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.[1]
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
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 the 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 | 8 | Upgrades movement speed. | |
20 | ||||
1-Up | 10 | Get an extra life. Can be purchased again at the next vendor. | ||
2 | Gun | 10 | Increases shooting speed. | |
20 | ||||
30 | ||||
Super-Gun | 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. Picking up the shotgun power-up will not increase the bullet spread, but will still decrease fire-rate. This upgrade is only available in hard mode. Requires all other gun and ammo upgrades to be purchased before it will appear. | ||
Sheriff Badge | 10 | Get a Sheriff Badge. Can be purchased again at the next vendor. | ||
3 | Ammo | 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. | |
30 | ||||
45 | ||||
Sheriff Badge | 10 | Get a Sheriff Badge. Can be purchased again at the next vendor. |
Enemies
Friendlies
Bosses
Levels
Screenshots of each level | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Hard Mode
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.
Saving mechanics
The game saves after each completed level (When entering the next level) as well as each death. When coming back to the game if a ongoing run is saved, you have the option to start over or to load your save. This can be exploited across multiple days to effectively create a savestate system. You can go to sleep after each won level, which will save your ongoing game in the stardew valley game save file, and if you die, reloading the day will effectively reload the previous Journey Of The Prairie King save.
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 Marvelous, who also made the Harvest Moon/Bokujo Monogatari 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.
- Leaving the game while in the Gopher carrying sequence after defeating a boss, then continuing it, will cause the boss music and health bar to reappear on continuation, with the boss spawning as soon as the next stage begins. If the player dies (the boss will despawn in that case) or the boss dies, the music will keep playing until they reach the next boss. Additionally, performing the glitch again on the next boss will cause the music to carry over out of JotPK and into the rest of the game. This will not end until Stardew Valley is completely restarted.
- Leaving the game just before the Gopher carrying sequence begins, then starting a new game, will cause the Gopher carrying sequence to happen anyway before the first level begins while still resetting your upgrades, lives and coin counter as normal for a brand new run.
- In the windowed steam version the top of the mini-game is cut off hiding the level timer.
- If Stardew Valley disconnects you in multiplayer while inside Journey of the Prairie King, upon rejoining the game, the level music may repeat constantly on top of the rest of the game music.
References
- ↑ Twitter link: https://twitter.com/concernedape/status/1094755018945703937
Archive link: https://archive.ph/2YOMU
History
- 1.0: Introduced.
- 1.1: After beating the game, the player can play in Hard Mode.
- 1.5: Progress can now be saved and resumed, so it can be completed in multiple sessions. The original difficulty can now be replayed even if the player already completed it. (Previously it would increase difficulty automatically, which is now a New Game+ mode.)
- 1.5.2: Fector can no longer instantly be killed with a Tombstone.