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 6d5b4406ea Title: A Tale of Two KingdomsGenre: Adventure, IndieDeveloper:Crystal ShardPublisher:Crystal ShardRelease Date: 31 Oct, 2017 A Tale Of Two Kingdoms Free Download [License] 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.. 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.. 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.. This is a tribute and throwback to the classic adventure games of last century. Unlike Heroine's Quest it is not also an 'affectionate parody' of the genre or the mythology it's based on. I bought it partly because I liked those games and it is fun to play that way again. I also bought it in part because I really enjoyed the free Heroine's Quest but I don't want to join yet more online services just to donate money.While I enjoyed those old games, I wasn't very good at them and I played this using the walkthrough for the original edition of this game. It worked quite well but for some reason the developers took it down. At any rate, I didn't get the full effect of wandering around wondering what to do. The basis of these old-style adventure games was moving around and picking up or at least looking at anything more pixellated than the painted backgrounds. Then you would apply the various items to the puzzles you encountered and seeing what worked ... if you survived. This game doesn't have the hidden dangers the King's Quest series was infamous for. You can usually see danger coming. However, it can usually also see you, so you are barred from saving until you survive. You should save after anything important or that you just don't want to do again.I quite enjoy this game. The Two Kingdoms of the title are the mortal kingdom of Theylinn and the Faerie Realm that co-exists with it. Theylinn has requested aid from your group to help against an army of goblins. Then Theylinn's king is assassinated and you are blamed. While the goblins and humans prepare for war, you investigate the murder and seek out the Faeries to resolve things diplomatically. I enjoy the theme of seeking peace. I love elves so I quite enjoyed dealing with the faeries and seeing their realm (although they rather exasperate the character you play). The game looks and sounds beautiful. The voice acting is quite good. The first chapter especially wouldn't have such diplomatic tension or sarcastic humour if just left to the writing.The main thing I didn't like was the cutscene mechanic. If you look in the Achievements you will see that there are 20 to try and witness. Their purpose is partly to give you clues to the murder and partly to show that other characters are trying to affect the situation, even if only you advance the plot. However, getting the cutscenes is a combination of finding the right trigger and then, often, waiting for the cutscene to run by repeatedly entering and leaving a scene. If you didn't know they were a specific thing to look for you could easily miss about a third of them. For that matter, you can easily lose some potential later actions by simply solving puzzles 'too early', in chapter 4 rather than chapter 5, although you are more likely to lose story-only cutscenes.I would recommend this. It might be a little short and a little random by modern standards, but it is more than just nostalgic fun.. 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
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