The player controls the 14 year old H.C. Andersen in a 3rd person adventure/action game taking place in the Copenhagen of the Golden Age around 1820. The game is inspired by HCA’s famous fairytale universe but is primarily based on HCA’s own life story in his pursuit of recognition, fame and success.

At first the princess is taken prisoner in an old and dark mill by Mr. Schwartz in a sinister scheme to persuade the king to trade her for the kingdom. Your job is to help HC save the princess and eventually the kingdom from the evil troll Mr. Schwartz (a.k.a. Mr. Darkness – when he’s not disguised as a human). When rescuing her HC must take her to a nicer quarter where she is again taken by Mr. Schwartz and HC must find a way to get access to this next quarter and then free the princess again.

Slowly, an evil shadow is spreading darkness and decease by the sinister Mr. Schwartz and the quarters stand in darkness behind HC. Eventually, the entire city is in darkness and evil knocking on the royal doors. The only way to save the day is to find the magic Tinderbox hidden under the palace and bring light back to the streets and save the princess, her father and the entire kingdom. Not exactly the quest HC set out to experience, but alas, he’s no longer considered an ugly duckling.

The game is a combination of a traditional quest based adventure, some action mini-games and a simulation of people living in the city. The adventure is following a linear story as a sequence of quests and sub-quests. Some minor quests are more or less independent from the main story. The city is full of Non-Playing Characters (NPC) who moves about with lives, of their own. Some of them play important roles in the story, while others are more anonymous. All NPCs can be interacted with.

Success is at the mercy of having social status and earning the friendship or respect of the High Society. Interaction with as many people as possible as well as making the right friends is important – and a lot of fun!

The story takes the player through a lot of different tasks and challenges. Some are slow paced and require logic thinking, searching/investigating the environment, finding and talking with people. Typically, HC must help people and run errands to get further in life. Some of the tasks are action based and require mastering the controls at precision and with fast reaction. This includes; chasing a rooster around a neighbourhood and kick it to get some of its feathers, escape from police who are sometimes chasing HC down the streets, Attack (e.g. kicking) against the small trolls, fighting rats away from the street, etc.

• An immersive H.C. Andersen style adventure
• Packed with puzzles, action and socializing
• 40-60 different real time rendered characters
• Localized voice-over and original score
• Pre-rendered high-detail backgrounds
• 5 city quarters with Copenhagen landmarks
• Proprietary character behavior AI