First things first – what do we do before we start playing an old-school game? That’s right, we hit “view manual” in the launch menu, and read through it. It’s short, it’s funny, and it will help you find your bearings.

As long as you’re in the area – go to the QFG1 folder, find a file called dosboxQG1VGA.conf, and edit it so that autolock=false now reads autolock=true. (Do the same for QFG3 when you play that). It helps keep your mouse cursor focused. (Thanks to Wizarkoopa for this tip)

Now it’s time to actually start the game and choose your class. You’ve read the manual and you know your own gameplay preferences – do you prefer sneaking around, bashing things down or leaving things spellbound. The Thief is the only class that can successfully master *all* the skills, and he still won’t get to use the fighter's sword and shield. While there are some things to be said for “multiclassing” by mastering all the skills, it’s really fun to replay the game with a different class, and you’ll miss out on some things exclusive to a different class regardless of how skilled you are.

If you’re planning to use magic in any capacity, invest as many spare skillpoints as you can into it. Magic might be the hardest skill to raise, as your ability to train it is limited by your mana pool, which in turn is limited by your magic skill, creating a very annoying catch-22 situation if your skill is very low.

You decided on a character class, allocated all your points, and have actually started the game, venturing into the peaceful town of Spielburg. Congratulations! Now save your game. I’m serious – this might be a very merciful Sierra game, but you can still easily blunder into an unwinnable situation, have the game crash on you after you haven’t saved for a while, or be the victim of any number of bugs. Save early, save often, save in different slots. Have a different save for the start of each day, for when you accomplish something significant and for when you’ve been playing for a while. Alternate saves in different slots when dealing with Baba Yaga or the Bandit Fort.

With all the preliminaries out of the way – you’re finally have a hero ready to face the game. As my intro notes, you have no funds, skills, or ideas as to what’s going on. So, what do you do? You explore, train, and solve problems, approximately in that order.

Talk to everyone in the town to learn what’s happening and what you need to do. Have a chat with the sheriff, the adventure guild master (left of the sheriff / entrance to town) and the proprietress of the magic shop, if you’re a magic user (get some spells while you’re at it). You might even chat to the folks at the local tavern, but save before you drink anything.

When you’ve explored the town and exhausted your funds, walk out of the town and go one screen up / north. You’re now next to the healers cottage, a place you’ll often return to. The healer herself can sell you very useful potions (make sure you pause for a few seconds every time you buy one. A bug in the VGA version causes a slight delay before potions appear in your inventory, and buying a bunch at once can waste a lot of money, as some will never materialize) and has a quest for you.

More importantly, outside the hut is a good place to train. You can throw a few spells around, pick up a bunch of stones and practice your throwing, and attempt to climb the large tree – which not only improves your climbing skill, but your general fitness as well. Try this at home – just don’t sue me if you fall and break anything. When you run out of stamina, take a rest then go back to training (later in the game you’ll be able to afford plenty of Vigor potions to chug down when your stamina is low).

If you have sneaking as a skill, put the hero in sneak mode and never turn it off. Not only will you practice your sneaking as you go about the game, but this will also reduce the number of monsters you encounter as you explore.

One screen north is the castle. You can learn more about the valley here, and – more importantly – working as a stable hand will earn you a bit of money as well as improve your Strength and general fitness. You can also train your weapon skills by fighting against the Weapon Master (assuming you have the Parry skill) – it’s a bit high-priced at the moment, but at least you won’t be in danger of dying.

Note - at some point you'll want to defeat the weapon master. You'll want your combat stats to be as nearly perfect as possible and (more importantly) to drop all your stuff to the ground before you start the fight. You'll use up less stamina that way, which is the key to victory. Just make sure to pick it all back up before you leave the screen.

You might want to spend a day or 2 training your skills and earning a bit of money to spend on spells / items. Once that’s done, you can save your game and try exploring the valley. Almost every point of interest in it can be found via the old maze-running trick of “pick a wall and follow it”. Walk out of the town, run right until you can’t run right anymore, then pick an edge of the screen to follow.

