of the exit of a temple chamber: Leave the room via a slide.

The Geiger counter is used to locate the central vault, where the passage to the next level and the openings in the temple wall for solving the puzzle are located. If the device's needle is fully deflected, the passage is behind the secret door in the room in question. A half-measure indicates that the vault is located directly above or below the current room; otherwise, it is farther away.

Tips[edit | edit source]

When opening a secret door using an acid bottle, you should first position your character so that the door doesn't open directly next to you, for example, at the edge or in front of the exit. Otherwise, you might collide with a mummy emerging from the opening secret door within a fraction of a second.
In the first level, the enemies move the slowest, allowing you to move around the temple relatively safely. Therefore, you should only complete the puzzle in this level after collecting all the treasures in the temple, and after placing two orbs, place all the remaining ones on the floor in the central vault.
Those who want to achieve a high score without risk and have enough patience can repeatedly climb to the lowest platform of the temple in the first level, destroy all the spiders and snakes in the chamber accessible from there, and leave the temple again just before their air runs out.

Solution[edit | edit source]

The game "Quest for Quintana Roo" cannot be "solved" by, for example, Yucatan Sam eventually collecting all the treasures of the temple complex and retiring as a fabulously wealthy man. Instead, after completing all three temples, the third level repeats endlessly until Yucatan Sam has lost all his lives in the dark rooms full of adversaries.

However, the path to the higher levels can be shortened by entering one of the access codes displayed after completing the first and second levels at the start of the game and confirming it with the RETURN key. These codes are 1830 for direct access to the second level and 8817 for the third level.

Map[edit | edit source]

The temple rooms, as well as the connections between them, always have the same structure; only the distribution of treasures and colored spheres, and the location of the central vault with the gateway to the next level, vary from game to game. It turns out that both treasures and spheres can be found anywhere in the temple, while the central vault is always located in the lower part of the middle four columns.

Whether an adversary (a giant spider or even a mummy) is hidden behind a secret door in addition to treasure is only determined during the course of the game: Starting from the exact same game state, different behavior can occur simply because the player opens a secret door a few milliseconds earlier or later.

Cheats[edit | edit source]

On CSDb, there is a crack by Hokuto Force with trainer functions that leaves nothing to be desired:

Internal Data Structures[edit | edit source]

For developing your own trainer functions and for analyzing or manipulating the data used by the game, knowledge of memory allocation and internal workings is helpful. The following table therefore compiles a range of information about "Quest for Quintana Roo".

Address	Content	Comments
$001C	Number of pistol bullets	Value range 0..6 The number of bullets is reset to 6 each time you leave the temple.
$002E	Object in the player character's hand	$00: no object, $01: ball for the puzzle, $02: pistol, $03: acid bottle, $04: chisel, $05: Geiger counter
$0034	Current room	Value range 1..50 The location of the individual screens can be found in the following illustrations.
$006C..$006D	Breathing timer	Packed BCD, seconds at $006C, minutes at $006D
$006E..$006F	Poison timer	Packed BCD, seconds at $006E, minutes (not displayed) at $006F
$0074	Level	Value range 1-3
$007E	Number of lives	Value range 0-255, no overflow protection
$007F	Number of treasures collected since last bonus life awarded	Value range 0-19 After collecting the 20th treasure, the counter is reset and the player receives a bonus life
$0080..$0082	Score	Packed BCD, lowest byte at $0080, highest byte at $0082
$0083	Number of acid bottles	Value range 0..5 When new bottles are found (object ), the number is set to 5.
$0084..$0088	Ball puzzle, from left to right Level 1: 0 at $0087/$0088, Level 2: 0 at $0088	Value range 0..5 0=not present or already delivered, 1=, 2=, 3=, 4=, 5=
$0089..$008D	Space in which the balls are located $00=Ball is not placed anywhere	Value range 1..50 $0089: , $008A: , $008B: , $008C: , $008D:
$008E..$0092	Low-byte of the spheres' screen position	$008E: , $008F: , $0090: , $0091: , $0092:
$0093..$0097	High byte of the screen position of the spheres $00=Sphere is not stored anywhere	Value range 89..90 $0093: , $0094: , $0095: , $0096: , $0097:
$00C4..$00F5	Status of individual rooms	$00C4: Room 1 ... $00F5: Room 50 %xxxxxxx0=Secret door closed, %xxxxxxx1=Secret door open %xxxx0xxx=No healing herb present, %xxxx1xxx=Healing herb present $0x=Object removed, $1x=, $2x=, $3x=, $4x=, $5x=, $6x=, $7x=, $8x=, $9x=, $Bx=
$9894..$9897	Code to enter level 2	$11, $18, $13, $10 corresponds to "1830"
$9898..$989B	Code to enter level 3	$18, $18, $11, $17 corresponds to "8817"
$989C..$989F	Code after Level 3	$13, $17, $08, $1B equals "37" plus a space and a special character

Votes[edit | edit source]

Voting of the C64-Wiki users (10=the best vote):
5.40 points at 5 votes (rank 1020). You need to be logged in to cast a vote.
C64 Games	1	August 02, 2025 - "sehr gut" - 21.680 downs
Lemon 64	5,73	May 9, 2025 - 11 votes
Ready 64	6,00	May 9, 2025 - 1 voto
Rombachs C64-Spieleführer	8	September 1984 - "Verdict 2"

Critics[edit | edit source]

Stephan64: "Especially considering its early release year and its small size of only 16 KB, Quest for Quintana Roo is a surprisingly complex and entertaining search-and-collect game. And because the difficulty level isn't too high at the beginning and only increases slowly from level to level, it remains fun for quite a while to control the tomb raider "Yucatan Sam" through the dark Mayan temples and have him search for treasures. I give it 6 points for a nice game from the early days of the C64."

