Kelly Unicornstrider and Friends (1982-1985) Super Quiz

General Recommendation: A fun quiz game, particularly for those who haven’t seen the show in a while looking to revisit a little nostalgia. Definitely play the game before reading any reviews, as many contain giveaways for the answers.
Preview: Prove yourself a true Unicornstrider fan by getting a perfect score on this fun quiz!

=SPOILERS BELOW=

General notes:
Curses! This show’s theme song is going to be playing through my head for the rest of the week!
I’ve always felt a little late to the game when it comes to this series, given that I wasn’t alive yet when it was running, and even most of the talk surrounding remakes had died down by the time I could spell “remake”. My dad was a big fan of it though, and taped several of the episodes when it first aired. For years, I’d rewatch those tapes every time I was home sick from school, on an old VCR TV we could move to my room when I was bedridden.
It’s nice to finally run into other fans of the series. In particular, it’s fun to get some tidbits about season three, since I never got my hands on the tapes for those episodes. I can’t believe they really would kill off Little Lily, surely there was some sort of hint that she would return for season four.
After reading this quiz I was inspired to search again, and was able to find season three’s first episode on youtube. I did enjoy it, but something’s not quite the same about watching on a computer. It seems incomplete, somehow, without the patchy, grainy quality of the old VCR TV. But that VCR’s been broken for years, so I'm sure I can adjust.

…..

Have we reached the review cut off yet? Oh good. If you haven’t yet played the game, then you’d better go and do it now, before reading any of the reviews, or any more of this one.

General notes:
This game takes full advantage of the storygame format to make a surreal and unique piece of work that forges a direct connection between narrator and reader in a way a linear story could not. Games about games are tough to pull off without becoming overly melodramatic, but this game walks that line like a pro, drawing the player slowly into its web of uncertainty and doubt without ever forcing them into it.
Kelly Unicornstrider is not a real show, but the writing makes it feel very much like it could be one, and what’s more, one that you yourself have watched and cared about. The thematic elements, character names, and plot points referenced all evoke a very specific type of nostalgia that almost any reader will be able to connect to in some way. This show moulds itself to the mind of its reader, the player filling in the gaps in its plot with their own more personal details and memories. Did I watch KUaF? No, because it doesn't exist. But I feel like I did. I remember the black spires surrounding the molten lava moat and the steady falling of the Autumn leaves in Equinox.
This game is a master of the shifting tone, which in my experience is one of the toughest things for a storygame to successfully pull off. The writing swings from clean and disconnected, to friendly and lighthearted, to ominous and forboding, and to personal and uncomfortable. These tone shifts happen lightning speed, sometimes on the inside of a single sentence, yet they never feel forced or unnatural. They are sudden and uncomfortable, but deliberately, measuredly so.
One thing in particular about the tone shifts in ths game is the way it jumps back and forth on the surface from question-to-question, but still contributes to an overall rising mood. I’m reminded of the behavior of surface winds and prevailing winds; surface winds on any given day can be jumping around from moment to moment, blowing here and there seemingly at random. But in the upper atmosphere, the prevailing winds blow the clouds unwaveringly in a single direction, and exert a profound influence on the behavior of the less predictable winds closer to the ground. Reading this game, one first finds themself adrift and caught off guard by the jumpy, unpredictable surface tone—but as you read closer, you begin to glimpse the true tone and power of the story, and the powerful direction it’s really moving in all along.
Which brings me to another of the game’s strengths: Its pace. Too many similar games try to jump right in with unsettling material without first easing the reader into the game as it is theoretically supposed to exist, or go in the other direction, don’t drop any hints at all until the tone shifts completely. This game walks the line in the first few questions by dropping hints and the pulling back, giving tantalizing bits of information, and then sweeping along with the quiz. By the time the game’s tone shifts more completely in the later questions, the reader is already full of anticipation, sure that there’s more to this game than meets the eye and eager to know more, but hesitant about how to handle this uncertaintly, and already growing uncomfortable with the oddly personal way in which the game sees to address you, the player, personally.
This is a game that does not let the player gain firm footing. It tells you what you think is going on, and then it shifts, and then it keeps shifting. The reader is constantly stumbling forwards, trying to orient themselves to the new direction the game has taken.
Repeatedly throughout the game, it’s mentioned how though KUaF was ostensibly a kids show, it contained many disturbing or violent elements, elements that often went over the head of its viewers. I’ve found this to be the case for many of the shows/books I watched as a child. The way a work of fiction exists in the viewer’s mind can often take on a life of its own, shifting as its thought of and remembered over the years, until it has an entirely different personal meaning than the source material. Returning to the original work can then be oddly jarring and unfamiliar. This concept can also be seen as being true of childhood itself. Thinking back on childhood memories with a fresh perspective can sometimes reveal surprising and darker implications on events that simply did not occur to you the first time around.
At a certain point, everyone needs to take the simplistic lessons they’ve internalized from their favorite pieces of childhood media, and reconcile them with the real world. When those lessons inevitably mesh with reality in unexpecedly complex ways, it can be a struggle to understand how to continue with those lessons. Do you abandon them? Do you reinforce them and instead reject reality? Can you accept them as having value while still being flawed and imperfect? In a lot of ways, this game seems to be about the narrator dealing with that struggle—reconciling the lesson of never feeling shame with his inability to be completely proud in his own life, and trying to deal with the frustration and dissatisfaction coming from the show never having a true resolution.
Anyone who’s ever had an emotion of any kind eventually asks themselves the question of whether these feelings are unique and individual to themselves, or if they’re part of a larger shared human experience. This game seems to represent the narrator seeking a satisfying answer to that question, and trying to reach out and connect with someone else who shares their personal feelings. The way in which they reach out is through this ‘quiz’. It’s an attempt at connection that initially tries to be withdrawn and professional, but the narrator’s desperation and loss steadily bleeds through the text more and more until it overwhelms everything else. When the narrator becomes frighteningly personal, do you, the player, empathize and relate, or do you pull away out of discomfort? Do you remain aloof and detached, or friendly but professional, or take cruel advantage of his feelings of loss?
The game’s resolution (“You’re not, but you could be”) when you achieve a perfect score wraps it up in the only satisfying way it could. There can be no epiphany because there is no riddle, and there can be no triumphal victory, because there aren’t any bad guys. What we have instead is a brief moment of connection between an author and a fan, sharing an appreciation for a favorite show. There are no answers to the deep questions the narrator has about the world, but they can at least be shared.

