Each Swordquest
episode required you to find a certain number of words hidden in the
comic books. As you played through the game, different clues would appear on the screen which would reference certain panels in the comic. That panel would have a word drawn into it somewhere. Five of these words were correct while the other were there to throw you off. You then filled in the contest entry form with the word clues you thought were right, and mailed the form to
Atari. If you got enough of them right, you would supposedly be able to compete in a Swordquest championship
tournament to be the champion of that game.
There were supposed to be four games in the Swordquest series, Earthworld, Fireworld, Waterworld, and Airworld. The four champions of each game would then compete against each other for the grand prize, a jewel encrusted sword.
The Earthworld contest featured a gold pendant as the prize, and was won by Steven Bell. The Fireworld contest had a jewel encrusted gold and platinum chalice as the prize, which was won by Michael Rideout. It was about this time that Atari started losing money and the Swordquest contest was cancelled. Waterworld was released in limited quantities to Atari Club members. It was supposed to have a gold crown as its prize, but the contest was cancelled before it was awarded. The Airworld game, which had as a prize a precious stone, was never produced.
Since the Waterworld game was released in small quantities, the cart, comic book and poster are now fairly rare items.