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 & Atari 400/800 and ported over to 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

You are a hero is sent into the past by Harlin, becoming the wanderer of legend. Entering the village of Serenia, you discover 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. You are the happy wanderer who answers this challenge.

Behind the scenes

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, the gnome for example has 10 real colors. 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, and the locket has a 'heart' on it.

Despite having the option of more colors on screen and hires inventory items, some of the artwork became less detailed. Such as the random snakes, the king of the snake, and the snake in the hole. Look more like grey featureless worm-like masses.

Atari version uses monochrome graphics, with dithering to create texture and shading.

Later rereleases 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

See also

• Wizard and the Princess prologue (box)
• Wizard and the Princess (C64) artwork (screenshots of the digital artwork in the game)
• Wizard and the princess artwork (screenshots of the digital artwork in the game)

External Links

• Roberta Interview
• Review of Atari version