Peasant's Quest Preview

Toon Category: Shorts

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Good graphics

This article is about the video game preview. For the live-action film trailer, see Peasant's Quest Movie Trailer.

This advertises the newest Trogdor game, released in August 2004 as it originally claimed. You are Rather Dashing, a peasant wearing short pants, on a mission to slay the evil Trogdor for burninating his cottage.

Cast (in order of appearance): Poor Gary, Baby Lady, Trogdor, Rather Dashing, Pterodactyl, Videlectrix Mascot, Old Man, Videlectrix Guys, Kerrek

Places: Peasantry, Videlectrix office

Date: Monday, July 19, 2004

Running Time: 1:10

Page Title: Coming Soon from Vitrelecix!

DVD: Everything Else, Volume 1

Transcript

{The camera drifts past game scenes, which include Poor Gary standing in a field, and the Baby Lady rocking her baby in a chair.}

VOICEOVER: A real long time ago, in the peasant kingdom of Peasantry, some people lived—

{The screen goes black, and lightning flashes.}

VOICEOVER: —IN FEAR!

{Lightning flashes twice more, and Trogdor is seen roaring each of these times.}

VOICEOVER: You {the word "YOU" appears} are—

{Cut to Rather Dashing walking up to the well.}

VOICEOVER: —Rather Dashing, {zoom in on Rather Dashing} a peasant wearing short pants, who returns from vacation—

{Cut to Rather Dashing walking across a field.}

VOICEOVER: —to find his thatched-roof cottage {zoom out to reveal the burninated cottage} BURNINATED!

{Cut to Rather Dashing walking near the side of the cliff face.}

VOICEOVER: You swear revenge and embark on an—

{Cut to Rather Dashing climbing the cliff face, with boulders falling and a pterodactyl flying.}

VOICEOVER: —incredible journey to vanquish the Burninator—

{Cut to Rather Dashing raising the TrogSword.}

VOICEOVER: —once and for all. {Peasant's Quest logo appears} PEASANT'S QUEST!

{A variant of the Videlectrix logo with a silhouette of a leaning man holding a cigarette appears.}

COMPANY SPOKESMAN: From the company that made that game—

{Cut to a game of TROGDOR! being played.}

COMPANY SPOKESMAN: —TROGDOR!, and that game—

{Cut to a game of Rabbit Algebra being played.}

COMPANY SPOKESMAN: —Rabbit Algebra, comes a—

{Cut to Rather Dashing walking along the shores of the lake.}

COMPANY SPOKESMAN: —graphical text adventure of rather large proportions.

{Cut to a screenshot of two Videlectrix programmers at a computer, looking at Rather Dashing next to his burninated cottage and smiling.}

COMPANY SPOKESMAN: Videlectrix programmers have actually been hard at work—

{The screenshot switches to one of the programmers staring focusedly at the yellow tree next to the river.}

COMPANY SPOKESMAN: —bringing this epic adventure to life.

{Cut to a screenshot of a frowning programmer pointing his marker at a whiteboard that reads "Good Graphics!" while the other frowns and cringes dejectedly. The camera pans past a game scene of the yellow tree.}

COMPANY SPOKESMAN: Make your way through the lush 16 color—

{Cut to the waterfall.}

COMPANY SPOKESMAN: —landscapes of Peasantry using our—

{Cut to Rather Dashing approaching the berry bush. The camera zooms in.}

COMPANY SPOKESMAN: —state of the art text commands {"get berries" is typed} and interface.

{Cut to a close-up of Rather Dashing standing on the shore of the lake. "throw baby" is typed. Cut to an old computer which brings up the Peasant's Quest logo.}

COMPANY SPOKESMAN: Featuring 2-bit mono PC internal speaker sound!

{The computer screen switches to a scene of the Baby Lady rocking in her cottage. The computer plays the Peasant's Quest theme in computerized beeps. Cut to a game scene of Rather Dashing walking up to the mud puddle and slipping in it.}

VOICEOVER: Can one Peasant wearing short pants save the countryside—

{Cut to Rather Dashing walking up to the Kerrek.}

VOICEOVER: from certain Burnination?

