How do you view, thus far, from what we know of it, the new KQ game? Do you view it as canon (basically, as an official continuation of the series), or as something more like a spin-off; simply a game with the KQ label slapped on it?
If it retcons important story elements, like how KQ7 retconned Edgar's backstory, then it's non-canon in my book. If it instead serves as a proper jumping-off point for a new series of modern games, then it may be considered canon, depending on how well it pulls it off. If it's more or less a spin-off like MoE...then it is what it is, a spin-off. We don't have enough details of the plot yet, other than the fact that a considerable amount of time has passed since MoE.
I'm guessing it's more of a reboot. Most likely there are now two official continuities, the Sierra On-Line one and the Odd Gentleman one.
I'm guessing it'd be pretty similar to DC comics' multiverse.
I personally consider the game to be a canon game, in the sense that it is a King's Quest game published by Sierra. Then again, I also consider Mask of Eternity and King's Quest VII to be just as much canon as King's Quest I or VI. The Odd Gentlemen have stated that they are wanting to stay true to the original story and mythos of King's Quest, so I don't expect there to be any particular discrepancies in the plot, but it's too hard to say at this point.
If, from what we understand, Graham is telling his granddaughter stories of when he was younger, and the game will play out throughout different time frames around the main games, I think it would be perfectly feasible to insert stories of adventures that Graham went on between KQI and II, or KQII and III, or King's Quest IV and V, etc. The games are a bit unclear as to the exact time frame between each game. Kings' Quest II is set 1 year after King's Quest I according to the manual storybook. It's unclear as to how long passed between the time Graham and Valanice got married and when Alexander and Rosella were born. Then you have 17 years before King's Quest III actually happens. King's Quest IV is set immediately after King's Quest III, and takes place in 24 hours.
King's Quest V is again set at some intermediate time after King's Quest IV (perhaps a year or so?), and King's Quest VI is generally thought to be set a few months after that. King's Quest VII is (I'm guessing) set a few years after that (Wow...Valanice went gray fast), as Rosella is still pretty young looking. MOE is arguably set sometime after that, as Graham is significantly aged in that game. I presume the frame story (if it's set up like that) for the new King's Queest game is set even further after that, as the little bit of concept art shows a very old Graham with a Santa Claus beard.
Whatever the case, there's obviously room to put the Odd Gentlemen's flashbacks (if indeed it is set up like that) in between the original KQ games without messing around with the established backstory in the games, so I'm hoping that we see something similar to how Doctor Who was rebooted in 2005, but still kept all of the mythos and background of the original series from the 60's to the 80's without making it to where you had to see the entire series to know what was going on. :)
Talk to you later!
JDHJANUS
Josh
Quote from: JDHJANUS on November 25, 2014, 01:41:50 PM
King's Quest V is again set at some intermediate time after King's Quest IV (perhaps a year or so?), and King's Quest VI is generally thought to be set a few months after that. King's Quest VII is (I'm guessing) set a few years after that (Wow...Valanice went gray fast), as Rosella is still pretty young looking.
If I'm not mistaken, Alexander is 18 in King's Quest VI. Valanice says in the opening of King's Quest VII that Rosella is almost 20 years old, which I always assumed meant she was 19. I never knew some people don't even consider the last two games canon.
Ah! I didn't realize that. That puts a lot better time frame on the series then!
So, we have KQI as the beginning point in the timeline.
KQII is set 1 year afterwards per the storybook manual.
KQIII is set almost 18 years after Alexander and Rosella are born, as it is mentioned that Alexander is getting near his 18th birthday. There's no real evidence to say how much time elapsed between Graham's & Valanice's wedding and the birth of the twins.
KQIV is set immediately after KQIII (as Graham collapses following KQIII's ending).
If Alexander is 18 in KQVI, and KQVI is set a few months after KQV, then that means that KQV is actually set within a year (at most) from KQIV.
Then, KQVII skips (almost) 2 years as Rosella (and obviously Alexander) would be almost 20 (wonder what caused Valanice to go gray so quickly?)
I'm guessing then that MOE is set a few years after that. Since the game does not specifically address any of the previous games, as has very little to do with the Royal Family of Daventry, it's hard to place the exact time that it's set.
Talk to you later!
JDHJANUS
Josh
Quote from: JDHJANUS on November 25, 2014, 01:41:50 PM
he games are a bit unclear as to the exact time frame between each game. Kings' Quest II is set 1 year after King's Quest I according to the manual storybook. It's unclear as to how long passed between the time Graham and Valanice got married and when Alexander and Rosella were born. Then you have 17 years before King's Quest III actually happens. King's Quest IV is set immediately after King's Quest III, and takes place in 24 hours.
