Conquests of Camelot: The Search for the Grail

Conquests of Camelot: King arthur, quest for the Grail as was the full official title, is a Sierra adventure game released in 1989, and it is considered the first part of the Conquests series designed by Christy Marx (the only other was Conquests of the Longbow). The graphics as well as the package illustrations were made by her husband Peter Ledger.

The game concerns the age of decline of Camelot because of the love triangle between Arthur, Guinevere and Lancelot, and the revelation that the only cure would be the Grail. Gawain, Lancelot and Galahad never returned from the Quest, so the player controls King Arthur himself who was sent to fulfill it, and on his way rescue the 3 knights.

The adventure itself concerns Camelot only in brief. Then it leads the player in various places of England, including Glastonbury Tor, and then Gaza and Jerusalem where King Arthur will learn about the cult of the Six Goddesses. It was famed for the immense amount of historic and folkloric knowledge that is unwoven between the dialogues and the descriptions as the plot unfold. The message boxes (narrations) are supposedly given by the Wizard Merlin speaking and counseling the player.

The package offered a wonderful map of Europe in Arthurian times, illustrated by Peter Ledger, and a well-made and illustrated manual called 'Liber Ex Doctrina' ('free from doctrine') with some texts about the evolution of the Arthurian myths, as well as those of the Grail, and the Six Goddesses, knowledge that is obligatory in order to answer some of the riddles in the game.