Journey of the Prairie King

Journey of the Prairie King is a SmashTV-style minigame that can be played on one of the arcade machines in The Stardrop Saloon. Beating the game will award the player with a Prairie King Arcade System, delivered by mail the next day. Abigail also possesses a console version of the game that can be played during her 2-Heart Event. Random elements of the game are not affected by Luck.

Please note that none of the power-ups or enemies are referenced by any name in-game, so they have been named by members of the community.

Gameplay Mechanics

Journey of the Prairie King is a top-down shooter, resembling "twin-stick" shooters such as "Smash TV". WASD moves the character and ↑←↓→ shoots. The player can move and shoot diagonally by combining two keys (e.g. W and A together move up and left diagonally). While using a controller, the left joystick moves, and the right joystick shoots. The D-Pad can also be used for movement and the button pad can also be used for shooting.

In the mobile version of the game, there are two transparent red circles. The one on the left moves the character and the one on the right aims.

The player begins with four lives (shown as "x3" in the upper left), and is instantly killed upon contact with an enemy or projectile. Losing every life (when the counter changes from "x0" to "x-1") results in a Game Over. In each level, a timer bar counts down at the top of the screen while waves of enemies appear from the edges of the screen and move towards the player. Enemies stop spawning when the timer bar has counted down completely, and the level is completed when all enemies are defeated, allowing progress to the next area.

Enemies will sometimes drop power-ups, coins and extra lives upon being killed. One power-up at a time can be stored in a slot in the top-left, and can be activated by pressing Space. If a power-up is picked up while another is already being held, the new power-up is consumed immediately. Power-ups last only for a short time.

Items Dropped by Enemies

Image	Name	Description
	1 Coin	Increases coin count by 1.
	5 Coin	Increases coin count by 5. Appears less often than the single Coin.
	Extra Life	Increases life count by 1.
	Coffee	Increases movement speed.
	Heavy Machine Gun	Significantly increases fire rate.
	Nuke	Instantly destroys all enemies on-screen. Enemies killed like this do not drop items.
	Shotgun	Causes three bullets to be fired at once in a cone at a slightly slower rate.
	Smoke Bomb	Teleports the player to a random spot on-screen and causes enemies to stand still with question-marks above their head. Enemies will continue to spawn, building up inside the spawn zones.
	Sheriff Badge	Increases fire rate and movement speed, and causes three bullets to be fired at once in a cone. Effectively a combination of the machine gun, shotgun and coffee (although fire-rate and movement speed bonuses are slightly lower than from coffee/machine gun). With max boots/gun upgrades, this item is only a minor buff.
	Tombstone	The player becomes a zombie for a brief amount of time, granting increased movement speed and the ability to kill on contact. Enemies flee from the player. (Note: This power-up does not grant protection from bullets fired by bosses.)
	Wheel	Causes the player to fire in 8 directions at once.

Upgrades

A Vendor appears after certain levels are completed and will present the player with three upgrades that can be purchased with coins dropped by enemies (see above). Only one item may be purchased per visit, and the items in each slot are always presented in the same order, requiring the first item in that slot to be purchased before the next one is shown in a later level, etc. (For example, both boots upgrades must be purchased before an extra life can appear in first slot.)

The Vendor appears at the end of every second level: 1-2, 1-4, 2-1, 2-3, 3-1 and 3-3.

Vendor Slot	Image	Name	Purchase Price	Description
1		Boots	data-sort-value="8">8	Upgrades movement speed.
			data-sort-value="20">20
		Extra Life	data-sort-value="10">10	Get an Extra Life. Can be purchased again at the next vendor.
2		Gun	data-sort-value="10">10	Increases shooting speed.
			data-sort-value="20">20
			data-sort-value="30">30
		Super-Gun	data-sort-value="99">99	Applies the effect of the Shotgun powerup permanently without the fire-rate debuff. Will also be shown as a 4th icon on the left, on top of the other 3. This upgrade is only available in hard mode. Picking up the shotgun power-up will not increase the bullet spread, but will still decrease fire-rate. Requires purchase of all other gun and ammo upgrades before it will appear.
		Sheriff Badge	data-sort-value="10">10	Get a Sheriff Badge. Can be purchased again at the next vendor.
3		Ammo	data-sort-value="15">15	Increases bullet damage to 2 / 3 / 4. Bullets gain penetration, such that if a bullet destroys an enemy with damage left over, it will keep going until its damage is depleted, allowing at least two weak enemies to be killed with one bullet.
			data-sort-value="30">30
			data-sort-value="45">45
		Sheriff Badge	data-sort-value="10">10	Get a Sheriff Badge. Can be purchased again at the next vendor.

