The game (according to the back cover [box/folder/manual] of the Atari 8-bit family and Apple II original and rerelease versions) takes place in the land of Serenia where King George's daughter Princess Priscilla has been kidnapped by an evil wizard named Harlin.

The King has offered half of his kingdom to anyone brave enough to travel to the Wizard's castle, defeat him and return his daughter.

He boasted of using his magic to change the world creating obstacles for anyone who would challenge him (he moved the desert around the village of Daventry, the northern sea splitting Serenia in two, and Great Mountains in the North on his half of the continent).

As with their previous game Mystery House, Wizard and the Princess was distributed by Roberta and Ken Williams's company On-Line Systems in plastic bags with the 5 ¼-inch floppy disk and instruction sheet.

Roberta Williams reputedly referred to the colors on the IBM PC as "atrocious" upon seeing the completed game running for the first time.

The game was ported to various Japanese computers by Starcraft, which completely redrew the artwork with more colors and higher resolution.

[citation needed] Creative Computing liked Wizard and the Princess, approving of the Atari version's graphics and comparing its difficulty to "some of Scott Adams' efforts".

[10] Wizard and the Princess is recognized for pioneering color graphics, offering more detailed and vibrant visuals than previous games.

Princess Priscilla later married an individual named Kenneth the Huge and became the queen of Serenia, after her father's (King George IV) death.

Thus it explains why the desert surrounds the village in the earlier game, but not during the time of KQ5, or why the Great Mountains are located across the sea on Harlin's continent, but just north of the town in KQ5.