Players assume the role of Rincewind the "wizzard", voiced by Eric Idle, as he becomes involved in exploring the Discworld for the means to prevent a dragon terrorising the city of Ankh-Morpork.

The game's story borrows elements from several Discworld novels, with its central plot loosely based on the events in Guards!

Discworld proved more popular with European gamers than those in North America, with reviewers praising it for its humour, voice-acting and graphics, but criticising its gameplay and difficult puzzles.

[2] To progress the story, which is divided into four acts, Rincewind must find key items needed to advance, requiring visiting a multitude of locations;[6][4] some around Ankh-Morpork, and other outside the city and around the Discworld, all of which are accessed via an overworld map for each region whenever the player leaves a location to visit another (some become accessible when players learn of them).

Just before he leaves, the dragon stops him and requests his aid in removing the brotherhood's hold upon her, claiming they are using her for evil and are planning to make her go on a major rampage.

[11] Learning that a book about summoning dragons had been stolen from the library at Unseen University the night before, Rincewind gains access to L-Space, allowing him to journey into the past, witness the theft, and follow the thief back to the brotherhood's hideout.

Acquiring their golden items, Rincewind brings them to the dragon, only to learn it will not return to its dimension but seek revenge on the brotherhood before coming after him.

Wishing to stop this, Rincewind decides to prevent the summoning book from being stolen, by switching it for one that makes love custard.

[14] Terry Pratchett was pleased with the 1986 interactive fiction game The Colour of Magic, but criticised its poor marketing.

[15] He was reluctant to grant Discworld licences due to concern for the series, and wanted a reputable company who cared about the property.

[21] Pratchett originally wanted the game to be based on The Colour of Magic and for the team to work in succession through the series, but Barnett believed that would be detrimental, and thought that it was difficult to make a game based on just one book (he also said in an interview that he was more interested in the Discworld itself than any particular book, and that this was so the story would not be restricted to a narrative thereof[20]).

[20] Barnett stated that he was "intimately involved" with the graphics in the concept stages and initial production, but later stepped back.

[27] The game was released on both floppy disk and CD-ROM, with the CD version featuring a fully voiced cast of characters.

[31] A 3DO Interactive Multiplayer version was announced to be in development and slated to be published by Psygnosis during E3 1995, however this port was never released for unknown reasons.

[32] In an April 2020 online interview, former Perfect 10 Productions/Teeny Weeny Games member David Swan stated that Atari Corporation approached the company in regards to a potential conversion of Discworld for the Atari Jaguar CD, however no actual development started on the port beyond discussion phase due to market issues and low install base of the platform.

[24] Scary Larry of GamePro, in contrast to EW and EGM, said the standard joypad "works just as well" as the PlayStation Mouse.

He praised the humorous graphics, extensive voice acting, and script which "will leave your sides aching from laughter", but found the gameplay too simplistic and lacking in challenge.

[27] Mean Machines Sega's reviewers believed the Saturn version had lost some authenticity, and thought that the gags were not funny, but complimented the storyline.

[28] Computer Gaming World's Charles Ardai praised the humour and believed the writing was true to Pratchett.

[36] PC Gamer's reviewer praised the speech, believing it greatly improved the humour, and also complimented the difficulty, saying the game cannot be completed within days.

His criticisms included the overuse of dialogue in the first act, saying most of it is irrelevant to the story, and also thought the control system "falters in certain areas".

He stated that Discworld is "a worthy contender" to Sam & Max and challenged the hold LucasArts had on the point-and-click genre.

[25] Adventure Gamers praised the voice acting, graphics, humour and story, calling it "a wonderful game", but noted that "it stops short of being a classic simply due to its sheer difficulty and the unwieldy nature".

Cook praised the "exceptional" animation and art, as well as the "faithful" conversion of Pratchett's work to a video game, but criticised the testing and quality control as "crappy".

[51] In 2013, Retro Gamer cited Discworld as an example demonstrating that British developers produced a disproportionately large number of overly hard video games.