the Maiden

12: “In hac insula convenierunt reges…”: Situating the Medieval in the Backstory of The Knight & the Maiden

Andreas Kjeldsen

Hello all! I am the solodev of The Knight & the Maiden: A Modern Medieval Folk-Tale, an upcoming narrative adventure game exploring themes of subaltern agency and subversion in a patriarchal society, inspired by the late Middle Ages. Although set in a secondary world, my ambition is to invoke a sense of the late medieval period (15th/early 16th C), and the game's backstory is a very important tool for establishing that appropriate mental and cultural space.

Part of this is of course reflected in the story as it happens in the game, which focuses on the ongoing political and personal consequences of “the Battle of Lethelsberg Pass”, a major event that is inspired by the real-world battle of Agincourt and the Hundred Years' War.

However, the backstory in The Knight & the Maiden does not exist only to set up the events of the story, it also works “behind the scenes” in a more indirect way that adds colour and coherence to its mental environment, while not directly impacting the story itself.

Fig. 12.1: The Knight & the Maiden – Stark Raving Sane Games

Throughout the game, as the story progresses, the player will discover a large number of small “fragments” of information, often in the form of inscriptions, documents, passages from books, building remains, and various other found sources. Although some of these fragments are presented to the player in the course of various questlines, they are generally not otherwise connected to or relevant for the events of the game's plotline, which is intentional. Their purpose is to create a kind of ongoing “thick immersion” that continually hints at the presence of a larger game world, complete with its own “deep history”, existing just outside of the main character’s (and by extension the player's) immediate frame of reference.

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Combined with supporting dialogue, the effect is intended to emulate a kind of “Ubi sunt” sensibility similar to that found in both early and late medieval poetry – a sense of being surrounded by remains of a distant past, the original meaning of which is now lost.

Finally, no discussion of the medieval sense of the past would be complete without including everyone’s favourite topic: The prevalence of forgeries among medieval documents, which are also going to play an important part in the story's plotline. Several puzzles will require the player to evaluate information derived from (potentially) forged manuscripts – and yes, the main character also get to engage in a bit of creative forgery for her own subversive purposes as well.

Fig. 12.2: The Knight & the Maiden – Stark Raving Sane Games

In summary, the backstory works on three levels: 1) A recent past, which both drives the plot and is contextualised by it; 2) a fragmentary deep past, which builds the game’s medieval mental and cultural environment; and 3) the forged or manipulated past, which supports the themes of subversiveness. Using these methods, rather than being just “lore”, the game’s internal history becomes a crucial tool for establishing the late medieval character and atmosphere of its setting.

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