Fit For A King: Key Giveaway Contest (And…It’s Done!)
I haven’t had time to cover Kitfox Games’ upcoming Ultima-inspired historical RPG, Fit for a King, yet. In brief, and per its Steam page, it is a game about “real life, as Henry VIII would have lived it, if only he had the imagination.”
Reform the church to divorce and marry as you please. Marry foreign princesses, or, heck, your favourite bookshelf. Or both. Jail your steward. Execute everyone. Ordain your horse as a priest. Knight your bed. Who’s going to stop you? God? Nope. You’re also the Pope.
…
England, 1520. As the king or queen of this nation, you’ve been challenged to out-spend your rival, King Frank, at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. With the help of your staff and sycophants, you might be able to do it. Except you’ve misplaced your gold all over the castle… time to find all those chests and collect all those taxes!
Maybe you’ll bankrupt the country, but at least you’ll have a good time doing it.
Fit for a King draws heavy inspiration from the early Ultima games, as the screenshot above attests. And the developer has graciously given us a handful of keys to give out, both as a way to promote the game and as a nod of thanks to the Ultima fan community.
To that end, here’s how the contest will work: in the comments here, or via Twitter or Facebook, let us know which historical English monarch you think most closely resembles Lord Blackthorn, either physically or in terms of the oppressive nature of his (or her!) reign.
The three best/most hilarious entries will get a game key.
The First Age of Update: Thanks, everyone, for your comments! Winners have been chosen, and keys mailed out!
Who else but America’s arch-enemy King George III? He tried to tax our tea and George Washington and his Companions had to show him the error of his ways.
I don’t know anything about British monarchy, but I do know something about movie trilogies, and the 3rd one is almost always the worst. So, using advanced algorithms and Holmes-like deduction, I would have to go with… George the 3rd!
Easy. The story of Ultima V seems loosely inspired by Robin Hood, with Lord British as Richard the Lionheart and Blackthorne as Prince John.
Edward I, the “Longshanks” of course!
Blackthorns and Edward I’s ruthlessness is legendary. Edward I famously said “The only problem with Scotland is that it’s full of Scotts!” and I could totally see Blackthorn saying “the only problem with Britannia is that it’s full of Britains!”
Blackthorn was obviously based on the well known historical king Richard IV, who assumed the throne after Richard III was accidentally killed at the battle of Bosworth Field. Richard IV’s ruthlessness was, like Blackthorn’s, based on good intentions, but like Blackthorn he was ultimately undone by the very institutions he had set in place to support him: Blackthorn by the loss of the Shadowlords, and Richard by the scheming of his son.
The real shame is that the next monarch, Henry VII altered all of the history books so that no one would ever know of the short, yet eventful, reign of the fourth Richard. It’s fortunate that serious 20th century historians (of the Atkinsonian school) were able to reconstruct the records of that lost and glorious era, else we’d know nothing of those turbulent times!