History
As with the previous game Mystery House, Wizard and the Princess was distributed by Roberta and Ken Williams company On-Line Systems in plastic bags with the 5ΒΌ" floppy disk and instruction sheet. The instruction sheet had the title listed as The Wizard and the Princess.
The story was based on the many fairy tales Roberta used to read as a child. The game improved upon Mystery House by adding color graphics. It was the first adventure game to have full color graphics and sold over 60,000 copies. The Apple II could only display six different colors simultaneously, but clever use of dithering made it possible to give the illusion of more colors on the screen.
Wizard and the Princess was then ported to the IBM PC in 1982, Sierra's first game for the PC platform. For unknown reasons, this version was retitled Adventure in Serenia. Roberta Williams reputedly referred to the colors on the IBM PC as "atrocious" upon seeing the completed game running for the first time. Ports for the Atari 8-bits and Commodore 64 followed in 1982-83 under the original title.
The Atari 400/800 version was monochrome hi res mode and could be played in a shade of green, blue, or black depending on the chip in the computer, and the monitor settings. Later versions also included a 'orange' mode depending on the machine's chipset. Dithering was used to create shades on screen.
According to Sierra's Interaction magazine, this game can be considered a prequel to the King's Quest series. King's Quest V marked a return to the Kingdom of Serenia. The events are mentioned and expanded upon in The King's Quest Companion, 2nd Edition. It mentioned that the wanderer, a barbarian, had turned down the offer of marriage after saving the princess. He journeyed into the desert and died. All that remained of him is his skeleton and a single leather shoe (A reference to KQ5). Princess Priscilla later married an individual named Kenneth the Huge and became the queen of Serenia, after her father's (King George IV) death. It was further referenced as part of the King's Quest series through a trivia question in the King's Questions game that came with certain versions of the King's Quest Collection.
The extended backstory for Wizard and the Princess in the rereleases actually helps to explain the geographic differences between the game, and later games in the King's Quest series (KQ3 and KQ5). In KQ5 Serenia and Daventry are part of the same continent. In KQ3, the continent consists mostly of Daventry only with most of the northern half of the continent missing as seen in maps and charts in the game. According to the Wizard and the Princess, Harlin had divided the continent of Serenia in two, and transformed the geography to create obstacles for any adventurers trying to reach him and free the princess. Thus it explains why the desert surrounds the village in earlier game, but not during the time of KQ5, or why the Great Mountains are located across the sea on Harlin's continent, but just north of the town in KQ5. By the time of KQ5, Harlin's magic was no longer active, and geography was restored. The King's Quest Companion places the events of Wizard and the Princess as having occurred several years before KQ5.
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