Order of the Thorne - The King's Challenge (2016)

The Order of the Thorne - The King's Challenge (2016), developed and published by Infamous Quests 

After completing one of the few Quest for Glory inspired games, the developer of Quest for Infamy did something far simpler: a game taking its cues from a bit more traditional adventure, King's Quest. This took the developers back to their roots, really, as they started their journey as a group remaking old Sierra games King's Quest 3 and Space Quest 2.

Finn the bard is on his way to Fairie Realms to take part in the competition held by the king every 10-years. The prize for winning the competition gets one wish from the king as well as the title of Hero of the Fairie Kingdom. The task of the quest is to find the queen of the lands, who has gone hiding somewhere in the lands. And that's the story in its entirety. No saving the kingdom from some ancient evil or rescuing kidnapped relatives, just a competition to be won.

So, after the introduction is over, Finn gets cracking on his quest. From here, the game opens up as a rather traditional point and click fare, with a small little gimmick of its own. As a bard, Finn knows a couple of tunes, which he can use to solve a couple of puzzles. He also picks new tunes during the quest, which again are used to solve puzzles. So, something like what Loom had back in the day, so not a wholly unique method. There's even a possibility to play the tunes by using a note mini-game, which can be, thankfully, turned off.

Speaking of things that can be turned off, the overly bombastic narrator. Like so many games these days are,  Order of the Thorne is fully voice acted, down to the narrator. Considering this is a budget title, the quality of the voice acting sways greatly, from terrible to pretty good. Especially some of the more comedic voices are atrocious in the same manner as Sierra's first talkie game back in the 90s, King's Quest V, managed to be thanks to the actors being the actual crew that made the game in the first place. With Order of the Thorne, the problem probably is that the devs had to take anyone willing to work for peanuts instead.

Even if you do end up turning off the voice acting, the game still doesn't manage to be more than a passable attempt. The puzzles are okay, some feel somewhat unnecessarily convoluted for their own good and the writing never manages to get over "well, ain't that cute"-feel. Maybe the writer, Steven Alexander, wanted to go as far away as he could from his previous game, Quest for Infamy, but in doing so, Order of the Thorne feels like all the worst bits of King's Quest mashed into one game.

If you are looking for a retro-themed adventure game, there are far better attempts out there. Not that this steals years from your life, considering it can be beaten in 3 hours or so. I just don't think it is worth the effort.

As a final note, Order of the Throne was/is meant to be the first game in a series of games. With that in mind, the game does end with a kind of cliffhanger and the next game is even named in the end credits. But as for now, the sequel hasn't materialized. This is still, more or less, a complete product that stands on its own, if you don't mind promises made at the end that might not materialize.

So, even if you do like this game, don't go holding your breath.