The Order of the Thorne - The King's Challenge

I'm really surprised that this game was published in 2016 because it is so retro that the graphics options even has support for CRT monitors(!!!) This game is a pretty short point & click fantasy adventure game in which you play Finn the Bard, a competitor in the annual King's Challenge to win fame and reward. There is no violent gore and the story itself is rather lighthearted and wholesome, as Finn the Bard helps various NPCs and is generally an upbeat kinda guy to all he meets. I thought the voice acting was pretty decent for a small indie game (mic quality may vary with some actors but did not bother me overall). There is an inventory system where you store items you find, occasionally combining them to create new items. There's a bit of an open world aspect to the game as you're able to travel around as you like -- provided you figure out a solution to a few obstacles on some paths -- and during gameplay you'll find a map to refer to. You will backtrack all over the place during play as there's no fast travel. I'm not aware of any kind of hints system within the game, but I never felt any of the puzzles were too obscure. There's a Lute system where Finn can play songs he learns to sometimes change his environment; if you play the Lute in "hard mode" you'll have a minigame of memory for each song. The game advertises a sequel at the end, though when that will be published is anyone's guess. I did not run across any game-breaking bugs in my playthrough. TIP: If you're like me and have a hard-wired habit of pressing 'M' in games to access the map, be aware that in this game pressing 'M' will turn off your mouse cursor! Press 'M' again to get it back.

Retro point-and-click adventure with modern quality of life improvements. Very much like King's Quest V-VI in terms of looks and gameplay. Characters with nice big portraits but a bit generic in terms of looks and writing. I did appreciate the fact there were different contestants in the King's Challenge besides you, popping in and out again at different places. Lots of music, mostly good but not particularly memorable. Generally fair puzzles but lots of backtracking (usual for older games of this type). Playing the lute was different than the usual, but I grew quickly tired of it and set it to automatic.

You join Finn the Bard on his quest to write 'the greatest ballad ever' as he undertakes "The King's Challenge". The Order of the Thorne - The King's Challenge is an adventure point & click game from the developers of Quest for Infamy, it's done in a retro-esque style that reminds you of the King's Quest games. The artstyle is a pretty pixel style with detailed backgrounds, artworks and little less detailed sprites. The gameplay includes going around the world, gathering things, using those things to do other things and get other things and playing songs on your lute. The game is pretty fun and definitely worth investing the four hours it took me to complete the game 100%. There were some annoyances, like not having an autosave and the fact that the game crashed on me multiple times, which resulted in lost progress and repeated steps. Though, the game was quite easy to re-do steps in, as long as you remembered the stuff you were supposed to do. The soundtrack was lovely and I very much enjoyed the narration and the fact that all of the characters were voiced, though some of the characters had very annoying voices that made me grind my teeth lol. The songs Finn was playing were also very nice and I wish there were full songs of those clips. In the end, definitely recommended to play this game! I am super glad that I got this game from my streamer friend, VitriolPlays, and she has told me multiple times how awesome the devs are as well.

A cute musical fantasy adventure game about a bard named Finn who undertakes the King's challenge in order to find inspiration to compose his greatest ballad. I never played any of the King's Quests games this game seems to be inspired from, but I found it absolutely charming. Every scenes and characters are beautifully drawn with colorful tones and harmonious aestethic. The story is well written and dialogues are quite humorous. The King's challenge is also the first episode of a planned anthology series titled 'Order of the Thorne'. So you should expect it to end with a open ending promising more adventures (keep watching the credits until the end), but the game gives a nice conclusion to the current story. The game involves a lot of backtracking as you help others while progressing toward your goal. The gameplay is mostly linear and straightforward as you will be told what your next step is as soon as you complete a given task. As you talk to everyone and read books, you will also learn more about the history of the Order and the land of Uir. Finn can also play different ballads through a simple memory mini-game. Each ballad has a certain magical effect on those who listen. My favorite one was the one inciting people to tell the truth. And it was actually quite fun trying to play those anywhere just to see what reaction they would trigger. The game has manual saves only. [b]Be warned that there is a bug if you try saving the game after accessing the main menu using the Esc key. Saving then does not work. In order to save the game, press the F5 or F7 key or click on the top right button (above the lute) to access the saving/loading menu.[/b] I don't know why this was never fixed. That's the only problem I encountered. I ran the game on windows 7. In all, that was a really fun game to play even if a bit too short. I am now looking forward to the next opus in the series: Fortress of Fire.