King's Quest V is again set at some intermediate time after King's Quest IV (perhaps a year or so?), and King's Quest VI is generally thought to be set a few months after that. King's Quest VII is (I'm guessing) set a few years after that (Wow...Valanice went gray fast) as Rosella is still pretty young looking.
KQ2 is set a year after KQ1.
KQ3 is set 17 years after KQ2.
KQ4 is set the same day as KQ3
KQ5 is set exactly a year after KQ4
KQ6 is set only six months after KQ5. Alexander is pining after Cassima three months, and it takes him three more months to sail to the Green Isles.
KQ7 is set less than a year after KQ6. How do I know? Because in the intro, Valanice states that Rosella is "nearly 20 years old." Let's see. They were rapidly approaching age 18 in KQ3/4. KQ5 takes place a year after KQ4, making them 19. KQ6 takes place only months later, so they're still 19. KQ7 is no longer than a few months after KQ6.
...and MoE takes place in an alternate dimension where solving your problems by whacking them with swords is nothing out of the ordinary.
I don't mind MoE, but I still poke fun at how bizarre it is.
I think the problem with MOE is mostly a marketing one. Sierra should have made it clear it was a spin-off. The box needed to say "ACTION RPG" in a big, visible font.
Another interesting discovery that I found over the weekend. In the Official Hint Book for King's Quest VII (the one written by Lorelei Shannon and published by Sierra), the introduction, which covers the previous six games, states that Graham was 19 years old at the time for Quest for the Crown. Now that we have his age, we can (theoretically) determine how old he is using Rock Knight's timeline as mentioned above.
King's Quest I - 19
King's Quest II - 20
King's Quest III - 37 (I guess everything happening to his kingdom caused him to go gray really fast)
King's Quest IV - 37
King's Quest V - 38
King's Quest VI - 38-39
King's Quest VII - 40
Mask of Eternity - mid to late 40's, I'm guessing... Maybe 50's...
King's Quest 2015 - I'm guessing the frame story will be set with Graham in possibly his 70's-80's.
Thoughts?
Talk to you later!
JDHJANUS
Josh
And then, as with the fourth Indiana Jones movie, we will all be faced with the harsh reality that the adventurer we grew up with is now very, very old.
Quote from: JDHJANUS on December 01, 2014, 09:34:08 AM
Another interesting discovery that I found over the weekend. In the Official Hint Book for King's Quest VII (the one written by Lorelei Shannon and published by Sierra), the introduction, which covers the previous six games, states that Graham was 19 years old at the time for Quest for the Crown. Now that we have his age, we can (theoretically) determine how old he is using Rock Knight's timeline as mentioned above.
King's Quest I - 19
King's Quest II - 20
King's Quest III - 37 (I guess everything happening to his kingdom caused him to go gray really fast)
King's Quest IV - 37
King's Quest V - 38
King's Quest VI - 38-39
King's Quest VII - 40
Mask of Eternity - mid to late 40's, I'm guessing... Maybe 50's...
King's Quest 2015 - I'm guessing the frame story will be set with Graham in possibly his 70's-80's.
Thoughts?
Talk to you later!
JDHJANUS
Josh
Huh, I'm surprised he's so young to be honest but I suppose it makes sense. I honestly had no idea. In fact I just may do a Nostalgia (http://postudios.tumblr.com/search/nostalgia) post based on this info the future :P
I knew he was 19 already. I don't really blame him going gray at 37, given Daventry's a wreck in that game and he and Valanice are giving into despair.
King Graham: the Steve Martin of adventure game heroes.
KQ canon has always been a wonky thing to begin with, then MOE came along and added a new load of confusion to the pile.
Quote from: Bludshot on December 31, 2014, 01:47:53 PM
KQ canon has always been a wonky thing to begin with, then MOE came along and added a new load of confusion to the pile.
OMG no it didnt u dont understand it make perfect sense lol #noob
HAHAHAHA!!!
When Graham dies he should be subjected to death screens in Ooga Booga, the Land of the Dead, and the Dimension of Death.
And then he will be addressed by Samhain, the Boogeyman, and Azrael who will all finish each other's sentences, but when it's the Boogeyman's turn he'll just cackle loudly and smack his lips, and Samhain and Azrael will be forced to carry on the conversation simultaneously and it'll be up to the player to find out what the hell they're even saying over each other.
