Hi-Res Adventure #2: The Wizard and the Princess

The Wizard and the Princess (also known as Adventure in Serenia on the IBM PC) is an interactive fiction game developed by On-Line Systems (later to become Sierra On-Line). It is the second game in the "Hi-Res Adventure" series, released after Mystery House for the Apple II. The game provides a split screen with color images of the current location occupying the top of the screen and text descriptions at the bottom (The Wizard and the Princess was the first adventure game to feature color graphics.). The player interacts with the game by entering simple commands to navigate, collect objects, solve puzzles, and interact with other characters to advance the story. The game allowed the current status to be saved to disk; as was common in adventure games at the time it was often possible for the player to die in the game so the ability to reload a previously saved game became important. The game can be considered a prequel to the later King’s Quest series, and like in King’s Quest the story and puzzles are often based around numerous fairy tales.

The game takes place in the land of Serenia. King George's daughter, Princess Priscilla, has been kidnapped by the evil wizard Harlin and is being held in his castle. The king offers half of his kingdom as a reward to anyone who can defeat the wizard and safely return the princess. The player, naturally, assumes the role of an adventurer who has accepted this challenge. Beginning in the village of Serenia, the player will need to travel through a desert, across the ocean, through mountains, and other obstacles before finally reaching the castle.