Conquests of Camelot: The Search for the Grail | |
---|---|
Developer(s) | Sierra On-Line |
Publisher(s) | Sierra On-Line |
Producer(s) | Guruka Singh-Khalsa |
Designer(s) | Christy Marx |
Programmer(s) | David Slayback |
Artist(s) | Peter Ledger |
Composer(s) | Mark Seibert |
Platform(s) | MS-DOS, Amiga, Atari ST |
Release | March 1990 [1] |
Genre(s) | Adventure |
Mode(s) | Single-player |
Conquests of Camelot: The Search for the Grail [2] is a graphic adventure game released in 1990 by Sierra On-Line. It was the first game in the Conquests series designed by Christy Marx and her husband Peter Ledger. The only other game in the series was 1991's Conquests of the Longbow: The Legend of Robin Hood . Marx did the majority of the design work while Ledger created the game and package art.
The gameplay is typical of the Sierra adventure games of that time, including several action sequences, puzzles and riddles. Occasionally, some alternative solutions to puzzles are available.
Scoring is based on three kinds of points: Skill (when the player performs deeds that help him in his quest, or defeats enemies), Wisdom (when examining things, talking to others, or gaining hints) and Soul (performing good deeds to help others). The options provide a difficulty setting for the action sequences, but with lower points. The game features a soundtrack of authentic-sounding medieval music composed by Mark Seibert.
The message boxes (narration) are the wizard Merlin speaking and counseling the player. The in-game text displays lesser-known forms of words, for example Gwenhyver, Excaliber , Gawaine, Launcelot, and magick instead of the better-known Guinevere, Excalibur, Gawain, Lancelot, and magic. The parser, however, understands all spellings.
The package includes a map of Europe in Arthurian times and an illustrated manual called Liber Ex Doctrina (Latin for either "Book (derived) from Knowledge" or "Book of Doctrine"). This book includes information about the evolution of the Arthurian and Grail myths as well as Greek and Roman mythology; some of this information is required in order to answer riddles within the game.
The game begins at the decline of Camelot because of the love triangle between King Arthur, Guinevere and Lancelot. This 'curse' brought famine and drought in the kingdom. After having a vision of the Holy Grail covered by a silver cloth, Gawain, Lancelot and Galahad departed on a quest for the Holy Grail, but they did not return. The player controls Arthur in his search for the missing knights and the Grail.
The adventure begins at Camelot and then the player travels across England. On his way to Glastonbury Tor he is challenged to a joust by a Black Knight before rescuing Gawain. In the ruins of the Tor he meets a mad hermit, a monk who serves the "Old Ones" and claims he has the Grail, left by Joseph of Arimathea. Afterwards, he visits Ot Moor where the frozen (due to the curse) Lady of the Lake challenges Arthur to a riddle in order to rescue the imprisoned Lancelot.
From Southampton, Arthur leaves England in order to follow Galahad's traces. He arrives to Gaza where he is hosted by a man called Al Sirat, who will introduce him to the cult of the Six Goddesses. At Jerusalem Arthur is tried throughout his acts of selflessness and helping people. After traversing a series of perilous catacombs, and saving Galahad from his terminal illness, the player reaches the ancient Temple of Aphrodite where the goddess directs him to the Grail. Arthur recovers the Grail, but it is promptly snatched by the thief from Gaza. After Arthur deals with the thief, he and Galahad are transported back to Camelot. The Grail is offered to the Christian altar within the Chapel then disappears, driving away Mithras, ending the famine and restoring prosperity within Camelot. Though the curse from the love triangle is lifted from the land, it remains within Arthur's heart.
The game is marked by folkloric knowledge that is woven between the dialogues and the descriptions as the plot unfolds. When the player moves the cursor around the map of England, Merlin will comment on legendary figures such as Brutus of Troy or Ascapart and early legendary saints. In the scenery representing the ruins of Glastonbury Tor, there is a Glastonbury Thorn, which Merlin mentions originated with the Joseph of Arimathea. There is also a well, the lid of which resembles the Chalice Well. Before reaching Jerusalem, Arthur has a stop at the Pool of Siloam.