And then in the background, you'll see the skeletons from the Dimension of Death wielding their maces like an athlete wields the Olympic torch, charging in to kill you a second time, while the Headless Horseman accidentally tramples most of them, and then they get brought before Azrael and Samhain but get stopped by another skeleton who dances onto the scene, asking them for a ticket...
King's Quest is f*cked up, man.
Isn't it obvious that the real timeline in King's Quest is the one where he gets sent to Police Quest?
As KQ2+ puts it, "You have opted to spend the rest of your life in the most uncivilized world you can conceive."
Speaking of which, I want a new Conquest of the Longbow game where Robin Hood encounters Roger Wilco and Graham via shameless plug travel.
And just as Robin Hood is about to get captured at the end, King Graham appears with a bucket of water in his hands to splash and annoy the bad guys. Then Roger Wilco bumbles into the fray with a plunger that's on fire and then things really go to hell...
It'll be Sierra's answer to the Avengers and the Justice League.
Should I start taking notes? :P
Then Rosella can show up with a bow and arrow and it'll be like Black Widow and Hawkeye in one package, except she's using Cupid's bow, proving that the power of love conquers all. And the next time she shoots an irredeemably evil person with it and brutally kills them, Graham will say, "Oh, Rosella, there you go again!" And then she'll turn and wink at the camera and be all like, "That's me!" and a laugh track will play.
Honestly, I'm surprised they pulled off Hawkeye as well as they did. He was always the type of superhero that I just didn't think would work with general audiences. Kind of like The Atom.
What's even more amazing is that people liked Hawkeye even though he wasn't acting like himself for about 2/3 of The Avengers' running time.
And then they went and upped the ante with Guardians of the Galaxy, a group of obscure characters from a comic book nobody read, and it ended up being the #1 movie of 2014. It's a friggin' miracle it turned out how it did. I'm sure Star-Lord's Walkman had something to do with it.
Oh, and the universe that has comedic movies like The Avengers, Thor 2 and Guardians of the Galaxy? It also has this in it now:
That's...quite the tonal shift. It's like they said "Oh, you thought Captain America 2 was dark? You thought Agents of SHIELD Season 2 was dark? We're going to make things even darker, and much more violent too."
It really feels like Daredevil is Marvel's answer to The Dark Knight.
Meanwhile DC tv shows are going in a slightly different tonal direction.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KZ5yfG834A
That Flash video was pretty chill at first, but then things started heating up about halfway through.
I think it's safe to claim DC rules TV shows and animated movies whereas Marvel is kicking ass in the big screen.
It's also pretty much universally accepted that Marvel makes better movies while DC makes better video games.
That might have something to do with the fact Capcom isn't what it used be. Honestly, outside Capcom games were there any good Marvel games? Well I guess there was Activision's X-men and Marvel Ultimate Alliance games. Spider-man Maximum carnage for the Super Nintendo was pretty good too I guess.
Still, generally speaking Batman had a pretty good 8-bit and 16-bit run and the current Batman games are just amazing!
The current Batman: Arkham series is one of the best sets of games I've ever played. And you can tell just from the trailer that Arkham Knight is going to be a better Batman sendoff than The Dark Knight Rises was.
I absolutely the first two Arkham games. I even own the collector's edition for both titles. Arkham City was so addicting, got every achievement on that one.
It's a new canon. 8)
I kinda sorta figured that.
So many timelines and alternate universes! There's the in-game universe timeline, the Companion universe, AGDI 'verse, TSL 'verse, the Odd Gentlemen universe...
And Baggins will never, ever cease to try to fit them all together somehow.
On an unrelated note, that Batman: Arkham Knight game? It's rated M. Keep the kiddies away from it. (Although kids really shouldn't be playing the Arkham games anyways.)
Interesting that you bring that up, because Crayauchtin and I were both using a timeline that combined AGDI and TSL together and I think it worked pretty darn well.
...Crayauchtin's alive? I forgot he even existed.
As far as combining the TSL and AGDI timelines together, I'd say keep the Father from KQ2+ in the story, but only refer to him by his real name (Morgeilen) and treat him like a lesser servant of the Black Cloaks, sort of like an enforcer, and not the Big Bad. And finally, have Graham actually kill him in combat instead of just letting him get away on a crappy cliffhanger that ultimately goes completely unresolved. That way, Shadrack retains his status as the Bigger Bad throughout the series up until TSL.