I am so disappointed! I wanted a nostalgia trip to the 90s ala Westwood/Lucas and such, and I really wanted to like that game, but after 7 hours (and I reckon that is more than enough) I am so bored... The game is not awful, just not good in general, and absolutely far from enough to keep me playing! In details: - The drawings are alright, actually average, not great, not bad either, but nothing that attracts your eye. Truthfully, sometimes it is even boring to look at, the forest is huge and repetitive, and compared to a masterpiece like Kyrandia 2, this game is just above mediocre. - The voice over is sometimes alright, sometimes poor - not too cringy, but barely... - The story is okay, and though I will probably never know the end it had some kind of plot, but bare minimum... Really nothing fascinating. - Gameplay is traditional for an oldschool point and click: inventory with odd items to mix, dialogues, moving from screen to screen... - Terrible interface, the menu seems to have been made 30 years ago... really? Couldn't they have made it modern style? - A few bugs, like one bug where all "non important" NPCs have some dialogues without voiceover (just text) and their dialogues are skipped fast forward and you don't have time to read... terrible. - But mostly: the texts and dialogues... is what probably kills the game for me. How dull and boring these are. I am baffled, it is so mundane and uninteresting, like some kind of educational or religious material without any pertinent content... and I was always expecting some kind of switching moment, like, suddenly a flip of tone with more depth, but nothing. You get dialogues in the style of "Hello Lovely Fairy, how are you?" "Good and you Mr Bard?" "I'm fine, what are you doing?" "I'm on an adventure!" "Oh this sounds great! well good luck!" "Thank you Lovely Fairy!" like... literally... A point and click in the style of Lucas or Westwood is NOTHING if there are not crunchy dialogues, witty texts and hilarious descriptions, in a Pratchett kind of style. Here, in this game, I even posted a screenshot on my profile where I am in the forest, and I click "Look" on a stone, and the text appears "It's a stone". Like... not even sarcasm. This was the limit for me, I can't take anymore and play it more, I am sorry but this is asking too much, I just have to conclude the game is simply bad and boring. - Little word about the music: awful. Like, I am not sure if it is a joke, but they don't make sense, the melodies for the Lute have a melodic structure that makes no sense, and the BGM is sometimes unbearable, so amateurish, some sort of silly compositional writing. I just don't get it here either. If you are a VERY casual player, or never played an point and click, maybe... but, no, not even maybe, if you never played an old point and click, just buy an old point and click! Just buy a Lucas or a Westwood, they are GOLD compared to this. And if like me you are a veteran of this genre and wanted to see what could be done nowadays, WALK AWAY. You will waste your time. Sorry for the devs, the game seems to have worked nonetheless so good on them. Just not for me. Conclusion: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2764433891

This is a very indie and short point-and-click game with a fairy tale story. You are playing a bard who tries to find the king's wife in a fairy kingdom. Pixel art graphics and childish story didn't appeal to me. I also found the game's map is vast and very confusing; you will spend some time wandering around aimlessly, and the lack of a map with shortcuts causes too much backtracking. Voice actors are also just mediocre or bad. $9.99 USD price for this game must be joke! overall I found this game childish, primitive and boring.

(Completed this game on itch.io, please ignore my playtime) Wonderful game, short and sweet. I loved it!

[h3]⭐ - Good (I liked this game.)[/h3] See all my ratings at [b][url=store.steampowered.com/curator/41285819/]my Curator Page[/url][/b]. (I also have a [b][url=store.steampowered.com/curator/41438686/]Hungarian Curator Page[/url][/b].) [h3]My rating system:[/h3] ⭐⭐⭐ - Outstanding. ⭐⭐ - Very Good. ⭐ - Good. 💤 - Nothing Special. ☠️ - Bad. ☠️☠️ - Very Bad. ☠️☠️☠️ - Horrendous.

Kind of on the short side and lacks some of the witty humour the genre is generally known for. And yet I enjoyed it. Lovely 80s fantasy soundtrack, pixel art, and general mood. There is one bug where the narrator just skips all the time together with his textbox, but I found save and load (Which is a seamless transition by the way) fixes it. It is truly a shame that the planned sequel will never see the light of day. For this seems to be just a prologue for that one.

Feels Like 1992, minus the "You Have Died" screen! 🧝‍♂️ As someone who spent my childhood hoarding saves in King’s Quest V and Loom, playing The Order of the Thorne: The King's Challenge on Steam felt like a warm, pixelated hug. Infamous Quests perfectly captured the iconic 320x200 VGA aesthetic and unironic, gentle fantasy tone of Sierra's golden era. The Nostalgia FactorTrue Sierra Atmosphere: The gorgeous hand-painted backdrops look like they were pulled right out of an old DOS box, even offering built-in CRT monitor scanline options! The Bard’s Lute: Instead of standard inventory combinations, solving puzzles by learning and strumming songs on your lute is a phenomenal mechanic that heavily respects LucasArts' Loom. Fairer Game Design: Unlike Roberta Williams' old games, you cannot permanently lock yourself out of winning, and you won’t die unexpectedly just for clicking on the wrong tree. Achievements & Bugs (The Veteran's Breakdown) An Easy 100%: If you are a trophy hunter, you will love this. The Steam Achievements are highly attainable in a single, thorough 4-hour playthrough. Kickstarter Bloat: Some achievements require you to read nearly 40 tedious backer tombstones at the Isle of the Honored or flip through random backer-written library books, which feels a bit like artificial padding. Engine Quirks: Watch your clicks! The game engine has a known scripting bug where opening your lute menu while closely zoomed into the swamp's spiderweb completely hard-locks the game. Audio Mix Faults: While the narrator is quite fun, some character dialogue sounds like it was recorded on a cheap $10 headset, clashing hard with the pristine, beautiful musical score. Final Verdict It is a short but incredibly sweet fairytale. If you want to bypass the stress of massive modern RPGs and relive the simple joy of point-and-click pixel hunting, it is worth every penny. Score: 7.5 / 10