King's Quest: Chapter 1 - A Knight to Remember

28.07.2015

Critic 74/100

Users 71/100

Genre: Point-and-click Puzzle Adventure

An aging King Graham reflects on a life of adventure with his granddaughter, Gwendolyn, taking players back to his teen years and his quest to become a knight of Daventry in King Edward’s royal guard. Discover a wondrous world full of whimsical characters, charming puzzles and perilous dangers in this fun and enchanting coming of age story.

The prologue begins with Graham entering a thicket and heading to a scary Forest Well. It is a linear sequence which has a twenty-something King Graham returning to the Forest Well (from a previous adventure) on a quest from King Edward to find his stolen Magic Mirror, while trying to avoid the Legendary Beast, a dragon living there. He discovers the cave filled with beds and other strange traps. He finds a bookcase with spellbooks and selfhelp guides on how to capture and control dragons. Finally using a feeding mechanism, he is able to distract the dragon, and take the mirror. After a perilous escape, he return to castle to present the Mirror to the king. The main story returns to a time earlier, when Graham was a teenager, traveling to Daventry for the first time to take part in a Knight Tournament there, and recounts his first journey into the Forest Well, and encounter with the beast within, and the loss of a friend. Graham begins on an overlook above Daventry, riding in on his noble steed Triumph, when he falls down the hill until he reaches the Back Road below. He follows a sign leading him a missing bridge, and the Parade of Hopeful Knights marching past beyond. He makes a detour down more of the backroads, until he find the Merchant of Miracles, who sends him to repair his wagon wheel. Graham cuts down a tree, finds his way into town, where he has the choice between three different items from each of the three closed shops, and a choice to tip one of the three shops a swell. After helping the merchant, and after being cheated (either choosing to buy a fake initiation ticket, or having his coins stolen), he is brought to the Tournament Theatre, but finds that the bridge is out again. He tricks the royal guard to save him from drowning, and then distracts them with bees so he can join up with the other knight initiates. He tries to figure out a way to cross the river, but each knight ends up stealing his solutions, until only he and Manny are left on the side of the river. After figuring out a final solution, he makes it across the river, while Manny just walks across the river. On the other side Manny congratulates Graham, and convinces him to have a secret alliance. Graham finally makes it to the tournament, after explaining why he was late, he has to makeup the Chivalry Test in which he has to learn a bit about each initiate. All knight hopefuls are then given an initiation quest to find the eye of a hideous beast. There are multiple solutions to this quest, but it cannot be from cute furry creatures. Graham meets Amaya Blackstone on his way back into the heart of Daventry, who gives him some of the history of the Kingdom, and invites him to meet her at her shop in the town. Graham meets all the town members including a compassionate baker, and wise Hobblepots who run a curiosity/magic/alchemy shop. He learns that someone is stealing the beds in the kingdom. Depending on his actions at this point he might discover the Forest Well for the first time, a local landmark that everyone knows about, and is used as a kind of testing ground for knights hoping to rise up in the ranks of the Royal Guard to prove themselves to King Edward. He either loses a friend there, Achaka, and receives an eye from the Legendary Beast there, or escapes without one (but given extra eye by Manny). Or he might befriend the Bridge Troll Olfie, who helps him out, or use trickery to make a substitute eye to submit to the judging knights. Following the initiation, the knights then must finish three trials; Duel of Strength, Duel of Speed, and the Championship Duel of Wits. Depending on where he went previous quest, he might be sent to find lost knight who has disappeared from the competition (if he hadn't discovered him in the previous quest). Regardless of when this takes place it leads him to the Forest Well (and results in the same situation, he learns how to shoot a bow, his friend dies, and Graham escapes with or without the beast's eye). In both cases Graham encounters Manny who convinces him to stay in the competition, and that he must do it for the memory of Achaka. Graham defeats the various competing knights at each duel, in order to join the Knights of Daventry, and gain the chance to become King of Daventry as well. However getting to each deed requires him to help other citizens of Daventry, befriend the trolls, help the Merchant of Miracles again or let him get captured by goblins, discover other secrets of the land, find new mysteries. While doing this he learns that goblins are behind stealing the beds, but doesn't know why. He defeats Acorn in the Duel of Strength, with the help of the trolls and Manny, defeats the fast knight Whisper in the duel of speed, and finally has a battle of wits with Manny. Manny has been secretly manipulating the entire tournament behind the scenes, and has ulterior motives to become king. During the game he uses hypnosis potion on Graham, which forces Graham to make the moves Manny wants him to. The dark knight explains his reasons, and plans for ruling the kingdom. His story about Achaka changes from what he had said before (suggesting much of it might have been a lie), he seems to know a bit too much about the goblins as well. The rest of the Royal Guard do not trust him, and prevent him from winning the duel so that he cannot become king, and to give Graham extra chances. Finally Graham defeats the knight by either winning fairly or by cheating. But Manny attempts to kill Graham in revenge, forcing Graham to defend himself (with items offered by the town's citizens). He defends himself, and then force the evil knight to leave (but Manny threatens to take revenge). In the present, Gwendolyn is listening these stories as she prepares for her own fencing tournament with her cousin Gart. The choices Graham made in his stories influences how she reacts and treats her cousin. She is either kind to him, sneaky, or quick to attack.