I'd love to write my own stories set in the KQ universe, but I'm waiting until TSL episode 5 is released so that I have the entire picture in my head. I wouldn't want to release one story after another just making up sh*t as I go, not knowing how the whole thing would actually end. Think of all the foreshadowing one could do with the knowledge of TSL's entire storyline. Hell, you could probably incorporate MoE into there with enough work and not have it stick out like a sore thumb. The whole plot would have to be rewritten, of course, and Connor would actually have to be likable, but I'm sure it's possible.
In fact, I say you could even make Cedric likable by changing him around a bit. And not, you know, get himself in trouble repeatedly. I swear, first he gets nommed by a wolf, then he gets beat up by harpies, then he gets stuck under boat debris upon crash-landing onto Mordack's island, then he gets blasted by Mordack...and through it all:
"Graham, help me!"
Give me a reason to, you little tw@t.
Yes, but that was several years ago.
We were having him still be part of TBCS, but as part of the Triumvirate of leaders mentioned in episode 4, one being Shaddy, one Morg, and one we didn't know. That was plan A, plan B was what you said.
Like I said, we don't know all the details yet. It's probable that they'll go more in-depth on who the triumvirate were in episode 5, but it'll be a while until then.
In the closing cinematic for episode 4,
[spoiler]There were three shadow wizards that attacked Graham in the wormhole, IIRC, but they all looked exactly like Shadrack. That could mean anything. Maybe Shadrack is like Ultron and he can make copies of himself.
Suddenly, I have a desire to hear the voice actor for Shadrack saying, "There are no strings on me."
I'm still annoyed that the trailer for episode 4 spoiled the most memorable part of that scene (huge Shadrack head swallowing Graham).
[/spoiler]
"We're telling stories in between the original games," Korba tells Digital Trends. "So we completely reimagined it, it's a new King's Quest, everything's re-thought and it looks similar but different. But we're keeping the details that were set by Roberta and Ken and sort of elaborating on those."
Exactly. It's a reboot. A new canon. There's no way that KQ2015 is going to mesh perfectly with the original KQ1. The trailer alone should've made that obvious. Remember the time in KQ1 where Graham went river rafting? And then shot the dragon guarding the mirror with an arrow? No? I thought not.
Think of it as an alternate universe, where some of the details are similar, but not all of them.
Quote from: Numbers on March 06, 2015, 04:52:37 PM
Exactly. It's a reboot. A new canon. There's no way that KQ2015 is going to mesh perfectly with the original KQ1. The trailer alone should've made that obvious. Remember the time in KQ1 where Graham went river rafting? And then shot the dragon guarding the mirror with an arrow? No? I thought not.
Think of it as an alternate universe, where some of the details are similar, but not all of them.
Not everything in the original series really meshed perfectly either, though. I'd think of it as the same canon. More just...Since Graham is telling the stories of his youthful days to his niece as an old man, he's bound to "exaggerate" a little here and there....As Grandfathers often do when talking about their grand pasts.
When it comes to a series like KQ where are multiple ways of solving problems, there's no real canon. Graham may or may not have killed the Dragon in the original KQ1 by throwing the dagger at it...Or he might have thrown a bucket of water at it. He might've killed the Lion guarding Valanice...Or gave it some ham. He might've killed Dracula...Or not. Maybe Alexander married Cassima, but didn't save her parents. Or maybe he saved her parents, but didn't uncover the extent of Alhazred's treachery. The only game in the series which has a linear story is KQ5 in that you only solve things one way. Also, since the games never referenced themselves outside of broad strokes (IE, Graham married Valanice, Manny kidnapped Alexander), as long as you stick to those established facts...There's room for some embellishment from an old man telling stories of his youth to his granddaughter, while keeping it in the same canon.
"King's Quest has me excited for the future of adventure games. Until I sat down for a demo of The Odd Gentlemen's modern take on the 30-year-old series, I didn't know I was unexcited for the future of adventure games. But as I watched designer Matt Korba walk a gangly King Graham through a hand-painted forest, red cape billowing around him, and got a look at some simple puzzles and King's Quest-style death scenes, I realized why I'm suddenly excited for this game and what it seems to be shooting for. It's an 80s or 90s adventure game in spirit, with charm and puzzles and funny dialogue, but updated to tell its story with the gaming technology of 2015.