Specific notes:
-The description of what happens to Night Patrol steed’s pelts is quite well written, starting off informative in tone, before becoming more serious, and suddenly ominous.
-The bow of sorrows is a cool concept.
-The internal consistency of the show is particularly notable—for example, we learn that season two episode two focuses on Kelly’s rescue of Fleetfoot, and later, another question makes reference to Fleetfoot’s capture at the end of the previous episode. Extra levels of detail like this really add to the immersion in this game.
-I love the name Cantankerous Rex. Tells you everything you need to know about the guy. I like the way his and Flynocerous’s names evoke dinosaurs. All of the names in this game are great.
-The fanfiction segment is well done. The tone shifts quickly to that of the 14-year-old-narrator. Like many pieces of fanfiction, the story focuses on a chunk of plot and characters that does not seem to be as important in the show itself, dealing with what-if scenarios, and the internal thought process of the characters.
-Equinox is a good name for the fantasy land, particularly when we learn it’s always Autumn there.
-Never feel shame is an intriguing moral lesson for the show to focus around, and it fits well with what we learn of the moral compromises the characters are forced to make.
-“I have it here, on my desk”. This line, I think, really captures an important part of this story. Is the gem real? No. Even in the context of the show its existance is questionable. But its impact and what it means to the narrator is very, very real. The narrator admits “I don’t know what she wants me to do with it.” After emotionally inhereting the legacy and moral lessons of the show, the narrator is left with a life and world where he feels he has a mission of some sort, but doesn’t know what it is, and doesn’t know how to complete it.

Grammar
All good.
Mastery of Language
Knock your socks off good. As far as actual prose writing skill goes, this and Gower’s other works are easily among the best-crafted on the site. The language is not just poetic and moving, but every part of it, from the old fanfiction, to the formal phrasing of the questions, is perfectly crafted to fit its role in the story.

CONCLUSION: 8/8. Makes me want to rewatch the show from the beginning!

