Robin Hood: Conquests of the Longbow

Conquests of the Longbow: The Legend of Robin Hood is a graphic adventure game designed by Christy Marx and published by Sierra On-Line in 1992. It is considered the second (and last) part of the Conquests series, which began with Conquests of Camelot. It features VGA graphics and uses Sierra's standard icon-driven interface first seen in King's Quest V.

The player assumes the role of the legendary Robin Hood in his efforts to restore King Richard I to the throne of England. To do so, he must collect enough money to pay the king's ransom while avoiding the efforts of the Sheriff of Nottingham to capture and hang him and all his men.

Conquests of the Longbow is notable for the amount of historical and cultural research and detail included in the story's setting and puzzles. The game manual lists twenty-eight volumes in Conquest's bibliography, including Robin Hood by J.C. Holt, The Outlaws of Medieval Legend by Maurice Keen, and The White Goddess by Robert Graves. The manual also includes essays by Marx outlining the history of the legend and the approximate dates at which different characters were incorporated into the Robin Hood legend, such as Friar Tuck and Marian in the 15th century. (Though the essay mentions Guy of Gisbourne, Gisbourne does not appear in the game.) Other essays cover the tree lore and early British history and video game piracy.

Most of the game takes place in a standard adventure game mode, in which the player causes an image of Robin Hood to walk between screens and interact with characters and objects by clicking on them. For navigation between screens, the game has several hot spots built into a map. There are also minigames involving archery, combat and Nine Men's Morris with adjustable difficulty. Gameplay is divided into days, each day ending with a recap of its events and discussion of the plot. Each day involves certain actions that must be completed before advancing, though it is possible to leave vital tasks undone that make parts of the game difficult or impossible later.

Like most games of this period, Conquests relies heavily on the user's ability to read instructions and character dialogue and contains almost no voice acting. Several of the puzzles are entirely language-based. Even though Sierra is an American company, the entire game is written and punctuated using British English conventions.

The game keeps score in three ways: the number of points for puzzles solved, the amount of money collected for King Richard's ransom, and the number of Robin's outlaws who are still alive. There is one opportunity to recruit new members and several chances to get them killed.

Depending on how well the player performs, there are four possible endings. Robin Hood can be hanged for his crimes, given a pardon but no other reward, pardoned and offered a job in the king's service (but denied Maid Marian's hand), or he can be granted a noble title and married to Maid Marian.