Wizard and the Princess

First Release (Apple II)

Atari 400/800 release

Apple II, Atari 400/800 (rereleases), C64 port

The Wizard and the Princess (aka Hi-Res Adventure #2: Wizard and the Princess) is Roberta Williams' precursor to the King's Quest series on the Apple II and Commodore 64. According to Interaction Magazine, Fall 1994, "Wizard & Princess can be considered the "prequel" to King's Quest I, since Roberta took many of her fantasy visions from this game and put them into the landmark series. King Graham even returns to Serenia in King's Quest V." The game is a non-animated graphic adventure, which uses a simple parser system.

Background

A hero is sent into the past by Harlin, becoming the wanderer of legend. Entering the village of Serenia, he discovers King George IV's daughter Princess Priscilla has been kidnapped from Serenia by an evil wizard named Harlin. Harlin holds her inside his castle far in the mountains. The King offered half of his kingdom to anyone brave enough to travel to the Wizard's castle, defeat him and return his daughter. A happy wanderer answers this challenge.

Prologue

You are a happy wanderer passing through a village in the land of Serenia when you notice a large crowd. Being a curious wanderer, you saunter over to see what is going on. From the middle of the chaos you hear a bell ringing. AS you get closer, you see the town cryer with a proclamation from the King of Serenia.

"HEAR YE" "HEAR YE", he cries. "His Magesty King George, has just suffered a terrible loss. His fair daughter, the Princess Priscilla, has been abducted by the great and dreadful wizard, Harlin, to his castle beyond the Great Mountains. The crowd is now hushed, waiting ot hear more. The town cryer then shouts, "His Magesty offers half his kingdom to anybody who can bring the princess back safely." That is all he has to say, but it leaves you shaking. Not only are you a happy wanderer, but you have an adventure as well and half a kingdom is a great reward. You decide to find her. But where are the great mountains? As you look around you see no mountains. Just a vast desert that seems never to end. You ask a villager where the great mountains are located, and he points to the north and tells you, "there are a great many dangers on the way to the great mountains, and the Wizard Harlin is very powerful and bad."

You thank the villager for his information and start off to the north. As you enter the desert, you check your belongings. You are carrying a flask of water, a small knife, a loaf of bread and a blanket. Not much for such a long journey, but it would have to do, for you have no money. And so, you are on your way.......

Notes

The Apple II version has a 21 color pallete made through the use of dithering. The atari version also uses a dithering to give illusion of more colors as well. On the original monitors the dots and lines in the dithering would kind of blend together creating the illusion of solid colors. This allowed the game to have more colors than Apple II's standard 6. The first screen for example village of Serenia has the illusion of six colors on screen at once (if initial items are dropped in the screen, the flask adds a seventh color in the screen). In some screens this adds upwards '9' 'colors' (for example the scene with the little gnome).

The C64 port did not have this limitation. The C64 version uses solid colors and no dithering, this makes most of the colors seem lighter and more pastel. Many of the colors are a different palette as well. Some rooms such as the Village of Serenia have up to 8 colors on screen at once. It is overall more colorful than the original. The C64 allowed for a higher resolution as well. The game takes advantage of this by having more detailed items to pick up for the inventory. For example gold coin found at the end of the rainbow has a face on it.

Later rereleases and the C64 version added an additional prologue in the updated manual, that leads into the original prologue on the back of the box (of the atari and apple versions). The Atari version was extended by a few pages.

The adventure takes place in the land of Serenia, a land that Roberta would later use again and expand on in KQV. Several concepts are similar in both games. Both games include a desert, a town, a green forest area, and an ocean to cross, an island in the ocean, etc. There are even a few puzzles in the game that are similar to future KQ puzzles. For example, having to patch a a hole at the bottom of a boat.

The events told in the game are mentioned and expanded upon in An Encyclopedia of Daventry. It expands on the background of the Wanderer and Priscilla. It discusses their fates after the game.

The game was later rereleased as Adventure in Serenia.

Chronologically speaking as related in the King's Quest Companion, Second Edition, the game must only take a few years to decades at the most before KQV, as Princess Priscilla is still alive at the time of KQV, having become the ruler of Serenia.

King's Question

The Wizard and the Princess's connection to King's Quest lore is referenced in "King's Questions" involving a question asking about the alternate name for the game.

"The Wizard and the Princess" was made for the Apple computer. What was it called when released for the IBM PC?

a. Hello, Daventry!

b. Adventure in Serenia

c. Hi-Res Adventure #2

d. The Princess and the Wizard