An Interactive Fiction game by Steve Meretzky, released by Legend Entertainment in 1993.As The Klutz knight Sir Eric the Unready, you must embark on a quest to end all quests — save the princess from an evil plot to take over the kingdom! And, of course, earn some respect for yourself, you unlucky buffoon, you.This game contains examples of the following tropes:
Affectionate Parody: Of knighthood in general and every fantasy trope even remotely applicable to it.
Butt Monkey: Eric The Unready himself and, by proxy, the player.
Copy Protection: You have to buy a new suit of armour once the game starts proper, and the copy protection codes are your armour element sizes, which is All There in the Manual.
Curse Escape Clause: A Genre Savvy farmer applies for a knight's help in invoking this for his daughter, whom the local witch has apparently turned into a pig. Sir Eric steps up to the challenge. Averted when it turns out the girl was gone shopping. The pig enjoyed the kiss, at least.
The Dev Team Thinks of Everything: Do you want to deflower a sacrifical virgin? You can try, but unfortunately, you have to be THIS TALL to do so, and you are not.
Distressed Damsel: The princess Lorealle The Worthy, who Eric is supposed to be saving.
Game Show: Eric will have to go through one during his adventures. As tradition holds, it's a mini-game!
Getting Crap Past the Radar: Quite a few scenes have detailed reactions for any obscene input from the player, ranging from attempts to consume fecal matter (formulated in any level of vulgarity the player chooses) to attempts at copulating with any female whom Eric encounters.
Grumpy Old Man: There are several old knights in the Knight Hall indulging in this.
"In our day we didn't have lances. We had long sticks that we sharpened with our teeth!"
Incredibly Lame Pun: You can hardly go for five minutes without tripping over one. Some character names fall into this as well, most prominently with Bud (the) Wizard.
Knight Errant: Eric would very much like to consider himself one.
Love Goddess: You can meet the Goddess of Beauty among the many other expies of the Greek gods and goddesses you encounter. Good luck actually getting her to make love to you!
Noodle Implements: Until you get around to using them, the McGuffins Eric is supposed to collect feel like a pointless assortment of random (if awesome) items. A pitchfork, a steak, a pair of bolt cutters, a crowbar and a crescent wrench? What?
Our Dragons Are Different: Follows the Western version of the dragon, obviously, with the simple addition of Attack Its Weak Point, which conveniently takes shape of a huge target visible on the dragon's body.
Physical God: The Greek mythology is present in the setting, except that, well, it's an obstructive bureaucracy.
Poor Man's Porn: There are some tittilating woodcuts of the famous singer Lily on sale at the fair.
"...so the rest of us could rush in to kill all the livestock and rape the women. Or was it the other way around?"
Red Herring: The Wavenous Waven of Wangoon is set up as a monster you might have to defeat in your adventures. It's never mentioned again after the first time.
Refuge in Audacity: The Game. Everybody and their monkey's uncle seem intent on having Eric go through the most miserable, demeaning and repulsive solution to every problem present, conveniently remembering that there was a cleaner, nicer, painless alternative only after the obstacle has been overcome.
Robe and Wizard Hat: Every wizard in the game has these. It's a fantasy parody, what did you expect?
Shout Out: As usual with Legend games, these are numerous.
Star Trek gets parodied with a mini-game: Swamp Trek has you leading a raft through swamps. Your crew includes Scottie the Scotsman, Speck the Vulcan, Bones the Skeleton and other caricatures of the original series' crew. Your mission? Free the Kirk expy from the Khan expy... except that Khan is also the split personality of Roarke, the proprietor of Fantasy Island, in a brilliant Actor Allusion for Ricardo Montalban.
You get mistaken for the famous missing bard Elvis Priestley during your adventures.
One of the chapters replicates the setting of Zork... in a Theme Park Version of its setting.
The local knights are called the Knights of the Rhomboid Table. One of the game's bards also sings a song about "a knight's chaste love for the wife of the king".
The entire library in the Agora sequence is full of literary Shout Out material, though the main offender is The Joy Of Hex.
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