As you explore the valley, you’ll run into dangerous situations and monsters aplenty. Handle what you can right now, but don’t be afraid to retreat and come back when you’re better equipped / skilled. Just remember what you’ve encountered for later. A fighter will get points for defeating one of each monster, not matter how dangerous, but other classes benefit from doing so as well.

This is the only game in the series in which you’ll automatically die if you enter combat with your stamina completely drained. Keep an eye on your stamina, and carry a Vigor potion for emergencies.

During the night, the valley is filled with more dangerous monsters. Stick to daytime exploration at first. Also, find a way to get back to the town inn / the castle when night approaches, or a safe spot to sleep in the forest – if you try to sleep on a random wilderness screen, you’ll have a bit of a bad time.

Places that you won’t discover by circling around the valley perimeter: if you head directly down from Baba Yaga’s place, you’ll run into a “goblin camp”. This is a good place to practice your combat moves / earn a bit of money from slain enemies. Down from the Goblin camp, you’ll find the Fairy Ring – during the daytime you can pick up mushrooms for the healer here. (Exploit – the healer claims that she only needs a few mushrooms, but she’ll buy as a many as you can carry if you keep clicking the mushrooms on her. This kinda breaks the game, so take note)

More or less on the other side of the town from the town gate is the town cemetery. Do not approach at night without an undead repelling potion. Directly south of the town is a target range.

Thieves: can practice lockpicking on town doors at night, but shouldn’t try lockpicking the same door more than twice, else the noise will be heard. After your lockpicking skill hits 35 or so, try clicking the lockpick on yourself a few times.

Find some new friends in the alley at night. Just make sure you remember how to identify yourself as a thief.

Alternate saves when breaking into houses in town. There are generally more than a few ways to get caught.

Magic users – if you’re planning to beat Erasmus at his game, bring a bunch of Mana potions along and save before you start.

Once you kill the ogre, the game decides that you’re experienced enough to handle tougher monsters, and some of the creatures that used to only come out at night will spawn in the daytime. Be ready for that.

If asked to enter the Baron's castle *proper* (past the two guards) - walk inside, don't sneak.

When you finish the game, it will attempt to export your character to A:glory1.sav. Chances are that you don’t have an A drive (unless you’re a time traveler from 1995). Just erase that part, and make a save as “glory1.sav” – you’ll find the file in the QFG1 game directory.

A save file with "nearly perfect" characters to import into every game in the series:
http://depositfiles.com/files/biybhs7yz

Unpack the zip file, drop the files into the directory for each QFG game (right click on game in library - properties - browse local files). Drop the files into the "Import" directory in QFG 5. "Shadows.sav" is the QFG4 save, and (oddly enough) it can be used both in QFG5 and QFG4.

Note - the character has Thief skills, which stops him from romancing a certain character in QFG5.

You can choose your class and name even when importing a character (except for QFG5)

Some tips for the other games:

QFG3:

You can fill waterskins with water from the Pool of Peace, and use them as Stamina potions.

Climbing to the top of the Tree at the Heart of the World refills your Health, Stamina and Mana.

You can keep trying to give Harami money to increase your honor ad-infinitum.

QFG4:

Unlike the other games, any amount of sleep - even a minute before sunrise - will refill your Health, Stamina, and Mana.

Check the Inn's dining room late at night.

Cast Detect Magic in Erana's Garden.

You can train your Lockpicking skills by continually trying to pick Nikolai's door, or by clicking your Hand icon on the safes behind the pictures in the Thieve's guild, and selecting "Crack safe".

QFG5:
Your Health, Stamina and Mana get refilled when you enter the Hall of Champions at the start of the game. So you can enter, exit, kickbox outside until you're worn out, and repeat, until you're in top physical condition.

All classes will learn the Swimming skill in the Famous Adventurer's home - there's no need to spend points on this skill during character creation / import.

You can train Lockpicking and Pickpocketing both by trying to open the Famous Adventurer's door at night, by trying to use the door and selecting "lockpick" \ using your thief's kit.

Talk to Ugarte during the Rite of Conquest, then pass by the adventurer's guild at night a day later.

Talk to Elsa at the guild on day 3. Flash the Thief Sign at her if you can. Also, make sure to fight her in the arena AND watch her fight someone else if you want to romance her.