How Prince Quisborne the Feckless Shook His Title by John Ziegler
This game is impressive in basically every possible way, starting with the instructional text. It tells you, for example, that “objects usually can be referenced by their adjectives: if the encyclopedia is described as big, you should be able to enter ‘take big’.” This is something I eventually picked up over my time playing parser games, but it’s so much handier to have it clearly spelled out. And this is only one of the many ways this game works to be beginner-friendly.
On to the game itself! Within my two-hour window, I played through the prologue section and a little beyond. While the setting is, on its surface, a fairly typical medievalesque fantasy world, it’s so richly detailed and well researched that it really felt alive and real. Setting-wise, this was accomplished with things like the inclusion of a motte and bailey and the evocative description of the manor hall. Part of my day job involves writing detailed descriptions of buildings, and I’m thus always on the lookout for architectural descriptions in games—so imagine my delight at passages like this:
The ceiling is some thirty feet overhead at the roof peak, blackened with age and smoke. The heavy beams are formed into a roof support system called “hammer-beam trusses.” With this design, no beams need run horizontally from wall to wall to tie things together. The timbers are carved in strategic places, with curving crossmembers and lathe-turned drop finials.
Drop finials! I love a drop finial! But back on topic, one of my other favorite aspects was the treatment of the stomping grounds of some absent NPCs. Rather than being simply a repository for puzzles, the gardener’s cottage and the rest of the bailey felt lived-in, with the placement of objects reflecting the lives and personalities of their owners. I mean, the visiting nephew stole the greenhouse key to play with and left it in his treehouse! That’s both adorable and entirely plausible within the world of the game (oh, and the acorn and beetle on the wagon seat were super charming too).
Gameplay-wise, the experience was very smooth. I never needed the walkthrough or hints (which, I’ll be honest, always makes me feel proud of myself, even if the game did call out the early puzzles as easy ones). I did have my disambiguation stumbles, but relatively few of them, and there were only one or two instances of the parser not understanding what I wanted (e.g., when I tried “pick rutabagas” instead of “pull”). But with TADS’s apparently built-in a typo correction feature and the “undo” function printing which action you’re undoing (very helpful if you’re using “undo” multiple times in a row), for the most part the parser and I got along great. At one point, when I went to leave an area still carrying some NPCs’ personal possessions, the game very smoothly noted that and had the prince put them all back! Both avoiding turning the noble PC into a thief and ensuring my inventory didn’t get cluttered with useless items.
I did have one gameplay quibble, which is that the directions frequently had me confused. This is partly on me, as I almost always get turned around in parser games (and, I’ll be honest, in real life too), but sometimes there would were just a lot of exit possibilities and I really had to spend time sorting out which one I wanted.
As for the prince himself: I loved the way the game described his nerves lessening and his happiness growing as the turns passed by. There was a nice natural progression, the game reflecting that the more time we spent together, the more comfortable PQ got with the PC. His idle actions were charming, and in a very clever touch, he plays with some of the things you’ve picked up! One thing I did feel was missing, though, was a proper back-and-forth conversation with him. At one point he asked if I had pets, quicky adding that of course I must have a horse, but when I tried to tell him about it using “t horse”, the parser understood that as me conversing with him about his horses. I’d like at least some chances to play out the developing relationship, rather than just being told about it.
Finally, a note on the cutscenes: whew, they are long. Before each one, you’re given an option to view a short version or the full version, but with my FOMO, I was never going to pick the short version. I did feel that they didn’t need to be as long as they were, though—but of course that comes down to personal preference. And I did enjoy them, as the writing is good and the goofiness of this place’s history and its people is amusing.
All in all, this is a very well done game, and of course I’ve only scratched the surface. Kudos to the author, and I look forward to playing on!
Transcript with a few notes for the author marked with *:
PQ_TOscript.txt (165.0 KB)
Update: 2nd transcript with my very clumsy blacksmithing attempts. The parser and I are not getting along so well here 
PQ_TOscript2.txt (40.5 KB)
), but because of my anxiety I’ve been hesitant to be fully out and haven’t been bold enough to fully claim non-gendered pronouns IRL. Because of this, I so admire Bez’s courage in the face of the misgendering, how he stood up for himself despite how unpleasant and scary the situation must have been. Hopefully someday I’ll have even a tenth of that courage!
