Peasant's Quest Preview

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Revision as of 05:54, 28 July 2006

Good graphics

This article is about the video game preview. For the live-action film trailer, see Peasant's Quest Movie Trailer.

This advertises the newest Trogdor game, released in August 2004 as it originally claimed. You are Rather Dashing, a peasant wearing short pants, on a mission to slay the evil Trogdor for burninating his cottage.

Cast (in order of appearance): Poor Gary, Baby Lady, Trogdor, Rather Dashing, Pterodactyl, Videlectrix Mascot, Kerrek, Graphic Designers

Places: Peasantry

Date: July 19, 2004

Running Time: 1:10

Page Title: Coming Soon from Vitrelecix!

Transcript

{The camera drifts past game scenes, which include Poor Gary standing in a field, and the Baby Lady rocking her baby in a chair.}

VOICEOVER: A real long time ago, in the peasant kingdom of Peasantry, some people lived—

{The screen goes black, and lightning flashes.}

VOICEOVER: IN FEAR!

{Lightning flashes twice more, and Trogdor is seen roaring each of these times.}

VOICEOVER: You {the word "YOU" appears} are—

{Cut to Rather Dashing walking up to the well.}

VOICEOVER: Rather Dashing, {zoom in on Rather Dashing} a peasant wearing short pants, who returns from vacation—

{Cut to Rather Dashing walking across a field.}

VOICEOVER: to find his thatched-roof cottage {zoom out to reveal the burninated cottage} BURNINATED!

{Cut to Rather Dashing walking near the side of the cliff face.}

VOICEOVER: You swear revenge and embark on an—

{Cut to Rather Dashing climbing the cliff face, with boulders falling and a pterodactyl flying.}

VOICEOVER: —incredible journey to vanquish the Burninator—

{Cut to Rather Dashing raising the TrogSword.}

VOICEOVER: once and for all. {Peasant's Quest logo appears} PEASANT'S QUEST!

{A variant of the Videlectrix logo with a silhouette of a leaning man holding a cigarette appears.}

COMPANY SPOKESMAN: From the company that made that game—

{Cut to a game of TROGDOR! being played.}

COMPANY SPOKESMAN: TROGDOR!, and that game—

{Cut to a game of Rabbit Algebra being played.}

COMPANY SPOKESMAN: Rabbit Algebra, comes a—

{Cut to Rather Dashing walking along the shores of the lake.}

COMPANY SPOKESMAN: —graphical text adventure of rather large proportions.

{Cut to a screenshot of two Videlectrix programmers at a computer, looking at Rather Dashing next to his burninated cottage and smiling.}

COMPANY SPOKESMAN: Videlectrix programmers have actually been hard at work—

{The screenshot switches to one of the programmers staring focusedly at the yellow tree next to the river.}

COMPANY SPOKESMAN: —bringing this epic adventure to life.

{Cut to a screenshot of a frowning programmer pointing his marker at a whiteboard that reads "Good Graphics!" while the other frowns and cringes dejectedly. The camera pans past a game scene of the yellow tree.}

COMPANY SPOKESMAN: Make your way through the lush 16 color—

{Cut to the waterfall.}

COMPANY SPOKESMAN: —landscapes of Peasantry using our—

{Cut to Rather Dashing approaching the berry bush. The camera zooms in.}

COMPANY SPOKESMAN: —state of the art text commands {"get berries" is typed} and interface.

{Cut to a close-up of Rather Dashing standing on the shore of the lake. "throw baby" is typed. Cut to an old computer which brings up the Peasant's Quest logo.}

COMPANY SPOKESMAN: Featuring 2-bit mono PC internal speaker sound!

{The computer screen switches to a scene of the Baby Lady rocking in her cottage. The computer plays the Peasant's Quest theme in computerised beeps. Cut to a game scene of Rather Dashing walking up to the mud puddle and slipping in it.}

VOICEOVER: Can one Peasant wearing short pants save the countryside—

{Cut to Rather Dashing walking up to the Kerrek.}

VOICEOVER: from certain Burnination?

{Kerrek pounds Rather Dashing on the head, and the words "YOU DECIDE!" are imposed on the screen.}

VOICEOVER: YOU DECIDE!

{Cut to the Peasant's Quest start-up screen, which features the logo and an image of robed peasant with his hood on fire.}

COMPANY SPOKESMAN: Coming soon to a 286 CGA enabled PC* near you! {As these words are said, they appear on the screen. "*MAXIMUM REQUIREMENTS" is added to the bottom.}

{Cut to a flash of Trogdor breathing fire followed by the message "TROGDOR IS WAITING" while a 2-bit sound clip of the TROGDOR! theme song plays in the background. "AUGUST 2004" appears on the screen as a sound clip of a floppy disk being read by the computer is playing.}

Easter Eggs

"YOU BETTER MAKE GOOD GRAPHICS!"

• Click on a hidden Rather Dashing at the top right corner at the end of the preview to listen as game designers "discuss" what it means to have good graphics.

{Cut to the picture of the two brains of Videlectrix at a whiteboard flashed in the main toon.}

FIRST PROGRAMMER: WHAT DID I SAY?

SECOND PROGRAMMER: Good graph—to make—

FIRST PROGRAMMER: WHAT DID I TELL YOU TO DO?

SECOND PROGRAMMER: To make good graphics.