There are a couple different takes on the adventure genre right now. There's Double Fine's Broken Age, a classic point-and-click with tons of great, silly dialogue and inventory puzzles. It's a game that could've been made 20 years ago, except the art is beautiful, it's full of voice acting, and the interface is very simplified. Part one of Broken Age was too easy, which felt a bit like a modern concession, considering how challenging older adventure game puzzles could be. The second approach is Telltale's The Walking Dead. Telltale has minimized puzzles and inventory down to the point of near-nonexistence to focus on story. Crucially, Telltale has also built its modern adventure games in 3D, with more cinematic camera angles suited to dramatic storytelling. Telltale's games focus on what was always a strength of the adventure genre—story and dialogue—by completely stripping out the 'gameplay' many players loved.
From my half hour demo of King's Quest, I think it looks and moves like The Walking Dead, but plays much like a point-and-click adventure. It's obviously in 3D, and Graham can be moved around with a mouse or a controller. Context-sensitive interactions like "look" and "pick up" are mapped to face buttons and show up as big icons on-screen (Korba says they drew inspiration from King's Quest V for these). Graham automatically leaps gaps and climbs outcrops. The game's recent trailer, showing Graham traipsing around the 3D environments, made King's Quest look like a platformer. That's the skin. The bones are pure classic adventure.
The demo I watched saw Graham exploring a dragon's cavern in search of a magic mirror that should be familiar to King's Quest fans. The level serves as a tutorial for the game, so it's light on puzzles, and they're easily solved at a glance. As Graham explores, the voice of his granddaughter Gwendolyn will pipe up with questions or comments. King's Quest's narrative framework is that old King Graham is telling his granddaughter stories of his past adventures, and his grandfatherly voice often breaks in with commentary to add context or foreshadowing.
We skipped to another area, the forest of Daventry, where Graham has to do some more light puzzle solving to make his way to a parade for prospective knights. Again, none of the puzzles are particularly challenging—shaking a tree to drop a beehive on some unsuspecting guards, finding a rope to bind together a raft—but the structure and tone of King's Quest feel right. They feel like King's Quest.
The writing evokes the goofiness of Sierra's classic games. The brief bits I saw weren't always laugh-out-loud funny, but a couple made me chuckle, and the wonderfully expressive animation adds an element of slapstick I didn't expect. Lanky Graham is shoved around like a lovably dopey loser. A merchant he meets in the forest bounces around like a Looney Tunes character, wildly waving his hands and talking a mile a minute. Korba says they're shooting for a 1980s fantasy vibe with Jim Henson as an inspiration. The characters believe in themselves. There's no cynicism or sarcasm in how they're represented. From what I saw, King's Quest nails that tone.
According to Korba, after the sequence in Daventry, King's Quest's first chapter will open up to allow the freedom to explore. He stressed how important the original game was in inspiring this structure. If the demo left me with any concerns, it's that the puzzles might be too easy, a concession to contemporary players who quickly grow impatient. (Also my biggest disappointment with Broken Age). Korba said that the ability to explore and progress through the game in a few different ways—not just solving puzzles—will allow them to make some of those puzzles more challenging. Mercifully, they're avoiding the hair-pulling obtuseness of a certain infamous cat hair moustache puzzle.
Even with placeholder voice work, the whimsy of King's Quest's writing and animation feels like the freshest evolution of the spirit of adventure games I've seen for some time. The game's planned episodic structure, with each 'chapter' telling a story from some point in Graham's life, will allow The Odd Gentlemen to play loose with time and location and let their creativity flourish. I'm hopeful they'll capitalize on that. I've only seen a small slice of an unfinished game, and there are a lot of puzzles to build and jokes to nail for King's Quest to live up to my expectations.
Today's point-and-click adventures are reliant on nostalgia, like welcoming the return of old friends. But King's Quest seems like it has a shot at being something more, and that makes me excited to see where the genre goes next, rather than the path it's already walked."
What I consider canonical in the KQverse is the walkthrough that gets the maximum point value. Going by this idea, canonically Graham kills the witch while sparing the dragon and giant in 1, and kills Dracula in 2. Alexander being unable to save Cassima's parents is definitely non-canonical in my eyes. It's not addressed in the next two games, but I have no reason to believe that the creators themselves would think that the parents being left in the underworld is what canonically happened. It is, of course, possible to leave Edgar to die in 7 as well, though that's obviously not what was supposed to happen. I go by the TSL timeline, wherein Cassima's parents and Edgar are alive.
Quote from: Rock Knight on March 06, 2015, 07:09:04 PM
shaking a tree to drop a beehive on some unsuspecting guards
That sounds really dickish...yet at the same time so in-character.
"And so, Gwendolyn, after dropping a beehive on some guards, I went on to donkey punch a witch into her own cauldron, murder Dracula in his sleep, and then trap a different witch inside a genie bottle for 500 years."