Yahoo! Perfect score! (Surprised I still remember it all so well.) So glad I found this game! Thank you so much for that, Gower! This quiz really brought back some sweet, sweet nostalgia! “And we will ride through the meadows in the early morn and be our bravest in the desert storm! A shining hero today is born, it’s Kelly Unicornstriiiiider!!!” I always loved KUAF when I was my kid. In fact, I think I still have some terrible fan art of Little Lilly and Cloudchaser that I did when I was about nine hidden away in storage somewhere. (I also remember signing a petition for a DVD release a couple of years ago… But I’m guessing they didn’t get enough signatures, because nothing ever came of it.) :(

Any ways, brilliant quiz! … But I’m afraid I have to correct you on the answer to question 4. Rhea-Lynn wasn’t exactly given the two-handed axe by The Weather Bee. It was left for her by Fargo when he went off to go adventuring alone. (Although I suppose it was technically the Weather Bee that told her she could have it. Had to re-watch the episode to be sure.)

Rhea-Lynn: But Mr Weather Bee, Fargo wouldn’t have gone adventuring without his axe! Something terrible must’ve happened to him!

Weather Bee: Oh no, Rhea-Lynn, I assure you Fargo’s fine… In fact, he told me before he left that he wished to leave the axe to you. You were always a good friend to him, and he wanted to be sure that you never forgot how much he cared for you.

Rhea-Lynn: You mean he left without a weapon? That doesn’t sound like something Fargo would do. It’s too dangerous! Perhaps we should go looking for him?

Weather Bee: You dare to question the great Weather Bee? Insolent child! Just take the axe and go! I will not be called a liar by the likes of you!

Rhea-Lynn: I never called you a…

Weather Bee: GET OUT!!!

That was a pretty tense ending. I remember The Weather Bee seemed to avoid the friends for awhile after that, and spent several episodes crafting potions in his basement. I don’t think he eve spoke to Rhea-Lynn again until after she lost her hand.

The fanfic was adorable! Wasn’t keen on you shipping Kelly with Eric though. Kelly would never go for Eric, because she knows how Lily feels about him. In the show, after she was kidnapped by Cantankerous Rex, Lily as much as said that if she lost Eric, life wouldn’t be worth living. Not to mention the shrine that Lily kept in the attic of photos that she’d secretly taken of Eric, and the handful of belonging that she borrowed from him, and the plaster that she ate so that a little bit of Eric’s blood would always be inside of her. If Kelly stole Eric from her, I don’t think her little heart could’ve taken it. There’s no telling what she might’ve done. (I actually had a fan-theory when I was little that Eric also got sucked through the vortex, and he was actually Sir Humble in disguise! Unfortunately, the show was cancelled before my theory could be either confirmed or denied.)

Would’ve been nice if some of the question were a bit harder (I think the quiz is a little too easy for us hard core Kelly fans.) But other than that, it was a really great quiz! Probably the best on the site. In fact, I think the quiz would probably be even more enjoyable for people who don’t know the show so well, since there’s so many fun facts to learn. Any way, I highly recommend this quiz to hard-core fans, casual watchers and KUAF virgins alike!

Keep on reaching, Gower! Kelly will always live on in the hearts of her fans, and one day, she shall return!!! (But knowing Hollywood, they’ll probably make a terrible live action movie by the director of those God-awful Alvin and the Chipmunk films, and we’ll wish they left poor Kelly to die in peace.) :p

Please just read the story without looking at any reviews.


I've read this twice now and I'm still really struggling with how to handle writing about it. As the rating and the fact that it's featured might suggest, there's more going on here than you'd assume at a glance. I want people to understand that this "quiz" is phenomenal and absolutely needs to be experienced, but I don't want to reveal too much.

Again, if you haven't played yet, then go do that before you continue reading this or any other review.


This is a brilliant work by Gower that kept me enthralled and unsettled right up to the end. It's not *necessarily* a horror story, but words like 'haunting', 'extremely uncomfortable' and even 'gradually increasing dread' come to mind to describe the tone.

I think the structure of the questions means that a lot of readers won't start realize what's going on until #4. Even if you're using the back button and just going down the list, you will probably have moved on once you get the right answer. If you've played it the first time like that, I recommend going through again and taking the time to read every wrong answer too. Every option adds to that unsettled feeling I mentioned before.

