A fairy tale adventure
This is an early example of the text and graphics adventure, a genre which would prove to be enduringly popular throughout the 1980s with many fine examples from Gnome Ranger to Guild of Thieves. Fortunately, despite this one's age it actually remains a pretty decent little game which is worth playing for its fun factor as well as its historical value. The plot is fairly standard Sierra fantasy stuff, the kind of thing which the King's Quest series milked for all its worth some years later, with a story which revolves an evil wizard who has kidnapped the king's daughter. The king offers up the usual kind of reward found in fairy tales, half his kingdom, but given the dangerous nature of the quest, only one bold soul steps up to the plate. This of course is where the player comes in, as the brave adventurer, and it's your job to explore a series of static scenes, collecting item to solve inventory-based puzzles and interacting with the various odd characters who inhabit the world. The interface is the now familiar system of using combinations of verbs and objects in order to interact with the world and while the system is obviously not as sophisticated as later efforts like the best of the Zork games, it's pretty decent given its age. The same can be said of the rest of the game too, with visuals which are bright, vibrant and atmospheric and with puzzles that are surprisingly interesting and challenging to solve. The story might not be the most original in the world but it's told with enough humour and style to carry things through, so if you're looking for a cheery romp to pass the time, you could do worse than play this one.
