Les Manley in: Search for the King

Accolade

Industry	Video game development and publishing
Headquarters	United States
Products	Les Manley in: Search for the King

Les Manley in: Search for the King marks the debut entry in the Les Manley franchise, a series of adult-oriented graphical adventure games. It is frequently likened to the Leisure Suit Larry titles due to their shared mature themes and male lead characters. Developed by Accolade and launched in 1990, the game was succeeded by Lost in L.A. in 1991. In 2020, Ziggurat Interactive secured the publishing rights and made the game available again as a digital download on GOG.com.

Plot

Employed at a television station, Les Manley aims to increase its ratings by offering a million-dollar reward to anyone who can locate "the King," a reference to Elvis. Seizing this chance for personal gain, Manley sets off on an adventure after boasting about his intentions to secretary Stella Hart.

Assuming the role of a reporter, he obtains a scarf connected to Elvis and befriends Helmut Bean, known as the world's smallest man, at a circus. Throughout his journey, Manley utilizes various objects and encounters—including a resurrection card discovered on a disappeared fortune teller—to progress his investigation. After being launched to Las Vegas, he acquires an Elvis-style outfit and signature sunglasses through dealings with local residents and hotel employees.

Donning his collected items, Manley participates in a celebrity impersonator contest as Elvis. Although he initially finishes last, this grants him entry to Elvis' mansion where he refines his disguise. His improved performance convinces the audience that he is Elvis himself, which tragically leads to him being trampled to death. In the afterlife, Manley meets Elvis, obtains a photograph, and uses the resurrection card to come back to life. Since the TV station cannot fulfill the promised prize payment, Manley ends up taking ownership of the station with Stella as his assistant.

Development

Steve Cartwright took inspiration from Sierra's advances in adventure game engine technology to build more advanced development tools. Unlike his earlier tenure at Activision, where he concentrated on action titles, Cartwright was given creative freedom at Accolade to design the engine he envisioned. Collaborating on Les Manley was Michael Berlyn, formerly associated with Infocom, who aspired to create "the ultimate parser."

The engine incorporated more raster graphics compared to the common "line and fill" graphics style prevalent in adventure games of that era. A notable feature included a scene with a female Accolade employee near a water cooler that was filmed and then digitized for use as an in-game animation.

Reception

In a retrospective for PC Gamer, Richard Cobbett criticized the parser-based input system for demanding very exact commands and commented on the challenging nature of the puzzles. Computer Gaming World recognized Accolade's effort to replicate Sierra's successful Leisure Suit Larry series and considered it effective. The Amiga edition received a 71% rating from Amiga Power, which commended its visual presentation but found fault with its controls and humor for being less relatable to UK players, also drawing unfavorable comparisons with The Secret of Monkey Island.

See also

• Sightings of Elvis Presley