King's Bounty

Description

King's Bounty is a turn-based fantasy video game designed by Jon Van Caneghem and published by New World Computing in 1990. The game follows the player's character, a hero of King Maximus, appointed with the job of retrieving the Sceptre of Order from the forces of chaos, led by Arech Dragonbreath. King's Bounty is notably considered the forerunner of the Heroes of Might and Magic series of games.

The player leads the hero and his army across the four continents, acquiring up to 25 pieces of a map revealing the hidden location to the Sceptre of Order before King Maximus dies. Various details of this task are left to player's discretion, allowing for flexible gameplay. For instance, not all the scattered map sections are required; if the player is able to correctly determine the location of the sceptre's burial spot before acquiring all 25 map pieces, the game is won. If the sceptre is not recovered before King Maximus dies (the time varies depending on difficulty setting), the game ends in defeat. The location of the sceptre, the artifacts and which castles the villains inhabit are all randomized each game, adding to its replayability.

The hero is given a weekly commission from the king to track down 17 villains across the 4 continents. With each defeat of the progressively stronger villain's army, the character claims (along with the reward money for the "King's Bounty" on that villain) another piece of the map revealing the sceptre's burial location. Along the way, numerous treasure chests are encountered scattered across the map. Some of these chests represent various events that increase the hero's inherent abilities, such as magical strength or weekly income; others may contain one of eight artifacts, which themselves provide a piece of the map, in addition to conferring their own unique powers.

As the player explores, he encounters various types of creatures native to the different continents, some of which are able to be recruited. Most of these creatures are significant upgrades from the normal human forces available to the player at the King's castle, and are required to defeat the tougher villain armies. However, as their strength increases, so does the amount of gold required to retain them, which must be paid weekly. Although the player's commission can be raised in a variety of ways, such as maintaining a garrison of forces at a captured castle, if their costs exceed their income for too long, and they run out of money, their army will abandon them. Furthermore, each of the various army units have either a positive, neutral, or negative predisposition towards other. An army composed of creatures that "dislike" each other lowers their "morale", making them much less effective in combat. Conversely, recruiting creatures which share a positive predisposition towards each other increases their morale. Assembling an "ideal" army is another open-ended aspect of the game.

King's Bounty features four selectable hero classes: Barbarian, Knight, Paladin, and Sorceress. Each class varies in magical ability, starting troop power, natural leadership ability, and Commissions (income per week). As the king's bounty is collected on more villains, the king may increase the rank of the hero. This rank determines in part what troops the hero may recruit, and more importantly, the strength of the hero's attributes.

Combat in King's Bounty occurs when sieging an occupied castle or engaging a wandering army on the main map. Combat turns are simple, with the player's army moving first, followed by the opponent's. Armies are stack-based, with any one stack taking up one square on the battlefield. Stacks can represent anything from one cavalry unit to thousands of peasants. The player can use a number of either Adventuring spells, only used in the overworld, or Combat spells. Adventuring spells allow movement to Towns, Castles, create bridges, increase leadership (Raise Control), stop time for some number of moves, finds the villain at a castle, or creates an army stack if the player has a space (Instant Army). During combat, the player can cast one spell per turn that cause damage via lightning, fireball, or turn undead, can resurrect dead troops, teleport a friendly or enemy unit to an open position, freeze an enemy unit so it cannot move, or increase an existing troop through cloning (Clone).