I understood it was an alternate universe before.
There's PROBABLY a different solution to take care of those guards.
Wait... you can NOT kill Dracula?! I could have sworn he was required! Huh.
Quote from: Numbers on March 06, 2015, 07:48:00 PM
What I consider canonical in the KQverse is the walkthrough that gets the maximum point value. Going by this idea, canonically Graham kills the witch while sparing the dragon and giant in 1, and kills Dracula in 2. Alexander being unable to save Cassima's parents is definitely non-canonical in my eyes. It's not addressed in the next two games, but I have no reason to believe that the creators themselves would think that the parents being left in the underworld is what canonically happened. It is, of course, possible to leave Edgar to die in 7 as well, though that's obviously not what was supposed to happen. I go by the TSL timeline, wherein Cassima's parents and Edgar are alive.
Quote from: Rock Knight on March 06, 2015, 07:09:04 PM
shaking a tree to drop a beehive on some unsuspecting guards
That sounds really dickish...yet at the same time so in-character.
"And so, Gwendolyn, after dropping a beehive on some guards, I went on to donkey punch a witch into her own cauldron, murder Dracula in his sleep, and then trap a different witch inside a genie bottle for 500 years."
But in TSL's timeline, Manannan is Valanice's father, and Graham is the reincarnation of basically a God...You really But that in line with the original canon? I'd say that stretches things much more than the new game does.
But that's my point. There was no real effort to maintain consistency in the series outside of broad strokes. Obviously Graham always marries Valanice and begets two kids and was a Knight who became King. But since they do not reference each other, the little details are subject to change.
Like I said, little things like--Did Graham kill the dragon or throw a bucket of water at it? Either way changes "history" if you will. Did he kill the lion or feed it? We don't know.
You could argue for maximum point value being only what is canon...But you're still allowed to finish every game except for V in different ways with different endings.
And the beauty part of it is that the games don't reference each other, so...either way is a legitimate way.
What I am getting at is, why does it have to be set in an alternate universe? Can it not simply be that Graham is an old man and he is exaggerating little bits or pieces of the stories of heroic adventures to not only educate his granddaughter, but entertain her as well? Why would that displace it from the canon and make it in essence "Not KQ"?
"This isn't a reboot, and its not necessarily a sequel. It's a reimagining. Everything that exists in the past games is still canon." These stories exist between those stories. Over the course of the game players will experience Graham's previously unknown adventures. "We're definitely not retelling the old games...we're nodding to them and respecting them, but this isn't King's Quest 1 HD. The new scenarios deal with some of the blank spots in the King's Quest timeline. How did Graham become a knight in King Edward's Court? How did his young love with Valanice develop?
Quote from: Rock Knight on March 07, 2015, 12:51:48 AM[spoiler]
But in TSL's timeline, Manannan is Valanice's father, and Graham is the reincarnation of basically a God...You really But that in line with the original canon? I'd say that stretches things much more than the new game does.[/spoiler]
Spoilers, for Christ's sake. Not everyone has played episodes 3 and 4 yet.
And come on, you know what I meant. Besides the new things TSL threw into the mix, what happened in my eyes is, Graham kills the witch, spares the dragon and giant, and entertains the leprechauns in 1, kills Dracula and spares the lion while avoiding Hagatha entirely in 2, Alexander turns Manannan into a cat and kills the three-headed dragon in 3, Rosella saves both Tamir and Graham's life while also sealing up Pandora's Box in 4, Graham saves Cedric's life and kills Mordack in 5, Alexander saves both the Land of the Green Isles and Cassima's parents in 6, Rosella defeats Malicia and saves Edgar's life in 7, and Connor rescues the little girl from the Dimension of Death and also gets the KQ equivalent of Satan sucked into a black hole in MoE. That's what really happened, and I'm sticking to it. TSL can do whatever it wants with the plot from that point forward.
We have no reason to believe that KQ2015 is going to be anything but a reboot. They can deny it's a reboot, the same way POStudios denied that TSL would go against the KQ Companion, but in the end, actions speak louder than words.
Quote from: Numbers on March 07, 2015, 10:34:38 AM
Quote from: Rock Knight on March 07, 2015, 12:51:48 AM[spoiler]
But in TSL's timeline, Manannan is Valanice's father, and Graham is the reincarnation of basically a God...You really But that in line with the original canon? I'd say that stretches things much more than the new game does.[/spoiler]
Spoilers, for Christ's sake. Not everyone has played episodes 3 and 4 yet.