Enemies

Image	Name	HP	Description	Appears in
	Orc	1	Walks slowly towards the player, often spawning in large numbers.	Stage 1 (areas 1-4)
	Spikeball	2 while moving, 7 while deployed	Enters the area, walks to a random location, and deploys into an armored spikeball. Kills the player on contact, whether deployed or undeployed. If time has run out and the only remaining enemies are spikeballs, their HP is reduced to 1. Damage done to the Spikeball while it is moving is still effective after it deploys.	Stage 1 (areas 2-4)
	Ogre	3	Moves slowly. Destroys spikeballs on contact.	Stage 1 (areas 3-4), Stage 2 (areas 1-3)
	Mushroom	2	Moves quickly, running as fast as a player without speed upgrades.	Stage 2 (areas 1-3)
	Pixie	1	The first flying enemy. Can spawn anywhere on the perimeter and fly towards the player. Can also fly over obstacles.	Stage 2 (areas 1-3)
	Mummy	6	Moves slowly. Spawns in large hordes.	Stage 3 (areas 1-3)
	Imp	3	A flying enemy that can spawn anywhere on the perimeter, seeking the player. Can fly over obstacles and is not distracted by the Gopher or deterred by the Tombstone power-up.	Stage 3 (areas 1-3)

Friendlies

Image	Name	HP	Description	Appears in
	Gopher	∞	Distracts enemies, drawing them towards it and killing them on impact. Does not harm the player and cannot be killed by the player. Disappears after it has fully crossed the screen. Gophers may carry the player on a parade float upon a victory against a boss.	Random

Bosses

Image	Name	HP	Description	Appears in
	Cowboy		Both fights with the cowboy take place in open fields with little cover. The player and cowboy are separated by a ravine/river, which can only be crossed with a lucky smoke bomb. The cowboy will run out of cover and shoot a volley of bullets upwards, sometimes matching the player's movements, before retreating back to cover. He often pauses behind cover, and sometimes outside of cover. Upon dying, the boss drops an extra life, a bridge appears crossing the river, and a raft pickup appears which sends the player to the next stage.	Stage 1 (area 5), Stage 2 (area 4)
	Fector		Fector is the final boss and is significantly more difficult than the Cowboy. Movement is not restricted on this stage, for the player or for Fector. Fector can fire directly at the player, or in eight directions as with the Wheel power-up. As his health decreases, he starts summoning enemies. The player is victorious after defeating Fector.	Stage 3 (area 4)

Levels

Screenshots of each level
Stage Area 1 Area 2 Area 3 Area 4 Boss Stage 1 - Prairie Stage 2 - Forest - Stage 3 - Graveyard -

Hard Mode

As of version 1.1, after completing Journey of the Prairie King, the player has the option to start over in Hard Mode. All upgrades and coins are carried over into the new game, but lives reset to the default "x3", and held power-ups are removed. Enemies spawn in greater numbers, some move faster, and each has at least one extra hit point. Additionally, Imps now spawn in every level except boss stages, and extra lives drop far less often.

Each time a harder mode is beaten, the option to start once again is offered, with the game getting progressively harder each time.

Trivia

• There is a Lost Book about this game titled Journey of the Prairie King -- The Smash Hit Video Game!.
• Zoom level also influences the portion of screen the arcade game takes up.
• The title of the game is most likely a reference to the "River King" games (a series of fishing RPGs made by Natsume, who also made the Harvest Moon series), specifically the Game Boy title released in the US as Legend of the River King.

Bugs

• If the nuke power-up is used during the first boss fight, the enemy will vanish from the screen but the stage will not end, resulting in a softlock. This also occurs when using the Tombstone power up against Fector.

History

• 1.0: Introduced.
• 1.1: After beating the game, the player can play in Hard Mode.