{Kerrek pounds Rather Dashing on the head, and the words "YOU DECIDE!" are imposed on the screen.}

VOICEOVER: YOU DECIDE!

{Cut to the Peasant's Quest start-up screen, which features the logo and an image of robed peasant with his hood on fire.}

COMPANY SPOKESMAN: Coming soon to a 286 CGA enabled PC* near you! {As these words are said, they appear on the screen. "*MAXIMUM REQUIREMENTS" is added to the bottom.}

{Cut to a flash of Trogdor breathing fire followed by the message "TROGDOR IS WAITING" while a 2-bit sound clip of the TROGDOR! theme song plays in the background. "AUGUST 2004" appears on the screen as a sound clip of a floppy disk being read by the computer is playing.}

Easter Eggs

"YOU BETTER MAKE GOOD GRAPHICS!"

• Click on a hidden Rather Dashing at the top right corner at the end of the preview to listen as game designers "discuss" what it means to have good graphics.

{Cut to the picture of the two brains of Videlectrix at a whiteboard flashed in the main toon.}

FIRST PROGRAMMER: WHAT DID I SAY?!

SECOND PROGRAMMER: Good gr— To make good—

FIRST PROGRAMMER: WHAT DID I TELL YOU TO DO?!

SECOND PROGRAMMER: To make good graphics.

FIRST PROGRAMMER: GOOD GRAPHICS! {the sound of him pounding his fist into his palm is heard} I COME TO WORK AND I HAVE TO LOOK AT THIS MESS!

SECOND PROGRAMMER: I can make good graphics.

FIRST PROGRAMMER: I—YOU BETTER MAKE GOOD GRAPHICS! I'M SUPPOSED TO RELEASE A VIDEO COMPUTER GAME ON TV WITHOUT THIS GRAPHIC!

SECOND PROGRAMMER: What?

FIRST PROGRAMMER: YOU HEARD ME!

Fun Facts

Trivia

• Clicking 'back' at the end of this short always leads to Main Page 13 (Atari 2600 graphics).
• The solution to the equation in Rabbit Algebra: X = ±9.
• Podstar Runner listed this as "Peasant's Quest Game".
• The notes played by the 2-bit speaker are: G G F F E E F C G G F F E E F G
• This is the first live-action appearance of the Apple IIe.

Remarks

• The preview displays some differences between its game scenes and the actual game:
  • In the game, there are no Kerrek tracks at the yellow tree.
  • The lantern at the burninated tree is not present in the preview.
  • When a screenshot of the game is shown with the command "get berries", the maximum point total (at the top of the screen) is 200. However, in the actual game, it is only 150.
  • When Rather Dashing holds up the Trog-Sword, he isn't wearing the Trog-Helmet or carrying the Trog-Shield, even though in the game, he would get those items before the sword.
• The title of the window actually says "Coming Soon from Vitrelecix!!". This is most likely an intentional typo.
• According to the DVD commentary, the computer is an Apple IIe. It has had its brand logo removed (normally, the IIe logo would appear above the keyboard toward the left side).
• The computer's monitor is an Apple Monitor II, a monochrome (single color) display. The color images were all superimposed on its screen, and its branding has also been removed.
• The chugging sound made by the computer during the demonstration of the 2-bit sound (and again at the end of the preview) is the noise made by many old 5.25" floppy drives. The sound comes from the read/write head bumping into the rear drive assembly to recalibrate itself. This particular sound is generated by an Apple Disk II drive.
• The computer appears to be missing a key to the left of its spacebar. This is, in fact, the location of the Apple IIe's power light.
• The "maximum requirements" for the game are listed as a "286 CGA enabled PC". However, a PC would require a minimum of an EGA video adapter to display the sixteen colors the commercial claims the game uses. (In reality, considerably more than sixteen colors appear at a time in nearly every screen, and the vertical resolution is more than EGA would allow for.)
• The clip from TROGDOR! shows a score of 1, which is impossible, as stomping a peasant nets two points in that game.