A theme seen throughout the game is the intermediate period of Sub-Roman Britain before Christianity, as a new religion, replaces the old ones. In Camelot there is a Chapel dedicated both to Mithras (who is however represented by a labarum) for the soldiers of Roman heritage, and Jesus Christ for the Christian soldiers. Cernunnos and Aphrodite are portrayed as real gods, but their powers and influence are in decline because of the advent of Christianity. In the ending sequence of the game, the Grail obliterates the purported "symbol of Mithras" in the chapel. The Grail's power seems to be universal both as a Christian relic and an artifact (the cauldron) of feminine power of the Goddess in pagan folklore. [3]
Another theme interwoven with the gameplay is that Arthur is supposed to perform good deeds to prove himself worthy of the Grail. In the Jerusalem sequence, the player has to discern the locals' problems and help them in order to advance the game. If the player decides not to help even one of his knights and thus avoid the trials and action sequences, the game can be completed, but the Grail will kill Arthur near the end of the game.
In the July 1990 edition of Games International (issue 16), Theo Clarke stated that "Conquests of Camelot has a delicacy that is unusual in this field. There is little overt humour but a gentle wit pervades the game", but felt that the EGA graphics needed to be upgraded. Nevertheless Clarke concluded by giving the game excellent ratings of 9 out of 10 for both gameplay and graphics, saying the game was "a refreshing, challenging adventure game which should appeal strongly to those with a taste for medieval romance". [4]
In the July–August 1990 edition of Computer Gaming World , Scorpia stated that Conquests of Camelot's EGA graphics were inferior to those of previous Sierra games, and she did not recommend the game to more experienced adventurers because of the low difficulty level of the puzzles. [5]
In the August 1990 Dragon (Issue 160), Hartley, Patricia and Kirk Lesser called this "a beautifully crafted animated adventure. Sierra, long recognized as a leader in the animated adventure market, continues to lead the way with offerings such as this colorful journey to the time of King Arthur". They concluded by giving the game an excellent rating of 4½ out of 5, saying, "Conquests of Camelot is yet another 'must buy' from the talented folk at Sierra". [6]
Lancelot du Lac, also written as Launcelot and other variants, is a character in some versions of Arthurian legend where he is typically depicted as King Arthur's close companion and one of the greatest Knights of the Round Table. In the French-inspired Arthurian chivalric romance tradition, Lancelot is an orphaned son of King Ban of the lost kingdom of Benoic, raised in a fairy realm by the Lady of the Lake. A hero of many battles, quests and tournaments, and famed as a nearly unrivalled swordsman and jouster, Lancelot becomes the lord of the castle Joyous Gard and personal champion of Arthur's wife, Queen Guinevere, despite suffering from frequent and sometimes prolonged fits of madness. But when his adulterous affair with Guinevere is discovered, it causes a civil war that, once exploited by Mordred, brings an end to Arthur's kingdom.
Galahad, sometimes referred to as Galeas or Galath, among other versions of his name, is a knight of King Arthur's Round Table and one of the three achievers of the Holy Grail in Arthurian legend. He is the illegitimate son of Sir Lancelot du Lac and Lady Elaine of Corbenic and is renowned for his gallantry and purity as the most perfect of all knights. Emerging quite late in the medieval Arthurian tradition, Sir Galahad first appears in the Lancelot–Grail cycle, and his story is taken up in later works, such as the Post-Vulgate Cycle, and Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur. In Arthurian literature, he replaced Percival as the hero in the quest for the Holy Grail.
The Knights of the Round Table are the legendary knights of the fellowship of King Arthur that first appeared in the Matter of Britain literature in the mid-12th century. The Knights are an order dedicated to ensuring the peace of Arthur's kingdom following an early warring period, entrusted in later years to undergo a mystical quest for the Holy Grail. The Round Table at which they meet is a symbol of the equality of its members, who range from sovereign royals to minor nobles.
Curse of the Azure Bonds is a role-playing video game developed and published by Strategic Simulations, Inc (SSI) in 1989. It is the second in a four-part series of Forgotten Realms Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Gold Box adventure computer games, continuing the events after the first part, Pool of Radiance.
Conquests of the Longbow: The Legend of Robin Hood is a graphic adventure game designed by Christy Marx and published by Sierra On-Line in 1991. It is the second and final part of the Conquests series, which begins with Conquests of Camelot: The Search for the Grail. It features VGA graphics and Sierra's standard icon-driven interface first seen in King's Quest V.
Gaheris is a Knight of the Round Table in the chivalric romance tradition of Arthurian legend. A nephew of King Arthur, Gaheris is the third son of Arthur's sister or half-sister Morgause and her husband Lot, King of Orkney and Lothian. He is the younger brother of Gawain and Agravain, the older brother of Gareth, and half-brother of Mordred. His figure may have been originally derived from that of a brother of Gawain in the early Welsh tradition, and then later split into a separate character of another brother, today best known as Gareth. German poetry also described him as Gawain's cousin instead of brother.
