Game 162: King’s Quest VII: The Princeless Bride (1994) - Introduction

Written by Michael

The story of Roberta Williams and King’s Quest is a well-known one.  Over more than a decade, King Graham and his family have entertained many a gamer.  The series started out academic, with plots and characters ripped from classic literature, and an awful puzzle involving the spelling of one of their names.  While the references to the classics never went away, more modern sensibilities made their way into the games.  With new people helping steer the boat, the references started getting a little more modern.  Alice in Wonderland.  Beauty and the Beast.

But it’s, um, inconceivable that the title of the seventh game references the works of William Goldman and the (recently taken from us, too soon) Rob Reiner. 

Perhaps it’s because Roberta started to share the top role.  Both to be a mentor, and also for possible selfish reasons (like, say, working less or having more time for other projects), Roberta started letting other writers and producers take charge.  In King’s Quest VI, for example, former Hewlett-Packard employee Jane Jensen co-designed the game, bringing a fresh breath of air and a lot of positive reviews, especially after the venomous reviews they sometimes received for the fifth game in the franchise.  

Game 167: The Clue! (1994) - Introduction

Written by MenhirMike

Today’s game is 1994’s The Clue!, a heist game with adventure game elements - and perfectly timed for the weekend where we’re trying to steal someone’s heart all over again! Or wear a hockey mask and wonder if the NES game counts as an adventure?

We are playing as Matt Stuvysunt and tasked with planning and executing more and more daring heists. To do that, we decide on up to three accomplices (that all want part of the loot), a getaway vehicle, the getaway driver, and the actions of each of the characters during the heist. Outside of the heists, we need to acquire accomplices and tools, fence our stolen goods, and advance Matt’s personal story that will hopefully not come to an early end in an English jail, or worse.

The game idea is clearly taken from 1986’s They Stole a Million. Some sources erroneously call The Clue! a remake, but it has no plot or character details in common and none of the original developers were involved in any way - it’s a completely different game that just took the concept of planning and executing heists.

Goblins Quest 3 – Won!

By Ilmari

What the…

Universe - Final Rating

Written by MenhirMike

To quote Frodo Baggins: It’s done.

The Universe Wikipedia article has this to say about the development:

Responding to some of the criticism directed at Curse of Enchantia, Core Design described Universe as being "a lot" more logical and less linear than their first adventure game. They also described the text-based system as an improvement over the use of only icons, the benefits being that it allowed conversations between characters and simply "it works". They also acknowledged that Curse of Enchantia had "suffered considerably" due to inclusion of action sequences, something that "adventure gamers don't want in their games”, so the ones in Universe were made "short and simple" enough.

Did Universe deliver on those promises? 

Goblins Quest 3 – Fairy chess

By Ilmari

French opening?