The Order of the Thorne - The King's Challenge is the second game from developing/publishing company Infamous Quests; it is in fact their newest release, at the time of writing (August 2016). Their first game, titled Quest for Infamy, was released in 2014 and currently has a sequel in the works. While The Order of the Thorne - The King's Challenge has an entirely different story and characters, it still retains many of the attributes that make the games from Infamous Quests stand out in a crowd.
You are a bard named Finn, who has just recently journeyed into the land of Uir. This magical realm is home to many faeries, pixies, gnomes, elves, and trolls, among other fantasy creatures and races. Finn wishes to be as great of a bard as his late father, and he seeks to write out an amazing ballad. He visits King Quilhairn of the Faerie Kingdom, and chooses to take on The King's Challenge; a quest where he must find the King's wife, and bring her back safely. There are other contestants who have come from far and wide to also participate in the event.
Although finding the Queen is the primary goal of this title, it's also the least involved. You will solve many other side puzzles before you reach the end, a well as witness many events and get to know the opposing challengers more. During your time with The Order of the Thorne - The King's Challenge, you will find that you can neither fail a quest or die, it even states so at the beginning of the game. As such, the only true complexity that one will encounter is knowing where to go to trigger events, such as meeting the gnome or finding the seer, and figuring out how to solve them.
The game is a wonderful throwback to old-school point and click adventures, more so in the realm of Loom, The Bard's Tale, and King's Quest; albeit not as convoluted in gameplay or problem solving. There are only two buttons that you'll need to play the game, which are the left and right mouse buttons; left click will cause you to walk to, and interact with, any given place and object while right click will examine the object and instantly move you to the area you've clicked to walk to. There's also a small mechanic for the lute that Finn carries with him, and if you set "lute mode" to hard you can play along with the songs that he learns along the way; if you leave it on easy, the game will do the work for you.
Graphically, the game is retro-beautiful. It really does look like it was plucked right out of the early 1990's and re-released on Steam. The pixel art is verdant, plush, and lusciously detailed, everything from the character sprites to the amazing landscapes and portraits are a pleasure to look at time and time again. There are over 30 scenes, and easily more than 10 character portraits and sprites to enjoy. Even though there is no fighting, dying, points of no return, and essentially little challenge, The Order of the Thorne - The King's Challenge really excels when it comes to adventuring between scenes and interacting, both examining and touching, every object that is clickable. The reason for that being primarily that the game is filled with whimsical, sarcastic dialogue that is fully voice acted, whether it be the narrator or the different voices for each role.
Sadly, this title is a very short experience. I fully explored every area by clicking on every object twice, and I talked to every NPC while listening to their dialogue (instead of quick reading and skipping through it), and my playtime only amounted to roughly three hours. For the price of $10.99 CAD, even though the graphics and audio are both masterfully crafted in a retro brilliance, is far too much for a game of this short duration. However, I happened to grab this one on sale for $3.29 CAD, which I find to be an honorable price for the enjoyment that I had while playing the game.
The only real downfall that people may find with The Order of the Thorne - The King's Challenge, is that the game is actually episodic; something that is not announced on the store page at all. Even though you get a "full" game here, the ending is left wide open with a teaser scene from the next game, so there is obviously a next chapter planned; although it looks as if there will be a different protagonist. At this time, Infamous Quests are not working on the follow-up, but instead focusing their efforts on the next installment in the Quest for Infamy series. If you don't mind going on with the knowledge that there could potentially never be a follow-up to The King's Challenge, then I highly recommend this game to any fan of older point and click adventures.
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