Conquests: Camelot and Longbow

[Discoalucard]

www.hardcoregaming101.net/conquests/conquests.htm

The latest Sierra article was suggested by Savagepencil. The draw to this series is that it tries to tell more historically accurate versions of these legends than most other media. They do a pretty good job, although Camelot (which focuses on Arthur's quest for the Grail) has some mind bogglingly frustrating segments. Longbow (which focuses on Robin Hood) is thankfully much better in almost every regard.

I'd only played Camelot growing up...I'd never even seen Longbow in the stores, much less seen any screens of it, so it was completely new to me. Pretty good stuff!

[Ace Whatever]

Nice one, Kurt. That Robin Hood game was crazy hard for me back in the day.

You can picture the developers scribbly that with rage

You can also control your character with a mouse, can look at any item by right clicking it.

Shouldn't there be some kind of conjunction here?

and the grail will actually kill you once you find, since

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You can also find ways to increase your tresury,

EDIT: There's a point I hope someone would educate me on. Basically it's common to see some adaptations of the King Arthur legend contain fantasy elements, but most adaptations of Robin Hood to my knowledge are fairly grounded in reality. So shouldn't the article mention the fantasy elements in Longbow? Like the magic ring you need to wear to save Marian from the fire or the talking tree guy.

[Discoalucard]

Feb 22, 2009 3:00:47 GMT -5 Ace Whatever said:

EDIT: There's a point I hope someone would educate me on. Basically it's common to see some adaptations of the King Arthur legend contain fantasy elements, but most adaptations of Robin Hood to my knowledge are fairly grounded in reality. So shouldn't the article mention the fantasy elements in Longbow? Like the magic ring you need to wear to save Marian from the fire or the talking tree guy.

That's a good point. I'm not entirely sure, but the Grail legend by virtue is tied with some semblance of religion and mysticism, so it makes sense that there's some fantasy elements. It's also a much older story. Robin Hood, on the other hand, is basically just about an outlaw in a forest - a more straightforward tale, usually. That's my guess, anyway.

[Deleted]

VERY nice, Kurt! I'm actually quite interested to play these two games, due to... well, there being only two games. Space Quest and Leisure Suit Larry, with their many and numerous installments, will certainly take me a while. Camelot and Longbow both seem like manageable and damn fun adventures, AND they're freeware as you've noted at the end of the article, so I'll get to them soon.

I would like to point out an awkward sentence on Longbow, though.

Most of the death sequences also have unique sequences where your band laments your death and basically talks about what an idiot you were to get killed.

Just using "death" and "sequences" twice in the same sentence sounds off to me somehow. To me, anyway.

I've a question: Was there ever a third Conquests game planned? You mentioned a possible sequel to Camelot; any more evidence on that?

[derboo]

Feb 22, 2009 11:30:57 GMT -5 Discoalucard said:

Feb 22, 2009 3:00:47 GMT -5 Ace Whatever said:

EDIT: There's a point I hope someone would educate me on. Basically it's common to see some adaptations of the King Arthur legend contain fantasy elements, but most adaptations of Robin Hood to my knowledge are fairly grounded in reality. So shouldn't the article mention the fantasy elements in Longbow? Like the magic ring you need to wear to save Marian from the fire or the talking tree guy.

That's a good point. I'm not entirely sure, but the Grail legend by virtue is tied with some semblance of religion and mysticism, so it makes sense that there's some fantasy elements. It's also a much older story. Robin Hood, on the other hand, is basically just about an outlaw in a forest - a more straightforward tale, usually. That's my guess, anyway.

Richard Carpenter's Robin Hood TV series has some slight fantasy undertones.

[aganar]

Nice article! I used to play the Robin Hood game back when I was very, very young, and evidently I got it confused with King's Quest V at some point.

Robin Hood also has the strangest random death sequence I've ever run across in a game. He has a bow, yet he's almost never able to use the damn thing. Curiously, however, I was once just moving my mouse around the screen while I had the bow equipped, and it let me target a tree. Thinking it might be relevant to the story, I then clicked and shot the tree. The tree, evidently angry at me, then uprooted itself, revealing itself to be a giant Ent ala Tolkien, walked over, and killed me.

Scared the shit out of me, considering I was six or so...

[Ace Whatever]

Wait, did it kill you or turn you into a tree? I don't remember your version of the story happening.

[aganar]

Once more, I was six, so it's possible my mind has embellished the event over time. Presumably my adolescent mind figured that if shooting the tree with a bow pissed it off enough to uproot itself, it wasn't coming towards me to have tea...

[Discoalucard]

Well, it turns you into a tree and you die, so you're both right.

[Sac (a.k.a Icaras)]

Longbow is definently superior to Camelot.

Back in the day the riddles in Camelot REALLY stumped me, though I somehow managed to get to Mecca. I don't think I got past there, before I stopped playing.

As for Longbow, I actually bought (and still own) the official hint book for the game. On my own, I got as far as trying to escape from the Black Monks HQ, but could never figure out the puzzle with the faces.

Also, as a side note, not far from Robin's camp, there's a screen that lets you practice the 1st person bow sequence whenever you want.

[Discoalucard]

Really? I tried it when I first started, using the Bow icon on the practice range, and Robin was all like "Why improve upon perfection?" so I never tried it again.

[DojoCasino]

As an english lit student, there's something I really have to point out:

It obviously doesn't go back far enough to use actual Olde English (which would have been neat!)

This would most definitely not have been neat, as it would have looked something like this:

Ic nam me to gemynde þa gewritu and þa word, þe se arcebiscop Lyfing me fram þam papan brohte of Rome, þæt ic scolde æghwær godes lof upp aræran and unriht alecgan and full frið wyrcean be ðære mihte, þe me god syllan wolde.

And you claim the game uses middle english, which looks something like this:

And Lowys, yf so be that I shewe the in my light Englissh as trewe conclusions touching this mater, and not oonly as trewe but as many and as subtile conclusiouns, as ben shewid in Latyn in eny commune tretys of the Astrelabie, konne me the more thank.

Trust me, I had to study chaucer last year and it is a very good thing that this game didn't actually use middle english I think what you mean is early modern english, which is what shakespeare used. But it seems more like the game just uses archaic language to give a medieval feel.

[Discoalucard]

Oh, I know what Olde English looks like - that was more of a tongue-in-cheek comment.

Fixed the bit about modern English though - that was one of those "first draft" things I neglected to clean up.

[aganar]

Old English is wasted on today's youth. They'd just think it German.

[Sac (a.k.a Icaras)]

Hmmmm.....if I remember correctly, there should be a guy in the practice range and talking to him starts the session.

I'll load up a copy tomorrow and check.

Edit: Ok, I just load up my copy of conquests and straight away walked two screen north to the practice range. Wil Scarlet talked to me and when I click the bow icon on the green ring, the game went into practice mode.
I'm also pretty sure you can practice as much as you like whenever you want (If you shoot too many arrows, Wil offers to get them for you and the mini game resets)
Also, if you click the eye icon on the green ring after shooting an error, you see a close up of the target with a wobbling arrow)