Worldwide Biggies’ Princess Bride Game for the PC is divided into five episodes, which for the most part you can play in any order. The first is “As You Wish,” a “time management” mini-game. Yes, Princess Bride Game is so dull that the developers couldn’t even bother to come up with a description that made it sound remotely fun. Although, at least “time management” sounds like a barrel of monkeys compared to Episode 5: “Storming the Castle,” an “inventory collection and assembly” game. Oooh, sign me up!
Anyway, “As You Wish” reenacts the opening scene of the movie where Buttercup is bossing around her farmboy and making him do all sorts of pointless things just so she can test how much he cares. (Plus, he says “as you wish” in a sexy voice. And that HAIR.) For about 20 levels, it goes exactly like this:
Goal: Collect 2 Carrots. Complete 1 Wish.
Click on the well to get water.
Click on the carrots to water them.
Pick the carrots.
Pick more carrots than you need.
Click on Buttercup when she appears at the edge of the screen.
Do what she says (aka bring her a carrot).
Watch as hearts form around her head.
End the day early because you’ve accomplished your goals.
Gain 600 points for Wishes completed and 375 points for farmwork.
On Day 2, I chopped firewood to heat a fire. When Buttercup asked me to clean the window and I did so, she just about swooned. (Granted, I would probably swoon if my boyfriend decided to clean the windows, and this was in a time when only women were supposed to clean windows, but seriously, she generated a scary number of hearts around her head over it.)
What the hell does this have to do with anything we loved about The Princess Bride? Westley didn’t do nice things for Buttercup because he was trying to achieve effective time management and get a high score. He did it because he loved her even though she was bossy and indignant (which made her kind of hot). And there were no hearts around Buttercup’s head while he did all those tasks because that would have destroyed the friggin’ romantic tension.
It’s equally as painful to talk about the other episodes, so I’ll try to be brief. Episode 2: “Battle of the Wits,” or Inconceivable Trivia, has players answering multiple choice questions like, how many candles are on this candelabra? Four or eight? And, candles are used to … a) make a room darker or b) make a room brighter? And then, if that wasn’t challenging enough for you, the all-time whopper of a question, candelabras usually hold a number of what: candles or T-shirts?
It also has you solving anagrams and filling in blanks to complete a rhyme, that sort of thing, none of which conveys the hilarity of this scene in the movie. Although maybe the point was to show how idiotic Vizzini’s argument over the poison was because these questions are pretty idiotic, too.
Episode 4: “Miracle Max,” or hidden objects and potion cooking, is the best of the bunch. But that’s because it’s pretty hard to mess up hidden-object games. They’re as straightforward as you get. Although I don’t appreciate scouring a messy room for a “roach” and then realizing the disgusting thing is right on the corner of my screen, and sweet god, about ten sizes too big for my comfort level.
So I guess if Worldwide Biggies’ Princess Bride Game is your only competition, you can’t really do that much wrong. As a matter of fact, Gameblend’s The Princess Bride is a decent attempt, if you overlook how grindy it is. But it’s the grinding that’s the problem in the first place.
My favorite types of movie-based games are those like Alien: Isolation. They try to deliver a new, original story set in a world fans already love, doing their best not to get the details wrong. It’s the play-by-play, plot-by-plot, from Shrieking Eels to Cliffs of Insanity type games, which follow the same script for fear of messing it up, that bother me. Those often run into trouble by making what amazed you in the theaters stilted and boring on the small screen. Because for as much overlap games and movies have, they operate in different ways.
I don’t think that the idea of a Princess Bride game is a bad thing, and maybe people wouldn’t want some hack to write a new story from scratch. It’s a classic, after all. But it’s been 30 years. That’s enough time to try something new. I read that the author of the book, William Goldman, was contemplating a full sequel (in addition to the single released chapter) called “Buttercup’s Baby.” I’d love to see something like that in an adventure game, a genre often full of wit and personality much like The Princess Bride. I want to know the story that happens before, after, and in the gaps of the story we’ve already seen.
Stephanie Carmichael writes about video games, comics, and books when she’s not helping teachers and students have fun together with Classcraft, an educational RPG. Find her on her blog or on Twitter.
Published: Jan 22, 2015 04:33 pm