And come on, you know what I meant. Besides the new things TSL threw into the mix, what happened in my eyes is, Graham kills the witch, spares the dragon and giant, and entertains the leprechauns in 1, kills Dracula and spares the lion while avoiding Hagatha entirely in 2, Alexander turns Manannan into a cat and kills the three-headed dragon in 3, Rosella saves both Tamir and Graham's life while also sealing up Pandora's Box in 4, Graham saves Cedric's life and kills Mordack in 5, Alexander saves both the Land of the Green Isles and Cassima's parents in 6, Rosella defeats Malicia and saves Edgar's life in 7, and Connor rescues the little girl from the Dimension of Death and also gets the KQ equivalent of Satan sucked into a black hole in MoE. That's what really happened, and I'm sticking to it. TSL can do whatever it wants with the plot from that point forward.
We have no reason to believe that KQ2015 is going to be anything but a reboot. They can deny it's a reboot, the same way POStudios denied that TSL would go against the KQ Companion, but in the end, actions speak louder than words.
I don't see how, from anything we've read or heard, the new game violates any of those landmark moments. You still get the Magic Mirror from the Dragon (with the option of either killing it or sparing it, as in KQ1); You still meet Valanice and have twins. Alexander still marries Cassima and has Gwendolyn.
The guys making it have said that they're keeping the same canon and their idea is to tell stories that happened in between the original games. The stuff we've seen from the trailer(s) is from a part of the game that takes place prior to KQ1--Prior to Graham evening being a Knight. It's basically a prequel, and a sequel, in one game.
"The new King's Quest will be a story told in flashback by series stalwart King Graham, now an old man, to his granddaughter Gwendolyn. Creative director and The Odd Gentlemen president Matt Korba, who insists that King's Quest was his favourite series growing up, likens it to The Princess Bride or Big Fish. While this reboot will primarily be a brand new adventure, it will occasionally touch on elements from previous games. For example, the demo we see concerns Graham snatching a magic mirror from a dragon, a story that transpired in the first King's Quest.
"It wasn't exactly how I remembered it, " old man Graham says. "But it wasn't all that different either."
This narrative tool is cleverly employed throughout. When the player attempts to make gangly, teenage Graham crawl into bed, the narrator will snap "This was no time to take a nap!" Try it too many times and he'll admit that maybe he took a brief snooze before facing the dragon.
He even reacts to player death - and there will be a lot of that - in humorous ways. "And that's what would have happened had I pulled the left switch," he says after his younger self pulled the wrong lever and got smushed by in a booby trap. "So you must know I pulled the other one" he adds upon the player re-entering the story.
Another time Gwendolyn calls BS on his tale of heroically charging into a dragon's mouth, i.e. dying. "I was just checking to see if you were still awake," he chimes in. It's not the first time we've seen this narrative device employed in an adventure game - Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and The Stanley Parable come to mind - but it's a great fit for this fresh take on a vintage series.
While the demo section is very linear - and meant to serve as a tutorial for the main adventure - the full game will open up a lot with several areas to go to at your own pace. Intriguingly, the order in which you solve the puzzles will influence the story.
"We took everything that makes episodic content manageable and threw it out the window," Korba jokes. "Why don't we change the character model every chapter? Why don't we change the setting every chapter?"
Unlike a lot of older adventure games, your choices in the new King's Quest will be primarily based on your actions rather than words. "We're really trying to do all of our choice through gameplay and not branching dialogue," Korba says. "We do have branching dialogue in the game, but we use it more for humour. Most of your choices are made by how you solve the puzzles and how you approach the problem-solving aspect."
While it will have a lot of flexibility in the story, Korba maintains that its plot won't go too far off the rails. "It can't ever be a story of murder or dictatorship or horrible things, because that's not in King Graham's character," he explains. "Gwendolyn will never turn her nose up and be like 'ew, I don't like that part of the story. Every action that you do she's excited about."
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You'll have direct control over Graham while prompts will be context sensitive. There's no cursor fluttering about the screen.
But what King's Quest lacks in scope it makes up for in detail. Korba is especially proud of how The Odd Gentlemen play with chronology as the story will skip around in time and flesh out seemingly innocuous details in interesting ways. For example, the cave that occupies the dragon contains an arrow in a stalactite and bed frames hanging from the ceiling. These bizarre backdrops will all make sense in time as the full game will have players revisit this same setting five years earlier.