Goofs

• The clip from TROGDOR! is from Level 1, yet it says that it is Level 3 in the top-right corner.

Inside References

• The burning peasant on the final screen is from the pencil drawings during Trogdor's theme in dragon.
• The computer in this cartoon is the same computer that was on the Videlectrix homepage.
• The Videlectrix workers argue about good graphics.

Real-World References

• This game is a spoof of King's Quest, and more generally various series of visual text adventure games made by Sierra On-Line. Other popular games by the same company are Police Quest, Space Quest, and Quest for Glory.
  • The "peasant kingdom of Peasantry" is most likely a spoof of "the land of Daventry", the main setting for King's Quest.
• Rabbit Algebra is a likely reference to Math Rabbit by The Learning Company.

Fast Forward

• The man on the right in the "GOOD GRAPHICS" image wears the same blue shorts that would be shown on the Summer Short Shorts title screen.
• The Trogdor!! The Board Game video and Happy 20th Trogday! would be made in the same style as this commercial, including the same spokesman, among other similarities.

DVD Version

• The DVD version features hidden creators' commentary. To access it, switch the DVD player's audio language selection while watching.

Commentary Transcript

(Commentary by: Mike Chapman, Matt Chapman)

MIKE: Brother Matt, I have to be honest with you.

MATT: What, Mike?

MIKE: We played King's Quest growing up!

MATT: Which one?

MIKE: {quickly} One, two, three, {both begin laughing} four, five, six!

MATT: That's true, Mike. Umm... we played those games a lot.

MIKE: You may be surprised to hear that.

MATT: Yeah.

MIKE: So, when we first made this preview, though, some people weren't sure whether or not we were really going to make the game.

MATT: Yeah, they had no clue, what their—

MIKE: I guess the game came out, like, two weeks after we did the— this preview.

MATT: Yeah. Boy, were they surprised when they could really enter this crappy— crappy world and play this crappy game!

MIKE: {laughing} Boy, were they depressed when they got sick of it after five minutes!

MATT: They were like, "Wait, I really have to type stuff? Oh! That's not fun, really!" That's our brothers, Sean and Craick—

MIKE: Sean and Graly.

MATT: Graly.

MIKE: Yeah.

MATT: My mustache in those, Mike, uh, we couldn't find the brown mustache we usually use, and so Mike Photoshopped some of my hair onto my upper lip.

MIKE: The good ol' stamp tool.

MATT: Looks pretty creepy if you look at it close. Umm... so the funnest part was actually composing— I— composing all the crappy 8-bit sounds, or 2-bit sounds, {both chuckling} or whatever that is.

MIKE: One-quarter-bit sounds.

MATT: With this Windows program called Play.

MIKE: It's called "Play"?

MATT: Yeah. It's on— you use it from a DOS prompt. And that's w— everybody points out that's— that should have been EGA. Not CGA.

MIKE: OK. Say something really quick.

MATT: We do that every time! I'm not gonna do it!

MIKE: {interrupts with quick gibberish}

MATT: {as booting-up sound plays} That's the real sound of our Apple IIe booting up!

Fun Facts

• Mike humorously mentions the brothers played six King's Quest games. At the time this commentary was recorded, there had been eight total entries in the series.
• Photoshop is mentioned. The clone stamp tool allows simple duplication from one part of an image to another — in this case, from hair to upper lip.
• "PLAY" is a feature of the QBasic DOS software, not a standalone program.
• A CGA version of Peasant's Quest would be seen in the fake YouTube end screen for Disk 4 of 12 - World Games.

See Also

• The game Peasant's Quest

External Links

• watch "Peasant's Quest Preview"
• watch "Peasant's Quest Preview" on the old Flash site
• view the Flash file for "Peasant's Quest Preview"