The King's Ball

This game has you as a humble baker who has a chance of a lifetime: a sponsorship from a King. If only you can get into the ball!

The game has a few major puzzles, the first being getting past the guard, and the second involving hygiene.

The puzzles were a little tricky; the first one was hard to guess what method to use until it was revealed all at once by an item, and the second required careful examination of numerous objects.

Overall, it's a fine game, but it had a little more unimplemented scenery than I expected, like the bread in the shop or the fence in one of the back rooms.

Overall, a pleasant experience.

(This review is for the competition version. I expect any small hairs will be removed from the buttery patisserie in an updated version.)

A cake so sumptuous the meagre word “cake” does not do it justice. A fruitcake so stuffed with raisins and nuts and confectioneries of all kinds, so soaked in the finest cognac, a Royal Fruitcake, if you will.

A cake fit for a King.

And that is precisely why you would have the King himself partake of this masterpiece, and humbly implore him to fund your expedition into the secrets of even more delicious Patisserie. If only that stubborn guard would let you through.

A game which starts with a seemingly simple premise, present a cake to the King, and builds on it, complicates and layers it until it becomes a hilarious obstacle-filled endeavour.

A small map with enough twists and bends to make it interesting, and a few locked off locations that take more than a bit of ingenuity and perseverance to get into.

The puzzles are heavily clued. A bit too much for my taste. At least, that’s what I thought at first. I realised though, that trimming back the generous clues and hints would also dampen the slap-stick farcical mood.

There are a bunch of bugs to be found in the SeedComp version. Indeed, part of my enjoyment came from chasing them down and thinking of new ways to exploit them to fool the game and create little funny scenes of my own making. The game is strong enough under the hood so that the bugs become more something you might find in the “Amusing”-section after finishing an adventure.

“Have you tried…”

Mind you, the bugs are naught but a small raisin in this wonderful fruitcake of a game. The tone is continuously funny, not (only) by cracking jokes but by the aforementioned layering of complications. The main NPC is a funny bloke to mess with, and the reactions of the unnamed townsfolk are a real treat.

Great fun. I laughed at my screen several times. Somewhat straining on my suspension of disbelief at times. Great puzzle collection.

This is a puzzly parser game very much in Garry Francis' usual style. You must cheat your way into the King's Ball as that would be great for your bakery business. The game is fairly small, around 15 locations, and well implemented which we have come to expect from Garry Francis despite a few uncritical bugs. I played the z5-version where undo was available.

Parser: 8/10
PunyInform games usually have a good parser. This game is no exception.

Atmosphere: 8/10
Terse but sufficient which is very fine for a game like this.

Cruelty rating: Merciful
I don't think you can bring yourself in an unwinnable situation in this game.

Puzzles: 7/10
Most are easy, except one detail which was tricky but still fair. However, you must examine EVERYTHING like many old school adventures, not just the most obvious objects in a location. Many modern players may not be used to this. Typing HINT will also tell you this.

Overall: 7/10
A fun game with some okay puzzles.