FIRST PROGRAMMER: GOOD GRAPHICS! {The sound of the first programmer tapping his marker at the whiteboard is heard.} I COME TO WORK AND I HAVE TO LOOK AT THIS MESS!

SECOND PROGRAMMER: I can make good graphics.

FIRST PROGRAMMER: I—YOU BETTER MAKE GOOD GRAPHICS! I'M SUPPOSED TO RELEASE A VIDEO COMPUTER GAME ON TV WITHOUT THIS GRAPHIC!

SECOND PROGRAMMER: What?

FIRST PROGRAMMER: YOU HEARD ME!

Fun Facts

Trivia

• When you click 'back' at the end of this short, it takes you to Main Page 13 (Atari 2600 graphics) every time.
• The solution to the equation in Rabbit Algebra: X = ±9.
• Podstar Runner lists this as "Peasant's Quest Game".

Remarks

• The title of the window actually says "Coming Soon from Vitrelecix!!" This is most likely an intentional typo.
• On the computer shown when the song was playing, a key to the left of the spacebar is missing.

Goofs

• The monitor shown in the pictures with the Videlectrix programmers is in fact monochrome (one color). If the monitor was really color, the on/off switch would be near the bottom instead of the top right-hand corner.
• The clip from TROGDOR! is from Level 1, yet it says that it is Level 3 in the top-right corner.
• There are no Kerrek tracks at the yellow tree.
• The lantern at the burninated tree has gone missing.

Inside References

• The burning peasant on the final screen is from the pencil drawings done by Strong Sad in dragon.
• The computer in this cartoon is the same computer that is on the Videlectrix Homepage.

Real-World References

• This game is a spoof on the old visual text adventure series from Sierra On-Line (King's Quest, Police Quest, Space Quest, Quest for Glory, etc.) The "peasant kingdom of Peasantry" is probably a spoof of King's Quest which is set in the land of Daventry. This is not the first Sierra On-Line visual text game to be mentioned on the site. Homestar said "You should see Space Quest 3. It looks awesome!" to Strong Sad according to his blog.
• The "chug chug chug" sound at the end and during the demonstration of the 2-bit sound is produced by many old 5.25" floppy drives—the sound comes from the read/write head bumping into the rear drive assembly to realign itself. This one is an Apple Disk II drive.
• Near the end of the cartoon, it says the maximum requirements are "a 286 CGA enabled PC." This can't be true because the 16-color pallette shown must be EGA. CGA would only show four colors in that resolution.
• The computer is an Apple IIe, according to the DVD commentary.
• Rabbit Algebra might be a reference to an old game called Reader Rabbit.
  • It could also be referring to Donkey Kong Jr. Math
• The logo looks like the one of the Adventure Quest RPG.

Fast Forward

• When a screenshot of the game is shown with the command "get berries," the possible point total (at the top of the screen) is 200. However, in the actual game, it is only 150—evidently, something changed in the course of development.
• Surprisingly, the "throw baby" command shown actually works in the game. See Peasant's Quest.
• When Rather Dashing holds up the Trog-Sword, he isn't wearing the Trog-Helmet or carrying the Trog-Shield, even though in the game he would get those items before the sword.

DVD Version

• The DVD version features hidden creators' commentary. To access it, switch your DVD player's audio language selection while watching.

Commentary Transcript

(Commentary by: Mike Chapman, Matt Chapman)

MIKE: Brother Matt, I have to be honest with you.

MATT: What, Mike?

MIKE: We played King's Quest growing up!

MATT: Which one?

MIKE: One, two, three, four, five, six!

MATT: That's true, Mike. Umm, we played those games a lot.

MIKE: You may be surprised to hear that.

MATT: Yeah.

MIKE: So, when we first made this preview, though, some people weren't sure whether or not we were really going to make the game.

MATT: Yeah, they had no clue, what their—

MIKE: I guess the game came out, like, two weeks after we did the— this preview.

MATT: Yeah. Boy, were they surprised when they could really enter this crappy— crappy world and play this crappy game!

MIKE: Boy, were they depressed when they got sick of it after five minutes!

MATT: They were like, "Wait, I really have to type stuff? Oh! That's not fun, really!" That's our brothers, Sean and Grake—

MIKE: Sean and Graly. Graly.

MATT: Yeah. My moustache in those, Mike, we couldn't find the brown moustache we usually use, and so Mike Photoshopped some of my hair onto my upper lip.

MIKE: Good old stamp tool.

MATT: Looks pretty creepy if you look at it close. Umm, so the funnest part was actually composing— I— composing all the crappy 8-bit sounds, or 2-bit sounds, or whatever it is.

MIKE: {incomprehensible} quarter-bit sounds.

MATT: With this Windows program called Play.

MIKE: It's called "Play"?

MATT: Yeah. It's on— you use it from a DOS prompt. And that's w— everybody points out that's— that should have been EGA. Not CGA.

MIKE: OK. Say something really quick.

MATT: We do that every time! I'm not gonna do it!

MIKE: {incomprehensible}

MATT: That's the real sound of our Apple IIe booting up!

See Also

• The game Peasant's Quest

External Links

• watch "Peasant's Quest Preview"
• view the Flash file for "Peasant's Quest Preview"
• download "Peasant's Quest Preview" for the iPod (see Podstar Runner)