"Peasant's Quest" Demake -- DOS/CGA

This page is about a DOS/CGA implementation of the Homestar Runner Flash "Peasant's Quest" Game.

This is very much a simple proof of concept.

See the Apple II version for a more complete 8-bit Peasant's Quest experience.

Peasant's Quest Title Screen in 4-color CGA

Peasant's Quest Title Screen in 4-color CGA

Details

I was working on finishing the Apple II PQ and saw people talking about a CGA coding jam and this happened. Also previously inspired by Strong Bad's "4 of 12: World Games" episode which had a CGA Kerrek.

Legal Note

Implementation Details

I never really liked DOS, and while I spent some time in the 1990s on the platform it was in the 386/VGA era, not 8086/CGA. I did write some games back them but mainly in mode13h in Turbo Pascal. I'm leaning on some of those ancient skills here.

Current Status

Major work remaining:

Pretty much everything.

Videos

TODO

Screenshots

Note: these were captured with the ??? emulator.

System Requirements

Presumably any sort of IBM PC with CGA display.

How can I play it?

You can download the image below and then try running it on a real machine.
You can download the image and run it on an emulator.
In theory you might be able to play it in your browser at the internet archive here:

Downloads

Disk Images

Here are the disk images for v0.01 (2026)
pq_cga_floppy.zip (???k)
Image with zip file suitable for using with dosbox: pq_cga_zip.zip

Source

You can find it in the full git repository here: You'll need a complex Turbo Pascal toolchain to build it.
https://github.com/deater/dos_programs/games/peasant

Controls

The controls are similar to the real game, with arrow keys controlling the walking and typing text for commands.

Mini-faq

Q. Are you going to make the full game?

A. Videlectrix #1 will be very annoyed if I do that before finishing the Apple II version.
Q. Was it hard to write this?

A. Yes. Though graphics on CGA are much simpler (but uglier!) than Apple II.
Q. So how did you draw the graphics?

A. Took screencaptures from the ruffle/flash version on the website, did the best I could with the GIMP.
Q. Did you decompile the Flash version of the game?

A. No. (Later on I did a bit mostly to look at some of the graphics assets for reference. I don't use any of them directly nor do I look at the code, mostly because I don't know how)
Q. Is CGA capable of more colors?

A. Yes, there's both composite output mode and also 160x100x16-color mode which might look a lot better. However sterotypically when people think CGA they think of either the cool-ranch cyan/pink/white palette or the chipolte taco seasoning green/red/yellow palette.
Q. Did you use AI to make this?

A. No, I hate the current crop of AI and want nothing to do with it. I am also judging you if you are using it.
Q. Why aren't you writing this fully in assembly language?

A. I actually have relatively OK x86 assembly skills, but I find it exhausting to write. I have been spoiled by 6502 assembly and it's hard to go back.

Development Notes

16 January 2026 -- Version 0.01

I had some code floating around to convert a CGA-style PNG file to something turbo pascal could load. I made this as a joke to load a static image of the Kerrek scene. For some reason I began ramping things up to show a few scenes from the game and as always things got out of hand.

Other Demakes

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