Eric the Unready is an adventure game

Adventure game

An adventure game is a video game in which the player assumes the role of protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and puzzle-solving instead of physical challenge. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based media such as literature and film,...

 from Legend Entertainment

Legend Entertainment

Legend Entertainment was an American developer of computer games, best known for their complex, distinctive adventure titles throughout the 1990s....

. Eric the Unready is a parody

Parody

A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...

 of the fantasy

Fantasy

Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...

 genre in general, though it parodies numerous other topics as well, ranging from Star Trek

Star Trek

Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise...

to Zork

Zork

Zork was one of the first interactive fiction computer games and an early descendant of Colossal Cave Adventure. The first version of Zork was written in 1977–1979 on a DEC PDP-10 computer by Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling, and implemented in the MDL programming language...

. The game engine uses an interactive fiction

Interactive fiction

Interactive fiction, often abbreviated IF, describes software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives and as video games. In common usage, the term refers to text...

 interface, although unlike most IF games, a graphical display of the player's location and viewpoint is provided. The title is a play on Æthelred the Unready.

The game's cover was made by Boris Vallejo

Boris Vallejo

Boris Vallejo is a Peruvian-born American painter. He immigrated to the United States in 1964, and he currently resides in Allentown, Pennsylvania. He frequently works with Julie Bell, his wife, painter, and model....

, who later would also make the cover for Shannara, another title by Legend.

Story

According to a prophecy, the King Fudd the Bewildered is expected to die next week, and the unmarried princess at his side shall inherit the Kingdom. His legitimate daughter, Princess Lorealle the Worthy comes to the castle to be on his side but disappears mysteriously the next day.

Early in the game, the player learns of the scheme by Fudd's wife and Lorealle's stepmother, Morgana, who intends her daughter ('by a previous marriage'), Grizelda the Hefty to be on the dying King's side and therefore become the sole heir. Lorealle has been abducted and held in the castle of Morgana's sister, an evil witch, with the intend to marry an evil Beast, in order to be excluded from the prophecy.

In order to make certain that Lorealle will be not rescued in time by any knight, Morgana conspires so that the Union Hall picks the most incompetent and unworthy of them, Eric the Unready, the player character

Player character

A player character or playable character is a character in a video game or role playing game who is controlled or controllable by a player, and is typically a protagonist of the story told in the course of the game. A player character is a persona of the player who controls it. Player characters...

.

Bud the Wizard (a pun on Budweiser

Budweiser (Anheuser-Busch)

Budweiser is a 5.0% abv American-style lager introduced in 1876 by Adolphus Busch and one of the highest selling beers in the United States. It is made with up to 30% rice in addition to hops and barley malt. Budweiser is produced in various breweries located around the world...

) informs the player that in order to access the castle, he must find several magical items: the Pitchfork of Damocles

Damocles

Damocles is a figure featured in a single moral anecdote commonly referred to as "the Sword of Damocles," which was a late addition to classical Greek culture. The figure belongs properly to legend rather than Greek myth. The anecdote apparently figured in the lost history of Sicily by Timaeus of...

, in the leaves of the tallest tree in the Enchanted Forest; the Crescent Wrench of Armageddon

Armageddon

Armageddon is, according to the Bible, the site of a battle during the end times, variously interpreted as either a literal or symbolic location...

; within the walls of Blicester Castle; the Raw Steak of Eternity, guarded by the Stygian Dragon

Dragon

A dragon is a legendary creature, typically with serpentine or reptilian traits, that feature in the myths of many cultures. There are two distinct cultural traditions of dragons: the European dragon, derived from European folk traditions and ultimately related to Greek and Middle Eastern...

; the Crowbar of the Apocalypse

Apocalypse

An Apocalypse is a disclosure of something hidden from the majority of mankind in an era dominated by falsehood and misconception, i.e. the veil to be lifted. The Apocalypse of John is the Book of Revelation, the last book of the New Testament...

in the mists around the Mountain of the Gods; and the Bolt Cutters of Doom owned by an enchanter in the Swamp of Perdition.

Each mission is somehow timed: the evil Sir Pectoral, sent by Morgana, is after him; if the player takes too long to reach the object, the game will end. With each acquirement, Eric creates some disaster, usually an explosion, which hurls him to the next area the following day. The player can collect a newspaper from each area/day which describes Eric's latest mishaps and other fictional 'news' of the game world, usually puns on pop culture elements.

Eric's final destination is the Witch's castle, where he uses the magical objects to open its gate. He then attempts to prevent the Princess' wedding to the Beast.

Reception

The game was reviewed in 1993 in Dragon

Dragon (magazine)

Dragon is one of the two official magazines for source material for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game and associated products, the other being Dungeon. TSR, Inc. originally launched the monthly printed magazine in 1976 to succeed the company's earlier publication, The Strategic Review. The...

#193 by Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser in "The Role of Computers" column. The reviewers gave the game 4 out of 5 stars.