King's Bounty 2

King's Bounty 2 is a video game in the strategy genre originally released in 1993. It is currently playable on DOS.

King's Bounty 2 is an unofficial game inspired by New World Computing's King's Bounty that was created in 1992-1993 by Sergei Prokofiev, a programmer based in Kharkov (Ukraine). The game is neither a remake nor a sequel to the original King's Bounty, but expands on the ideas of its inspiration while adding new and unique elements. The custom EGA graphics that were made for King's Bounty 2 are often inspired by Russian/Slavic folk tales.

The game does not skimp on its rather clichéd plot. An evil wizard has stolen an important MacGuffin (which is not even named) from the King, and has hidden it in the Dark Castle on a lost continent. The player, in the role of the King's trusted knight, must find the castle, defeat the wizard, and return the artifact. However, before he can do so, he must find the continent where the Dark Castle is located. To do this, the player must find five pieces of an ancient map that have been scattered across other continents. The Earth Lord of each continent can help obtain a piece of the map, but will ask for a favor or two in return, and there are also other quests to complete on each continent.

King's Bounty 2 was to be divided into two parts, the first relating to the quest for the map pieces, and the second would take place on the lost continent. However, it seems that only the first part was completed and made available to the public. The game had been a free, non-commercial project from the beginning, so the division into parts was not done as a move towards the shareware model, but out of considerations of free time.

The game retains many familiar elements from King's Bounty. The player scours the land, buys supplies in cities, hires troops, finds treasure chests, and gets contracts to capture castles in order to earn money and reputation to maintain a large and loyal fighting force. In addition, the player can buy and sell different goods in cities for profit, and hire workers to help him clear different terrain obstacles (thus, lumberjacks can clear forests, carpenters build bridges over water, stonecutters lay passages through mountains). Although there are no player classes in the game, spells can be found in chests and scrolls, or purchased in some of the towns for use at any time. However, to use magic effectively the player must find a benevolent mage whose training increases the power of the player's spells.

The most common enemies in the game are the local feudal lords, who at first are neutral towards the player, but who will begin to pursue the player and eventually attack him when annoyed by the player's entry into their premises. Both the player's armies and those of enemies can be made up of a wide variety of creatures, including peasants, mercenaries, soldiers and animals, as well as magical creatures and undead. Each continent has a number of creature dwellings where units can be hired for the player's army. Siege weapons are purchased in the cities, just as in King's Bounty. Aside from direct combat, there are encounters with evil sorcerers that can cause problems for the player, and negative spells in some of the scrolls.

A unique feature of King's Bounty 2 is that it uses a random map generator to create a new world each time it is played. There are four difficulty levels, the first three being progressively more difficult 'training' modes, while the fourth is considered the actual game experience. Only the fourth difficulty level is supposed to unlock the lost continent and the final battle with the wizard.

It is possible that we have multiple downloads available when different versions exist.