Eric the Unready – Medieval shenanigans never felt so… wordy

Eric the Unready is a comedic adventure game released in 1993 that parodies traditional fantasy tropes. The player takes the role of hapless knight Eric, who isn’t renowned for many gallant feats. Zero actually. But with some devious scheming by the main villain, Eric is the one chosen to rescue a captured princess, with the assumption that he will have the lowest chance of success.

As text adventures go, the game is a very literate affair, with lots of text filling up the screen. As an interesting hybrid design, the interface also includes images, so you can simultaneously see and read what’s happening. Graphically it’s quite minimal, the screens are static with no animation.

To interact with the game world and solve puzzles, the player must form sentences. Things such as “Pick up sword” or “Slay Dragon with Sword” or “Celebrate your achievement”; you name it, the game can at least try to understand it. This is also kind of fun because the game is very snarky in commenting some of your more questionable verb actions. The user interface is helpful as it shows all the possible verbs and conjunctions that can be used, while also showing the objects which can be interacted with in a certain area.

Storywise the game pokes a lot of fun and jokes at the medieval setting. If you’ve seen the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail, you know what to expect. There are many references to popular culture, ranging from Star Trek to fantasy literature, while also including straight-out homages to other computer games, such as the early text adventure Zork. Witty one-liners permeate the game’s writing, and it goes without saying that the fourth wall is broken many, many times. Granted, the humour can get rather juvenile at times as the game designers seem to think that things such as speech impediments are outrageously funny. Likewise some of the puzzle solutions can veer into problematic territory (is it okay to pose as a dwarf by kneeling?), but at least the puzzle design rewards a certain kind of out-of-the-box thinking.

The difficulty of the puzzles is set rather fittingly. There’s nothing too obtuse, but it’s not a straight walk in the park either as some modern adventures tend to be.  I’m not an adventure game veteran myself yet kept on progressing, with the game pushing just the right amount of exertion on the brain. Granted, you can get stuck by missing some small information tidbit, which can be frustrating. It helps that the story advances in small, confined areas, so you’re never overwhelmed with what to do or where to go.

While Eric the Unready may not be a universally recognized classic in the adventure game canon, it’s still a fun, rollicking fantasy ride, with well-designed puzzles and an amusing atmosphere. Just watch out for the horde of endless pop culture references.

Title: Eric the Unready
Publisher, Developer: Legend Entertainment
Platforms: MS-DOS, Windows
Release Date: 1993
Genres: Adventure, Fantasy
Pegi 12 (defined by author)

Photos: Screenshots from Eric the Unready (Legend Entertainment 1993), taken by the author

 

You might also like

---

More from Game Reviews

---