Eric the Unready



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.

""Welcome to Baskin Bobbin's!""
 * Affectionate Parody: Of knighthood in general and every fantasy trope even remotely applicable to it.
 * All There in the Manual: The authors' preferred form of Copy Protection.
 * Anachronism Stew: Bud the Wizard watches satellite TV in his tower. Hey, he's a wizard!
 * And Now You Must Marry Me: Princess Lorealle's fate if you fail to rescue her in time.
 * Batman Cold Open: The game's actual gameplay starts off with a short story about a Curse Escape Clause, see below.
 * Black Knight: The Dreaded Knight of the Black Pauldron.
 * Bland-Name Product: Quite a few of these.

""She's a typical farmer's daughter with great-looking apples.""
 * 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..
 * Damsel in Distress: The princess Lorealle The Worthy, who Eric is supposed to be saving.
 * 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.
 * Doomy Dooms of Doom: One of the many McGuffins Eric has to procure are The Bolt Cutters Of Doom!
 * Double Entendre: Used repeatedly.

""In our day we didn't have lances. We had long sticks that we sharpened with our teeth!""
 * Edible Bludgeon: How Sir Eric (unwittingly) wins his fight against the dreaded Knight Of the Black Pauldron.
 * 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.

""...so the rest of us could rush in to kill all the livestock and rape the women. Or was it the other way around?""
 * Holy Grail: Parodied with the Holy Grill.
 * 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.
 * Knock-Knock Joke: There are several to be heard, all of them equally cringe-worthy.
 * 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!
 * Non Sequitur Thud: Used as a Running Gag, Eric ends up losing consciousness at the end of every day/chapter.
 * 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?
 * Only the Chosen May Wield: Parodied with the Banana In The Stone.
 * 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.
 * Rape, Pillage and Burn: One of the examples from Grumpy Old Man talk.

""As Lily may have sung, "Hit the woad, Jack, and don't you come back no mow!""
 * 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.
 * Look out, a four-headed monkey!
 * During the Swamp Trek sequence, you also visit Milligan's Island. Complete with a hefty supply of Funny Background Events based on the Gilligan Cut.
 * 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.
 * A subtle one: the guy running Baskin Bobbin's is called Bobbin. One of the things Eric can say to him is that he "saw his mother out on the duck pond."
 * The Classifieds section of the newspapers is devoted entirely to this:
 * "SWF, Capulet, seeks handsome and daring partner for life. Must have good balcony climbing skills. <...> No Montagues please."
 * "Bilbo. Come home. All is forgiven. P.S. I sold the ring. Frodo."
 * Other Classifieds Shout Outs include Peter Pan, The Pied Piper of Hamelin and the Norse Mythology.
 * Speech Impediment: Zig-Zagging Trope. The famous singer Lily sings normally, but slurs her Rs into Ws when speaking, which is responsible for the Wavenous Waven of Wangoon being... mispronounced. The game later hangs a lampshade on this with one of its many The Dev Team Thinks of Everything moments.


 * Spinning Paper: Readable newspaper issues covering the publicized (and grossly misrepresented) events of the previous chapter serve as chapter breaks.
 * Unicorn: Played straight: there are unicorns and they only tolerate the presence of female virgins. And therefore, it's used as a non-virgin detector.
 * Worst News Judgement Ever: Used in conjunction with Spinning Paper, see above.
 * Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe: Almost everyone speaks like this and this is used to provide the occasional No Celebrities Were Harmed name switch.