About This Game A Tale of Two Kingdoms is a graphical adventure in the style of the classic Sierra games. Set in the world of Celtic mythology and fairy tales, it features many sidequests and alternate endings. This release is a Deluxe Edition with a new interactive prologue, several graphic updates, and professional voice acting.Travel to the realm of Theylinn as the king calls on his old enemies for aid against a goblin invasion, get involved in intrigue and fairy trickery, and get stalked by an evil sorcerer who has its own agenda. Highly recommended for all fans of retro gaming.ATOTK was named Game of the Month by PC Zone UK, and has won four AGS Awards including Best Animation and Best Puzzles."If ATOTK came out during the genre's heyday, we'd probably be waxing nostalgic about it today in the same breath as King's Quest." - Games for Windows"A Tale of Two Kingdoms simply blew me away ... This game is a great achievement ... Final Grade: A" - Just Adventure 1075eedd30 Title: A Tale of Two KingdomsGenre: Adventure, IndieDeveloper:Crystal ShardPublisher:Crystal ShardRelease Date: 31 Oct, 2017 A Tale Of Two Kingdoms Activation Code And Serial Number Although I have only made it to Chapter 4 so far, this game reminds me of the old classical games such as the orginal Kings Quest games. Unlike Heroine's Quest, combat is not its focus rather it is more puzzle based and there are often more than one solution to the puzzel.Overall it is not a bad game, and I bought it because I liked Heroine's Quest and decided to support the company through this purchase. Loved this game. Is actually much better designed than most of the classic adventure games. Puzzles mostly make sense and are not too abstract. Clearly made with a love of classic Sierra games in mind.. This game belongs among the Sierra classics. Exceptional quality. Difficult puzzles! Multiple endings that increase gameplay replay value. The game is open enough so that if you play through without digging in, you can finish--but you might result in an ending that is not as satisfactory. Crystal Shard rewards the players that want to find everything and push the limits of what you initially think is possible. When I first played an earlier version of this game years ago, I was impressed with the depth of this game. You can dig and dig and find more and more stuff. This is much like Heroine's Quest--an INCREDIBLE game made by the same developer. Anyway-- to enjoy to its fullest potential. Play. Take your time. Don't try to rush through, but explore and try to find the best solutions for the puzzles.If you love King's Quest, or any of the classic adventure games, I highly recommend Tale of Two Kingdoms.. Outstanding! Crystal Shard - this was more than well worth the wait. I hope I get to wait, yet another time, for a new release from your studio in the future! This game really does kicka*s and superbly dethrones simular games in the genre. Sierra should take notice and Activision should be sending the game developers an advance on their next project.. A Tale of Two Kingdoms is an indie adventure game created by Crystal Shard, the same studio that created the more commonly known Heroin's Quest: The Herald of Ragnarok.The player takes the role of Maeldun Whiteblade, who is framed for the death of Theylinn's monarch, King Vortigern. With the help of his friends Branwyn and Taliesin the Bard, Maeldun has to stop a horde of invading goblins, clear his name, discover the true culprit, and gain the trust of the faeries of Thierna Na Oge. This game originally came out in July 2007. I remember playing it in 2009, and my anti-virus program thought the game was malware. The version on Steam is a remastered version - all of the characters are now fully-voiced (which makes it a lot easier to understand the pronunciations of some names), and some characters have received visual upgrades to their portraits. Additionally, the game now has a playable prologue that explains the story setting, rather than a big info dump serving as an opening narration.Perhaps the strongest point of the game is that there is no way to screw yourself out of winning (*cough* King's Quest 5 *cough*). While you CAN miss items and events that will lock you out from achieving the best ending, or a 100% rating, you can still complete the game. Furthermore, some puzzles can be completed through different methods or different items; the only downside to the latter is that, again, certain solutions will preclude you from getting the best outcome. The points system is divided into 2 categories: Wisdom and Honor. Solving puzzles will award you wisdom, while performing "noble" acts, such as helping out an NPC, will grant honor. Similar to how Heroine's Quest draws its motifs from Norse mythology, A Tale of Two Kingdoms draws inspiration from Irish\/Celtic mythology. The game world is vast; you can explore the majority of it at your own leisure, and run across many NPCs. A particular favorite of mine was the city of Carbonak; you see many game characters, guards and townsfolk strolling around its streets, entering buildings and going about their business. This is a stark contrast to so many games where cities either appear vacant, or are saturated with NPCs that just sit around all day and do nothing. It's