Fables & Fiends: The Legend of Kyrandia - Book One

CD version

The CD version adds speech and support for Windows 3.x (albeit completely identical to the DOS version).

Development

The Legend of Kyrandia is based on the text adventure Kyrandia: Fantasy World of Legends, a BBS game. It was designed and programmed by Scott Brinker and Richard Skurnick in 1988, and based on multiplayer interactive game concepts by Tim Stryker.

According to Rick Gush, Mike Legg and Brett Sperry played the game online, bought the rights to the game and were sued later on by the person who sold the game to them, but after several years the court case was decided in favor of them.

The game introduced a single-icon cursor for all actions, and Brett Sperry and Louis Castle, thinking that this was their secret weapon, presented a demo of the game to Ken Williams. But Ken showed them King's Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder which was in development then. It had its own new icon-driven interface, so it was a big letdown moment. Ken liked the game though and asked them if they want to sell Westwood to Sierra, but at that moment they preferred their freedom and control.

Extras

The Legend of Kyrandia CD-ROM version came with a free poster based on a painting by Roger Loveless.

Awards

• Amiga Joker
  • Issue 02/1994 – #2 Best Adventure in 1993 (Readers' Vote)
• GameStar (Germany)
  • Issue 12/1999 - #88 in the "100 Most Important PC Games of the Nineties" ranking
• Power Play
  • Issue 02/1993 – #2 Best Adventure in 1992
• PC Games (Germany)
  • Issue 01/1993– #3 Best Adventure in 1992

Information also contributed by game nostalgia and Roger Wilco