Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail is a multi-media story book of sorts created by 7th Level in 1996. It is based off of the infamous Monty Python movie of (almost) the same name. If this movie doesn't top a list of Greatest Comedy Movies of All Time, it's because Life of Brian trumped it. Does the game live up to the lofty heights of the movie? Or John Cleese? Let's find out...
It's very easy to beat this game. In fact you can do it one click! The opening screen allows you to "collect the grail" straight away, ushering you to an ending screen, then hastily back to Windows. Easy.
You can also view the entire movie from this screen albeit in 100x speed and in a tiny box. That's value for money! So you've completed the game and watched the movie and want to to tell the developers how much fun you had with it. First you'd need to register - the third and last option presented.
First question. What's your name? Done. Ok, I know my address, I heard about the game when I was about 14 (had a fun demo from a cover disk). Next. Favourite colour? Don't know why that's important but I'll go with blue. What's the Capital of Assyria? Crap! I was never good at geography. I'll guess. What's the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow? They're taking the piss! EXIT.
Oh. The game's started.
The furthest I decided to go in my experiment to see how many questions this mock registration goes up to is 40. I gave up then, but each of them are trademark Python. Anyone would think 7th Level hired the surviving members of the comedy troupe to help with the writing. Oh wait... they did.
Eric Idle was on hand not only as Executive Producer, but also act as co-designer and writing consultant. Terry Gilliam is credited with Original Character Design and John Cleese, Terry Jones and Michael Palin joined them to record new dialogue to go alongside the many clips from the movie.
The game itself isn't really much of one. It is little more than an adult version of a Disney Animated Storybook. It's quite bizarre, then, that this can capture the attention of adults (at least those with a sense of humour) just as easily as something like the interactive Hercules retelling did for the tots.
You essentially click on things until a random thing reveals itself to be not so random because it leads you on to another random screen to do the same thing again. Or play Tetris. That's it. What a relief it is that these random things turn out to be the funniest thing you'll ever see in a video game, perfectly capturing the Monty Python never-bettered brand of comedy.
You'll have lots of fun playing through this game. 7th Level did such a great job capturing the spirit of Monty Python that they created two more games based on them (which may escape the Chamber at a later date). Tell us what you think in the comments below!
To download the game, follow the link below. This custom installer exclusive to The Collection Chamber uses DOSBox running Microsoft Windows 3.1 to get the game working on modern systems. Manual included Tested on Windows 10.
01.07.2015 Version 2 - Improved installer
02.05.2016 Version 3 - Autoclose Windows 3.1 when exiting the game
02.03.2020 Version 4 - Updated DOSBox to 0.74.3. Added manual
File Size: 418 Mb. Install Size: 510 Mb. Need help? Consult the Collection Chamber FAQ
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Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail is © 7th Level
Monty Python and the Holy Grail is © Python [Monty] Pictures Ltd
Review, Cover Design and Installer created by me
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I don't see the ppoint of this. I did a successful download but don't see where or how I can play the game.
ReplyDeleteHello. Did the game install correctly? Once you download all three files, run the Install-MPHG_v3.exe (make sure all files are located in the same folder first).
DeleteOnce installed, click on the shortcut that comes up or use Run.exe from within the install folder to play. It should begin automatically.
If you're still having trouble, take a look at the FAQ
http://collectionchamber.blogspot.co.uk/p/faq.html
Nice Blog Post !
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for giving this game back to me. I was so upset when my CD-ROM stopped working, and now I can play it again!
ReplyDeleteI have a question: Do you have any plans to bring back the Meaning of Life game? I'm sure I got this game working in Windows 7, but Windows 10: nothing. It doesn't seem worth setting up a VM Win 98 Emulator for 1 game. I hope you consider it, eventually. And thanks again for your work on The Holy Grail!
ReplyDeleteI do have plans. I do have the game but I haven't touched it yet. I have a huge backlog of game I want to add and this is one of them.
DeleteHello, I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong here...The game starts up for me, but the cursor doesn't show up and I can't play the game. Any Ideas?
ReplyDeleteHello. I've just done a test, and it's working OK for me. Does it do the same in windowed mode? Do other DOSBox games have this issue? Perhaps a simple reboot would fix it.
DeleteI downloaded Don't Go Alone to try another one. It works just fine, but I boot up this game and no cursor.
DeleteI can't think what could be causing this, and I can't replicate the problem. Let's see if the Windows 3.1 OS is useable. Open "dosbox.conf" in notepad as scroll to the very bottom. Delete the "#" befor the the third-to-last line and add it in front of the second to last. It should look like this...
Deletewindows\win /b
#win c:\runexit\runexit C:\7THLEVEL\GRAIL\GRAIL.EXE
exit
Then when you launch, ou will get the Windows 3.1 OS. You can ru the game from here by going into Program Manager > Main > File Manager, then navigate and run C:\7THLEVEL\GRAIL\GRAIL.EXE
See if that works. The only other thing I can think of at the top of my head would be Ctrl-F10 to capture the mouse, but it should be doing that automatically anyway. Maybe run as admin?
Don't Go Alone seems to only work for me in Windowed mode.
DeleteI'm going to try on my desktop. For some reason my cursor will not show up in the DOSBox at all for this game. I just did exactly what you said here and my cursor will not show up for me to get to the file.
DeleteThank you for all your help, but it plays wonderfully on my Desktop. For some reason I can't get these games to play on my Laptop.
DeleteThough this response is quite late, perhaps you'll still see it or others who see this page will benefit:
DeleteThis used to happen to me for a number of Collection Chamber games, and only on one laptop - the cursor would just not show up after opening the game. I eventually figured out that what was happening was my cursor was immediately getting forced deep into the bottom-right of the screen (that I couldn't see) upon the game's launch, and I couldn't move it from that corner. This would only happen for fullscreen games and the games would work fine in windowed mode.
The solution that worked for me was to change the resolution in the config file from "fullresolution=desktop" to fullresolution=original".
I'm getting a message that says there's a correupted file, something BIN. It won't install. Any ideas?
ReplyDeleteOk I redownloaded and somehow it was fixed but now I can't open the manual as it uses adobe which is a paid service. I have absolutely no idea how to save in this game. Can someone please help?
DeleteI believe the Reader version of Adobe Acrobat is free, but he Pro version (which allows you to create and edit them) is paid. If you don't want to go that route, you can drag the file into a web browser to read it via that. As for saving, it does that automatically under the name you gave during the bogus "Registration" process. It saves by adding lines to the (install dir)/HDD/Windows7THLEVEL.INI file.
Deletehttps://get.adobe.com/uk/reader/
Thanks for the reply really appreciate it and the game is working fantastic now.
ReplyDeleteI seem to have this problem where idk if it's dosbox or something else, but i can't control the mouse in collecting things so the game is unfinishable due to the fact that i can't throw the holy hand grenades. Any solutions?
ReplyDelete