Rombachs C64-Spieleführer: "Interesting program in which the player has to complete various tasks (Rating 2)." ^[1]

Miscellaneous[edit | edit source]

Cover[edit | edit source]

Cassette[edit | edit source]

Instructions[edit | edit source]

Theme[edit | edit source]

The following gallery shows the short melodies that accompany individual events in the game, in standard musical notation. For creative reuse of all the melodies, the sheet music is also available as a PDF document (File:QuestForQuintanaRoo Theme PDF.pdf) and in ABC musical notation (File:QuestForQuintanaRoo Theme.abc.txt).

Cassette Loading Routine[edit | edit source]

The original cassette version of "Quest for Quintana Roo" contains three files, all of which are loaded using the Kernal's cassette routines. The first is a small BASIC program called "START," which must be started with the "RUN" command after loading. This loads a short machine language routine called "BOOT" and then calls it using a SYS command — which in turn hides the BASIC ROM, loads the actual game program with the filename "GAME" into the memory area $8000 — $BFFE, and finally starts it by an indirect jump via a jump vector at address $8000.

The reason for this complex procedure is that the program code of "Quest for Quintana Roo" is partially located in a memory area that is usually hidden by the C64's BASIC ROM. If the game program were loaded directly using the BASIC command LOAD, the load routine would, in the second phase of the loading process, incorrectly compare the backup of the program data with the contents of the BASIC ROM and subsequently report a ?LOAD ERROR.

The author of the "BOOT" loading routine proceeds remarkably amateurishly: Although he only disables the BASIC ROM and leaves the Kernal ROM with the datasette routines active, he first attempts to copy the contents of the Kernal ROM to the underlying RAM. To do this, he initializes a pointer in the zero page with the base address $E000 of the Kernal, but then, instead of using indirect Y-indexed addressing (which would have read and written the memory area starting at $E000), he uses absolute Y-indexed addressing (which reads and writes the pointer itself and the following 254 bytes, and is therefore completely ineffective). Fortunately, copying the Kernal is unnecessary anyway, so this error has no consequences.

Of course, this loading routine offers no speedup whatsoever (the entire loading process takes almost six minutes) and does not constitute copy protection: The command LOAD "GAME",1,1 loads the program code into memory and then, despite the ?LOAD ERROR, saves it completely to disk using a routine previously stored in a suitable memory location. For example, if you first execute the following short program before loading "QUEST FOR QUINTANA ROO" in the manner described, the command SYS 679 "QUINTANA",8,32768,49150+1 is then sufficient to save a copy of the game to disk (device address 8):

1 FOR N=0 TO 48:READ D:POKE 679+N,D:NEXT:POKE 43,216:POKE 44,2:POKE 56,3:NEW
2 DATA 32,158,173,32,163,182,32,249,253,32,241,183,134,186,32,253,174,32,138
3 DATA 173,32,247,183,132,193,133,194,32,253,174,32,138,173,32,247,183,132,174
4 DATA 133,175,198,1,32,237,245,230,1,96,0

Naturally, you can also save this utility program before execution so that it is later available for similarly structured game cartridges, for example, "Loco".

The file thus created can then be loaded with the command LOAD "QUINTANA",8,1 and started with the following command sequence:

POKE 32765,198 : POKE 32766,1 : POKE 32767,76 : SYS 32765

Video Recording[edit | edit source]

First part of a long (and lengthy) annotated game of "Quest for Quintana Roo"

Bugs[edit | edit source]

Even after the third level, a numerical code is displayed when opening the door to the next level. Correctly, this should again be the number combination for the third level, since it repeats endlessly from now on. Instead, a combination of numbers, a space, and a special character appears (left image in the gallery below).
If the player character shoots at a snake or a spider, an overlap between the opponent's sprite and the bullet is not necessarily counted as a hit. Instead, the bullet must hit the opponent in the center. In the animation on the right, the spider should have lost its legs after four hits — yet a fifth shot is needed to destroy it.

After the third level, an invalid code appears on the temple door.

Even after being hit four times in the legs, the spider happily crawls around.

Trivia[edit | edit source]

According to the game description on the back of the box, "Quintana Roo" represents a Mayan deity in whose honor the temples featured in the game were built. In reality, however, this name is that of a Mexican state on the Yucatán Peninsula, which is itself named after the liberation poet Andrés Quintana Roo (1787–1851). Clearly, the game's publishers prioritized a mysterious name (and especially the alliteration of "Quest" and "Quintana") over an accurate historical reference.

Highscore[edit | edit source]

The following list invites you to immortalize yourself with your highest score. To ensure the comparability of the results, the game should be played from the first level, meaning that codes known from previous games for direct entry into higher levels should not be used.

Stephan64 - 58.500 - 2 (21.05.2025)
Keiner - 0 (tt.mm.jjjj)
Niemand - 0 (tt.mm.jjjj)


	#2 Keiner		#3 Niemand

Links[edit | edit source]

Universal Videogame List

Videos[edit | edit source]

Sources[edit | edit source]

↑ Oswald Reim, Martin Scholer: "Rombachs C64-Spieleführer", Rombach, 1984, page 280

[1] Oswald Reim, Martin Scholer: "Rombachs C64-Spieleführer", Rombach, 1984, page 280

[1]