PC Gamer Annual - UK (2022)

C

onquests of Camelot

introduced me to the

merciless difficulty of

old Sierra point-and-

click adventures just a

few minutes in. As King Arthur, I

filled my purse with coin in

preparation for a long journey to

find the Holy Grail, picked up a

magical lodestone from Merlin to

guide me, and gave Guinevere a kiss

before heading out the gates of

Camelot – or trying to. The castle

gate fell onto my head as I rode

under it, crushing me to death.

“It is terribly unwise to start a sacred

mission without the blessings of the

gods,” Conquests of Camelot

admonished. Later I’d be gored by a

wild boar, skewered on the lance of

the Black Knight, and fall through

thin ice, freezing to death. As in most

of Sierra’s adventure games, surviving

to see the end of Conquests of

Camelot was a real challenge. Its

puzzles were beyond my ten-year-old

brain, but I didn’t care – getting to be

King Arthur made Conquests of

Camelot as mystical an object to me

as the Grail itself.

A BUSY LIFE IN CAMELOT

By the late ’80s Sierra had expanded

beyond King’s Quest and Space Quest

to other adventure series like Leisure

Suit Larry and Police Quest, but this

game felt like a step towards

maturity. Sierra hired Christy Marx,

head writer of the cartoon Jem and

the Holograms, who had no

experience designing games but a

long list of cartoons and comics

behind her. Undaunted by that

inexperience, Marx threw herself

into research and wrote a game that

even today feels unusually rich and

devoted to its source material.

As a kid this seemed like the

definitive Arthur story to me, an

LEF T: Is this the most

badass Merlin has

ever looked?

CROWN JEWEL

CONQUESTS OF CAMELOT proved Sierra adventure

games could grow beyond goofy parody. By Wes Fenlon

CONQUESTS OF CAMELOT

PC GAMING LEGENDS