Agravain is a Knight of the Round Table in Arthurian legend, whose first known appearance is in the works of Chrétien de Troyes. He is the second eldest son of King Lot of Orkney with one of King Arthur's sisters known as Anna or Morgause, thus nephew of King Arthur, and brother to Sir Gawain, Gaheris, and Gareth, as well as half-brother to Mordred. Agravain secretly makes attempts on the life of his hated brother Gaheris starting in the Vulgate Cycle, participates in the slayings of Lamorak and Palamedes in the Post-Vulgate Cycle, and murders Dinadan in the Prose Tristan. In the French prose cycle tradition included in Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, together with Mordred, he then plays a leading role by exposing his aunt Guinevere's affair with Lancelot, which leads to his death at Lancelot's hand.
Shadows over Camelot is an Arthurian-themed board game designed by Serge Laget and Bruno Cathala, illustrated by Julien Delval and Cyrille Daujean. The game was unveiled by the publishers Days of Wonder at the 2005 American International Toy Fair and was more widely released in May and June 2005. The game was also published in French as Les Chevaliers de la Table Ronde and in German as Schatten über Camelot. In 2008, an expansion for Shadows over Camelot was released titled Merlin's Company.
Might and Magic II: Gates to Another World is a role-playing video game developed and published by New World Computing in 1988. It is the sequel to Might and Magic Book One: The Secret of the Inner Sanctum.
The Lancelot-Grail Cycle, also known as the Vulgate Cycle or the Pseudo-Map Cycle, is an early 13th-century French Arthurian literary cycle consisting of interconnected prose episodes of chivalric romance originally written in Old French. The work of unknown authorship, presenting itself as a chronicle of actual events, retells the legend of King Arthur by focusing on the love affair between Lancelot and Guinevere, the religious quest for the Holy Grail, and the life of Merlin. The highly influential cycle expands on Robert de Boron's "Little Grail Cycle" and the works of Chrétien de Troyes, previously unrelated to each other, by supplementing them with additional details and side stories, as well as lengthy continuations, while tying the entire narrative together into a coherent single tale. Its alternate titles include Philippe Walter's 21st-century edition Le Livre du Graal.
Dragon Wars is a fantasy role-playing video game developed by Rebecca Heineman and published by Interplay Productions in 1989 and distributed by Activision.
Plan 9 from Outer Space is a point and click adventure game adaptation of the film of the same name. It was developed at the Irish office of Gremlin Graphics for the Amiga and Atari ST, and was released in 1992. The game was published by Gremlin in Europe and by Konami in the United States. A DOS version was also developed, though only released in the US and Europe. Two editions of the game were made available at retail; the more common version was packaged with a VHS copy of the film, while a rarer version contained only the game.
Gateway to the Savage Frontier (1991) is a Gold BoxDungeons & Dragons computer game developed by Beyond Software and published by SSI for the Commodore 64, PC and Amiga personal computers.
Chronicles of the Sword is an adventure game developed by Synthetic Dimensions and released by Psygnosis in 1996 for MS-DOS and Sony PlayStation platforms. The game, originally titled as King Arthur: The Quest of The Fair Unknown, is based on Arthurian legends and uses a point-and-click interface. Chronicles of the Sword tells the story of the young knight Gawain on a quest to save Camelot from the scheming witch queen Morgana. It has received largely negative reviews.
Hard Nova is a role-playing video game developed by Malibu Interactive and published by Electronic Arts in 1990 for DOS, Amiga and Atari ST. It is a follow-up to Sentinel Worlds I: Future Magic.
Camelot 3000 is an American twelve-issue comic book limited series written by Mike W. Barr and penciled by Brian Bolland. It was published by DC Comics from 1982 to 1985 as one of its first direct market projects, and as its first maxi-series. It was also the first comic book series to be printed on Baxter paper instead of newsprint.
Crusaders of Khazan is a computer adaptation of the tabletop role-playing game Tunnels and Trolls, developed and published by New World Computing in 1990 for DOS, FM Towns, PC-88 and PC-98. The game is available from Flying Buffalo and in Fiery Dragon's Tunnels and Trolls 30th Anniversary Edition. The game was an international production, designed and directed in the US but programmed in Japan.
Lancelot is a text adventure by Level 9 released in 1988. It has static graphics on some platforms. The plot focuses on Lancelot's quest to find the Holy Grail.
King Arthur(Arthur Pendragon) is a legendary figure used commonly in comic books.