Fantasy Quest

In the Fall of 1991, Sam Stoddard wrote an adventure game for consoles using BASIC programming. Seven years later, the game was released to the general public, now with graphics and playable with a mouse.

The game bills itself as a "twist on the old 'save the princess' plot" - you begin the game with "save the princess" as your sole, vague objective, but your actual goal turns out a little different.

In September of 2002, Fantasy Quest 2 came out. The sequel, taking place 20 years after the original, allegedly lets you save dozens of princesses, and is at least half parody.

The game's playable online alongside a companion parody newspaper.

The Fantasy Quest series provides examples of:

 * Artifact of Doom: Parodied with the Golden Cufflink of Fire.
 * Baleful Polymorph: Than dog you kept throwing a stick at? Turns out it's a guy under a curse, and he calls you an asshole for not helping him sooner.
 * Broken Bridge: Most puzzles take this form, including one that's a literal broken bridge. (In the sequel, a modern suspension bridge has replaced it.)
 * Butt Monkey: The poor Indian Runs-With-Scissors. It starts with a single injury that you heal. A later one needs a unicorn's help. It turns out that he suffers 34 injuries a year simply by sitting in the open and now faces false insurance fraud charges.
 * Cool Crown: Despite the crown's magic properties, the game just says, "All right. You got the 'Crown of Destiny' or something. Happy?"
 * Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Hes Ahkia.
 * Curse, Curse Escape Clause: In the first game, you meet a dog. It's not till the second, set 20 years later, that you learn he's a cursed man, and if you only fed him right off, you would have broken the curse.
 * Everything's Even Worse with Sharks: The shark's presence and attack is as random as can be.
 * Fluffy the Terrible: The angry dwarf's name is Mr. Snorri "Fruitloop" Throfssonsson
 * Fortune Teller: The Soothsayer, who demands gold for any assistance. She's back in the second game, this time demanding even more gold and gleefully lampshading her general uselessness.
 * Heroic Fantasy
 * Killer Rabbit: The gigantic bunny rabbit, who's even more powerful than the gigantic black cat. You later have to fight the carnivorous giraffe!
 * Kleptomaniac Hero: The other people in the land interpret your actions as a wide-scale theft spree.
 * A Load of Bull: When you enter the volcano, you come face to horns with a monster and cant leave till you've taken him down.
 * Magical Land: It's the "magical land of Fantasy"! No word on just how you got there or exactly where you go afterward.
 * Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Apparently, the sweet girl you let out of prison is an insane killer who will return to evil.
 * Noodle Incident: Millie the Silly's "Baconslicer Incident."
 * Riddling Sphinx: A Sphinx asks you a riddle. Unless you're playing the original, console game, you get to choose your answer from a list, so this is one of the game's easiest portions.
 * Sad Clown: The poor guy has no nose!
 * Save the Princess: The synopsis itself promises a subversion.
 * Schmuck Bait: Some of the suicidal options.
 * Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: "It has fallen upon you to find this evil overlord, absquatulate with the Golden Cufflink of Fire..."
 * Shop Keeper: The sweet old owner of the general store. He can't possibly be hiding anything, can he?
 * The Password Is Always Swordfish: Probably shouldn't leave those passwords on notes nailed to trees.
 * Too Dumb to Live: You, if you choose. "Bang your head on the rocks"? Yeah, sure.
 * Unicorn: It heals. And it loves carrots.
 * You Killed My Husband: Says the vampire's wife, twenty years after you kill him.
 * Your Princess Is in Another Castle: Quite literally.