The Fool’s Errand was a Macintosh game released in 1988 by Cliff Johnson, who went on to create several other moderately successful puzzle games. None of his subsequent efforts could top the brilliance of The Fool’s Errand.

The Fool’s Errand is the story of a wandering fool tasked with saving the land. The game consists of a set of linked puzzles, tightly coiled together with a Tarot theme. Along the way you encounter each character from the Taro deck, and you must help The Fool unlock their secrets before you can proceed. Portions of the map can’t be reached until certain puzzles have been completed, and the final puzzle cannot be attempted until all others are finished. Strangely, none of the puzzles include instructions. Figuring out the rules is part of the fun.

As a thirteen year old I found the game exceptionally challenging. Now that I’m partially grown, I thought I’d give it another go to see how my skills have improved. It was still rather strenuous. Luckily I was able to vaguely recall some of the puzzles - otherwise I might have been stuck on the The Humbug indefinitely.

Here are a few screen shots:

If you want to play The Fool’s Errand on Windows, try the following:

1. Download Mini vMac.
2. Rip the ROM from an existing Mac Classic, or try googling file:vmac.rom. Drop the ROM file into the same directory as vMac.
3. Laboriously create a bootable Macintosh disk image using HFVExplorer.
4. With a last Herculean effort, copy The Fool’s Errand files onto your new boot disk. Without losing the resource forks.

Or, you can skip all that hard work and just download a playable copy of the above. Drag fool.dsk onto vMac to start. Have fun!

An Aside : Cliff Johnson

I’m grateful to Cliff for creating The Fool’s Errand and helping me fill those endless days while I awaited puberty. Still, I find his home page somewhat disquieting and I can’t help but feel that Cliff is teetering on the edge of madness. Cliff has been working hard on The Fool and his Money, a sequel to The Fool’s Errand. I pre-ordered the game a year or two ago, and despite numerous delays I’m eagerly anticipating its imminent release.