little touches like this that give the game its charm.Puzzles can vary from simple to complex, but a notable feature is that Maeldun can ask NPCs to "do" something for him. When this option is selected, the NPC in question can describe surroundings, or can let Maeldun borrow an item, assuming they trust him enough to do so. While this game has many positives, it does have a few (if only minor) negatives. For starters, I didn't feel much empathy or emotion for Maeldun. He doesn't have much personality outside of asking a lot of questions, and his emotions are very rarely laid bare for anyone to see. Despite the fact that he's been falsely accused for regicide, it doesn't seem to faze him - he's pretty relaxed throughout the game's story. I didn't particularly "get" his supposed-lover, Branwyn, since she has about as much emotion as a cactus; she usually only talks about fighting the goblins and wanting to kick the crap out of Geraint, the captain of the late king's guard. Secondly, there are a few frustrating puzzles that are arbitrary if anything. For example (think of this hint as a freebie), an item that you need as a "good luck charm" is a horseshoe. To get it, you have to go to Carbonak, go into the stables, physically move Maeldun into the stall on the right, and then click on said empty stall to pick up the horseshoe. There is no way of actually seeing the item in question, and the only time you might actually hear about it is if you go to the smithy and overhear the stable-boy telling the blacksmith that his horse kicked one of his shoes. Of course, this conversation only happens in chapter 3, and it doesn't fully explain the horseshoe's significance. Another vexing puzzle regards a wounded pigeon. This pigeon can show up in one of four screens, but if it spawns near the beach leading to Carbonak's gates, you will have difficulty finding it, since its gray feathers blend in with the rocks on the road.Despite the above issues, A Tale of Two Kingdoms is one of the best adventure games I've played. Crystal Shard clearly knows what players want in an adventure game and what they don't. When they created the original game, they made it through their own toil and were not being paid a single cent. Players can easily see the amount of passion and soul the studio put into creating the game. I'm glad to see that indie developers can still stick out in a world that is saturated with AAA garbage, and I recommend this game to anyone who enjoys the adventure genre.. Simply the best point and click adventure game ever made in every way in my humble opinion. No dead ends, multiple endings, optional sidequests and scenes, vibrant characters, engrossing story with a steady pace, it's just really really damn good.edit: well, Heroine's Quest is better, but this one is definitely good stuff I love it. It's a nice game, but suffers from two issues:* There are some critical items and actions can be missed, then you'll reach dead-ends. After some discussion, this doesn't seem to be a major issue, but just something to keep in mind. Happened to me several times, and was frustrating* A lot of things are just too easily miss-able, which is just a shame. It doesn't relate to the game being either 'hard' or 'easy'. Some items are just easy to miss, and missing them prevents you from getting the good endings, which feels just arbitrary.If you do choose to buy this game, keep in mind you might hit a dead-end or two, so save often.The combination of easy-to-miss items, and their effect on the ending, was disappointing for me. Pros:* Decent voice acting* Graphics were somewhat improved* Decent story. If you're having troubles running this game in full screen mode, you can try the Fullscreen F11 http:\/\/www.kapitanpazur.piasta.pl\/dl\/fullscreen_f11.zip program. Just run it and press F11 in game to play in full screen. I'm not into AGS (Adventure Game Studio) engine development, but not being able to play the game in full screen mode in 2017, and the fact that controllers are not supported, plus the not very intuitive menus, shows how bad AGS ages.While Heroine's Quest has more charming graphics and memorable music, so far this one has more involving story and lacks battles (which I like).Judging by the lack of reviews though, I don't believe this has many sales and people these days don't have much time for this kind of games. This saddens me because authors have put a lot of effort into making this excellent game which deserves more. I love every type of quest games that looks like this and I really appreciate what the team behind this game made. I haven't played such quest from a really long time and this review is probably pointless to you because if you're reading this, you're most probably already playing this gem.. Great stuff. Insane amount of non-linearity and optional content that ties into the "main quest" without the dead-ends that old Sierra games were infamous for, no matter how much you screw up. Has a few moments of weird logic or pixel hunting, but nothing that would really spoil it on the whole.I'd also recommend pressganging a friend to run a parallel playthrough so that you may compare your approaches to puzzles and discuss your collective failures to progress.
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