Crystal Crazy — the quest continues Runs here
1993 · Casady & Greene · System 7 · Mini vMac (Mac SE) · 512×342 black and white
Guide updated September 2026
Six years after Crystal Quest, the same people made it again with more of everything: more enemies, more weapons, jigsaw pieces to collect, and objectives that change what a wave is actually asking of you.
The mouse control is untouched, because it was already right.
Boots to the Crystal Crazy title screen on an emulated Macintosh SE. Click to start, Return for instructions, H for high scores. The ship follows your mouse.
Controls
| Mouse | Fly. The ship goes where you point. |
| Mouse button | Fire |
| Return | Instructions |
| H | High scores |
| Cmd-Q | Quit to the Finder |
Casady & Greene closed in 2003 and several of its titles reverted to their authors. Crystal Crazy has not been sold in over twenty years and is contained in no current product. Full reasoning is in notices/crystal-crazy.md, and the takedown promise applies without argument.
Archives
- Internet Archive — the preserved Macintosh disk this copy came from.
- Macintosh Garden — other releases and documentation.
How it works & what to expect
| Machine | Macintosh SE, 512×342 black and white |
|---|---|
| System | System 7.5.3 |
| Emulator | Mini vMac, compiled to WebAssembly |
| Version | 1.0.6 |
| Saves | High scores live inside the emulated Mac, in your browser. |
It runs in black and white here on the game's own advice. Start it on a colour screen without its MegaDraw acceleration and Crystal Crazy itself puts up a dialog explaining that it will not manage anything like full speed and would be more fun in black and white. Taking the game at its word gives a clean, fast title screen and no warning.
The structure is Crystal Quest's: clear the board, reach the gate, next wave, harder. What changes is what "clear the board" means from wave to wave.
What the sequel added
Objectives that vary. Some waves want the crystals, some want you to smash objects, some want jigsaw pieces assembled. The folders on the disk are literally named Basics, Goodies, Nasties and Objectives, which is a fair summary of the design.
More weapons. The original gave you a gun and your reflexes. This adds a set of pickups that change how a wave can be approached.
More nasties, with more behaviour. The enemy roster is considerably larger and the patterns are less predictable.
More voices. The sampled commentary that made the first game memorable is back and there is more of it.
Whether it improves on Crystal Quest is genuinely contested. It is unambiguously bigger; the original's severity is part of what people liked.
Casady & Greene at the end of the Mac's middle age
By 1993 Casady & Greene had been publishing Mac-only software for a decade — Crystal Quest, Conflict Catcher, Spell Catcher, and later the first version of SoundJam MP, which Apple bought and turned into iTunes.
Crystal Crazy is what that house looked like at its most confident: a sequel nobody strictly needed, made carefully, shipped with its own accelerated drawing engine, and carrying a dialog that politely tells you your machine is not good enough for the colour mode.
The company closed in 2003. Patrick Buckland, who wrote both games, went on to found Rockstar Leeds.
Questions people ask
Is this the sequel to Crystal Quest?
Yes — Crystal Crazy, 1993, by the same author and publisher. Version 1.0.6.
Why is it in black and white?
Because the game asks for it. On a colour screen without MegaDraw acceleration it warns that it cannot run at anything like full speed and suggests black and white. It is right.
How is it different from Crystal Quest?
More enemies, more weapons, and waves with varying objectives — crystals, smashing objects, assembling jigsaws — instead of the single collect-and-escape goal.
Is it better than the original?
Opinions differ. It is bigger and more varied; the original is leaner and more severe, and plenty of people prefer that.
How do I control it?
The mouse alone. The ship goes exactly where you point and the button fires — unchanged from Crystal Quest, because it was already right.
Are high scores kept?
Inside the emulated Mac, in your own browser. They survive closing the tab but not clearing site data.
