This online manual and all the material it contains is copyright © 2004, Ian Schlaepfer, all rights reserved. No part of this documentation may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author, Ian Schlaepfer.
Apprentice II: The Knight’s Move and its documentation are products of Herculean Effort Productions. The company website can be found at http://herculeaneffort.adventurdevelopers.com.
Herculean Effort Productions consists of Ian and Greg Schlaepfer.
Manufactured in the United States and printed on magic-free paper.
Herculean Effort Productions is copyright © 2003-2004, Ian Schlaepfer.
Adventure Game Studio is copyright © 1995-2004, Chris Jones.
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Apprentice II is freeware. If you paid any money for this, you got ripped off, sucker. It’s ok though, you can stop crying. Give us information on where you bought this game from and we’ll hunt them down like plastic eggs on Easter. And sometime during the ensuing bloodbath, we might get your money back.
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 reetings, fellow adventurer! If you’ve already played the first installment of Apprentice, you can probably skip ahead to Chapter 2, or just skim for the juicy bits. However, if the name “Ironcrow” does not strike fear into your heart, you may have missed the first game. Or you might want to get that heart checked. If you fall into the former category, don’t worry, there’s no need to rev your modem. Although Apprentice I is a nice introduction to the series, you don’t necessarily have to start with it. Whatever your background, I appreciate that you’re taking the time to read this, resisting Willowbean’s pixilated allure.
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History
Basically, at Herculean Effort Productions, we listen to our fans. My original plans for Apprentice to be a short, stand-alone game melted like heroin in a metal spoon during a sleepless night of caffeine abuse.
Reinforcing my overachiever status, I outlined the plot for an epic tour-de-force. After deciding to single-handedly complete every aspect of the game, I delved headfirst into the scripting world. I sunk into a sea of function tutorials and Adventure Game Studio documentation. Fortunately, Gregor happened to be standing within earshot with a life preserver. He fished me out and gave me some antiseptic for my paper cuts. At this point, Apprentice officially became a team project, and we became a superhero duo.
Despite the fact we implemented only a short section of the entire plot, certain references to the bigger story crept into the dialogue. And by “references”, I mean the whole intro cutscene. I hoped no one would notice, but you amateur adventure game players are a perceptive bunch. Fortunately, your wails
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did not fall on deaf ears. We postponed The Find and announced the Apprentice trilogy to remedy the situation.
So what can be learned from this? Two things – caffeine is evil, and the Herculean Effort Productions team is easily swayed by the playing public’s demands. Ultimately, we cater to you. Also, we plan to conquer the world. Embrace us.
On a side note, thank you for nominating/voting for Apprentice to receive AGS and TCN awards. (Or any other awards we didn’t know about.)
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Minimum requirements:
- 1 pair emergency pants (like the famous dams of Holland, you never know about leaks until it’s too late)
- Pentium or higher processor
- 32 MB RAM
- About 68 megabytes of hard disk space
- Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000, or XP, with DirectX 5 or above
- Any DirectX-compatible sound and video card
A note about the screen modes: we designed Apprentice to run in the 320x240 (letterboxed mode). If the scaling is a bit too chunky for you, you can also run it in 640x480 (letterboxed), but keep in mind that the characters will lose detail during animations.
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Because Apprentice II is a point-and-click adventure game, we avoid terms like these: level, enemies, cheat codes, ammo, gibs, etc. If you were hoping to encounter one or more of these elements during gameplay, Apprentice II might not be your cauldron of soup. Games in the adventure genre require ingenuity, discipline, patience, insomnia, and an internet connection to access walkthroughs in order to complete. If you do not possess everything on that last list, you may find Apprentice II challenging.
Controls and Interface:
While some elements about the interface parallel the first Apprentice game, there are many differences, so it won’t hurt to read
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this section if you aren’t new to the series. (Hah, now we pull out the font with little daggers for serifs.)
By default, your cursor looks like an ordinary magic wand (see fig. 2.1).
When you move it over a hotspot, a yellow halo will appear around the cursor. Also, the command line will feature the particular hotspot’s name. When you move the cursor over an exit, the wand glows red.
To access the inventory, bring your cursor down to the bottom center of the screen. Pib’s item book will materialize (see fig. 2.2). Unlike Apprentice I, the book now holds two items per page and boasts large, garish arrows.
By moving the cursor up to the top of the screen, you will see a menu appear. From this one, you can bring up the save and load dialogues, as well as exit
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the game. When you start playing, you’ll notice that the command line sports the verb, “walk to”. To execute an action, push the left mouse button. To cycle through actions, click the right mouse button when your cursor is over a hotspot or an inventory item. When the cursor moves off a hotspot or inventory item, the command line reverts to the “walk to” verb. Because Gregor is such a clever scripter, the game will remember the last verb you selected when you move the cursor back onto a hotspot or inventory item. To use an item by itself, cycle to the use command over your item book then left-click twice on an object.
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To skip a cutscene, you can press the escape key at any time during one. To skip a line of text (during a cutscene or just in normal gameplay) simply left-click or press any key.
If the game freezes or your boss enters the room, you can press CTRL+ALT+END to immediately exit.
Hints
Unfortunately, at the time of this game’s release, there is no official walkthrough available. We will compile one, but in the meantime, please post on our forums if you’re really stumped. While you may find the occasional hint in the “Hints & Tips” section of the AGS Forums, neither Gregor nor myself will post any hints there. Take unofficial advice at your own risk.
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Historical background
 ccording to an ancient legend, the illustrious land of Willowbean was founded when a royal cartographer mounted an expedition map upside-down. Due to the physical nearsightedness of a Grand Vizier and the entire mother’s side of a royal family, this small but lamentable misunderstanding led to a decade of confused crusades. Those who survived the brutal military campaigns reported rolling valleys, green mountains, and towering plains. They said the fishing wasn’t half bad, either. Although the parts of the reports that weren’t complete fiction exemplified exaggeration, peppered with self-empowering feats of the teller, the stories found a special place
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in the mind of the current monarchal milquetoast. The seed of imperialism became firmly planted. With the human race’s propensity towards diaspora, the direction-challenged conquerors began a colony along the shores of the newly discovered continent.
The name, “Willowbean” entered common use when the settlers relied on the land’s abundant supply of catkins for sustenance. The rest is recent history. From its division into several provinces (the original region retaining the Willowbean name) to the crazed invention of the centaur, the kingdom’s development can be described as explosive and sporadic.
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 f you would like to share an opinion, give us a word of encouragement, report a bug, make a suggestion, get the news on our latest projects, or read what other people have written about the game, please visit our official forums at:
http://herculeaneffort.adventuredevelopers.com/sbbs/index.php
If you need to get in touch with us via email, we can be reached at:
geoffkhan@mail2jazz.com
Hope to hear from you soon!
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Ian Schlaepfer – | Design |
| Dialogue |
| Background Art |
| Sprite Art/Animation |
| Documentation Art/Content |
| Beta Testing |
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| Greg Schlaepfer - | Coding |
| Music |
| Sound Effects |
| Additional Dialogue |
| Documentation HTML |
| Beta Testing |
Special Thanks to:
Chris Jones for the AGS Engine
Our dedicated fans (Deadworm222, Fubar, and Migs especially)
The AGS Community
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