After #4 is tellingly when the quiz structure starts getting changed up as well.

There's more I want to say here, I really just admire so much about this story and the very...unsettling (yes, again)...way it pulls the rug out from under you and then flings you into uncomfortably personal territory with the narrator. (Who is presented as Gower himself, guy who writes storygames and posts on forums, for that extra meta feeling...)


Ultimately though the more I type the greater disservice I'm doing to anyone who ignored my requests and warnings up top and is reading this without having played. So....go and freakin play it! Until the words are inside your mind, we'll never understand each other, no matter how many times I touch your username on my screen.

I feel like I grew up watching this show too now. It was like some twisted Neverending Story, and after reading this I can remember it all so vividly.

This is a pretty amazing quiz and a great read!

Due to the fact that I am old, and was alive during the 80s, I am so embarrassed by my pitiful score on this quiz. This TV show changed my life.

I remember begging my parents to remember to tape it on the VCR so that I could have my friends watch it at my birthday party. Needless to say, I had all the fan gear and action figures, and spent countless hours in my room creating new stories for Kelly. I believe my mom still has an old box in her attic with all this swag.

But as I grew up, I put these things away since many folks didn't understand my fascination with this series. And as time is wont to do, I have forgotten much. My heartfelt thanks go out to Gower for rekindling my old memories of good times and lessons learned.

Also, I wish to let Gower know that I appreciate his quiz, and it truly isn't just about a simple point for me.

Overall, I highly recommend this quiz. It is some fantastic writing (obviously... I mean, Gower wrote it) and wonderful nostalgia for fans of the show.

I just clicked on a random game not knowing this show existed but now I need to find a way to watch it after reading this. Thank you for that.

This... I like this. I really like this. I like this so much that I don't want to spoil anything in my comment. There's nothing for me to say about this storygame that hasn't already been said, anyway.

What I will say, though, is that I was intrigued and engaged the whole time. You expect stuff like this to have its good bits and boring bits, but this was so good at activating the reader's "huh?" response with the first couple of pages, and then moulding that into an "oh..." response with the last few. I'm going to replay this again and again; I adore this well-executed concept.

I never saw the show but I got some questions right just from guessing. Even though I've never seen the show before I thought the quiz was really good and it made the show sound really interesting. I'm going to start watching it now. Maybe when I'm finished I can take the quiz again and get a perfect score.

I don't even know if Kelly and the Unicornstrider something is a real show, I just tried it out of curiosity. After reading it I don't really know how to feel, I liked the part where you rubbed lotion on my skin though. 6/8 kept me entertained even though I have no idea what the fuck I am doing.

*BIG SPOILERS FOLLOW*

This is another meta, "trick" piece.

I knew it was a trick from the title because I know far too much about 1980s TV; I've read quite a lot of stories about fictional TV shows before; Gower's written "trick" pieces before; and I've been playing a lot of "trick" interactive fiction lately.

I can enjoy these, and the writing's solid, but it feels very unresolved; undeveloped. I wanted it to go somewhere further. Unresolved can be OK, too, sometimes, but "the writer is lonely" is not much character development.

In the 1980s, I was a boy. And a fan of shows targeted at girls. I've been very alone at times. I've been on the net, with its distancing and "do they really care when I put this out there" and "On the Internet nobody knows you're a dog", since before it was the Internet. This feels like it's rehashing old territory for me, and as a result was unsatisfying.

I liked how this started... but I wanted it to say something more than it did. Or maybe I just wanted a healthier, happier outcome as an *option* for the quiz creator -- there are too many "there is no healthy outcome" games these days. Maybe I'm missing a secret ending, but I did go through more than once.

An intriguing way to tell a story, through a quiz constructed by a man incapable of letting go, seized by that chain of nostalgia we all feel for the things we loved in our childhood. But this time the chain is pulled taut and choking, and its disheartening and disturbing to see a man caged by his past, a past he knows he cannot escape. not really. Unable to let go, he has become frozen, stuck in time; always falling, just like his heroine Kelly. This could be a twilight zone episode almost. (this is my second time writing a comment as the first appears to not have posted).