Apprentice

Apprentice is a PC point-and-click adventure game by game by Herculean Effort Productions. It introduces us to a young wizard apprentice Mortimer "Pib" Pibsworth. The game begins with a dream of his, in which he is confronted by Lord Ironcrow, the ruler of the region. In the dream, Ironcrow tries to persuade Pib to become a soldier. After refusing, Pib wakes up, screaming. His teacher (called Master) comes to check that everything is alright, and informs him that today is a special day for Pib - it's time he prepared his very first spell. The rest of the game is spent finding proper ingredients.

The project was started as a side project while the makers worked on The Find. Therefore the game was criticised for its shortness and a lack of a real storyline - all it did was to introduce the player to the game world and some of its characters. Also, as can be seen from the description above, the dream sequence is completely irrelevant to the most of the game. Apprentice was nevertheless praised for its high production values.

The first version of Apprentice was released on the 10th of July 2003. First bug fix, which also added a bonus puzzle to the game, was released on the 28th. Two years later, on 29th of May 2005, HEP released a Deluxe version of the game, which improved animations and music and added voice overs to the game. Whether or not these additions make the game better is debatable.

Apprentice won four AGS Awards in 2003 for Best Room Art, Best Character Art, Best Animation and Best Music.

The Apprentice series is planned as a trilogy. The second part Apprentice II: The Knight's Move was released in 2004. The release date of the last part, Apprentice III: Checkmate! is not yet known.

See also

• Herculean Effort Productions

AGS Awards for Apprentice
Preceded by Norman Cooks in Search for the Don	Best Room Art/Backgrounds in the year 2003	Succeeded by Apprentice 2
Preceded by Norman Cooks in Search for the Don	Best Character Art in the year 2003	Succeeded by Apprentice 2
Preceded by Kings Quest 2 VGA	Best Animation in the year 2003	Succeeded by Apprentice 2
Preceded by Kings Quest 2 VGA	Best Music in the year 2003	Succeeded by Apprentice 2
Nominated for: Best Gameplay, Best Puzzles, Best Story, Best Player Character, Best Non-Player Character, Best Sound Effects, Best Programming in 2003