A Tale of Two Kingdoms

[Radiant]

A Tale of Two Kingdoms is a full-length graphical adventure with a mood of fairy tales, magic, and intrigue.

The ancient kingdom of Theylinn is beset by enemies. Within the castle walls, nobles vie for the old King's favor, and not everybody is happy with the sole heir to the throne, princess Rhiannon. Meanwhile, danger approaches, in the form of an invading army, a hostile giant, and a mercenary troop who are ancient enemies of the Theylann king...

[axelkothe]

I just checked out the website and have to say that game looks really nice. I'm actually a big fan of classic style graphics and those screenshots look absolutely great.

Here are some questions:

how long have you been working on the game?

when will it be released (I know that it says "when it's done" on the site, but stil...)

will it be freeware or do you consider charging a small fee for ist, like dave gilbert does (which i totally support - theres nothing wrong in charging a few bucks for all that work!)?

[Radiant]

The game has been in progress for about two years.

As you have guessed, I was about to answer "when it's done". But note that we're in the final stages of design.

The game is freeware, but if people are interested we will consider selling a CD version or maybe a Deluxe version. But basically we're making this as amateurs because we like to, and not as professionals who want to get paid for it.

[Disco]

Does that timespan include when it was an unofficial King's Quest game? Was the basic story completely rewritten, or were the names of characters and places changed?

There seems to have been an amazing amount of work done in that 2 years, for an indie game that is.

[Radiant]

Yes, it includes that. We've had some amazingly fast progress at times (and also, admittedly, some stalls lasting a month or sometimes more). One of our artists tends to respond within hours with a colorful sketch whenever one is even hinted at

The basic story was completely rewritten. One of the reasons is that the guy who wrote the King's Quest 2.5 story had to leave because of real-life issues, before he had a change to tell us what his story actually was. The other is that there's a wide range of mythology and faerie tales to draw inspiration from, so we didn't feel we had to restrict ourselves to the Robertaverse.

[Disco]

Speaking of mythical beasts and, are there any specific tales that are featured, for instance King's Quest made explicit references to Jack and the Beanstalk, Red Riding Hood, etc.. Or are you just borrowing generic creatures?

[Radiant]

We don't have explicit references to people from fairy tales because that wouldn't fit in the game world.

The two prime sources of inspiration are the Grimm brothers, and Celtic mythology. For instance, the Sidhe make an appearance, as does the Barghest. The two mythical factions (the goblins and the faeries) do not conform to "generic" norms for such fantasy creatures, but have a different background and some interesting twists to them. Otherwise, the game doesn't really have many mythical creatures, e.g. no unicorns, pegasi etc.

[axelkothe]

The other is that there's a wide range of mythology and faerie tales to draw inspiration from, so we didn't feel we had to restrict ourselves to the Robertaverse.

And I applaud you for that. Fangames are great and everything, but I definitely prefer original games

[Blackthorne]

Glad to see progress on this! I'm excited to play it soon.


Bt

[PolloDiablo2]

Sounds great, looking forward to hearing/seeing more about this game!