Korba is quick to point out that he doesn't want the game to over-explain anything. Handholding will be slim to nil while many story elements will be open to interpretation. "We're really about allowing the player to skin whatever emotions they want on that dragon. So if you want to think that that's a vicious, cruel creature, that's fine. If you want to think he's misunderstood, that's okay too," he says. Later, you'll get to decide whether to free the dragon, fight back, or distract it long enough to snatch the mirror it's guarding.
"That colours the story. Either way Graham's telling his granddaughter the story about how he defeated the dragon, but it's either a story about how he bravely and heroically fought back against this hideous monster or it's a story about how he made a friend in an unexpected place. But it's never a story about how he cold-bloodedly murdered him or anything like that."
Indeed Korba would like this new King's Quest to be for everyone, young and old alike. "We wanted to create these family-friendly experiences that I think are lacking in gaming. We're all getting older and - I don't have kids yet, but I would like to - and I want to have games that I can share with them, just like I got to play these games with my dad and my uncle," he says. "And we don't want to make entertainment that's 'for kids'. We want entertainment that everyone can enjoy equally. And that, to me at least, is what Sierra used to do."
Rock Knight, will you quit double-posting? You still haven't spoiler-tagged that post about TSL's timeline, either.
Also, how do you really feel about this new game? At first you said it should be cancelled ASAP, and now you're staunchly defending its place in the KQ canon without knowing anything about it other than what the developers want you to hear. Make up your mind.
Yeah. :yes:
I mean, I'm excited for it, but I'm consistent.
Quote from: Numbers on March 23, 2015, 10:28:09 AM
Rock Knight, will you quit double-posting? You still haven't spoiler-tagged that post about TSL's timeline, either.
Also, how do you really feel about this new game? At first you said it should be cancelled ASAP, and now you're staunchly defending its place in the KQ canon without knowing anything about it other than what the developers want you to hear. Make up your mind.
My point that it should be cancelled ASAP was sarcasm; basically parodying the knee-jerk reactions about the game as soon as it was announced.
So, they're lying about the content of their game? Graham's stories won't be set between games? They're going to rape existing canon?
It's not just the developers who are saying these comments about it keeping with the canon of the originals; the game reviewers who have played the demo have said so as well.
There just seems to be the thinking of some that there's something elaborate and sinister going on with Sierra and TOG with this game. Ala Lamb's comments about the game's good press being not genuine and nothing but the result of a "well paid hype machine." As if every single reviewer who reviewed it in any positive was bought off.
All I'm saying is that TOG's KQ universe isn't going to mesh perfectly with Sierra's. Inevitably, there's going to be a continuity snarl somewhere, no matter how big or small. It doesn't have to go against all the major events that transpired in the Sierra 'verse, but don't expect it to be 100% faithful either. KQ already has so many different timelines, whether official or fanmade, that it's just best to take TOG's new set of games as a different canon and not try to fit a square in a circle-shaped hole.
Regarding Lamb's comments, he speaks from bad personal experience with today's adventure gaming companies, so it's not like his arguments hold no water. And after seeing that one video with those two completely unenthusiastic reporters who clearly didn't want to be there, I know where he's coming from. He may be wrong, but don't be surprised if he's right.
We need to take into consideration the new King's Quest game is as much of a reboot as it is a re-imagining, so certain things will undoubtedly change. Still, Roberta seemed to liked where the direction they're going with so I'm happy with that. :)
Quote from: stika on March 24, 2015, 09:24:34 AM
We need to take into consideration the new King's Quest game is as much of a reboot as it is a re-imagining, so certain things will undoubtedly change.
This. It'll hurt your head a lot less if you just separate TOG's stuff from Sierra's. There's really no point in acting like they're the same people telling the same story when they obviously aren't.
Quote from: Numbers on March 24, 2015, 08:47:09 AM
All I'm saying is that TOG's KQ universe isn't going to mesh perfectly with Sierra's. Inevitably, there's going to be a continuity snarl somewhere, no matter how big or small. It doesn't have to go against all the major events that transpired in the Sierra 'verse, but don't expect it to be 100% faithful either. KQ already has so many different timelines, whether official or fanmade, that it's just best to take TOG's new set of games as a different canon and not try to fit a square in a circle-shaped hole.
Regarding Lamb's comments, he speaks from bad personal experience with today's adventure gaming companies, so it's not like his arguments hold no water. And after seeing that one video with those two completely unenthusiastic reporters who clearly didn't want to be there, I know where he's coming from. He may be wrong, but don't be surprised if he's right.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3iSXDBm9sY
What about that gameplay preview? That's from Gamespot, a much better known publication than with the two ignorant guys, and these two guys seem to be quite into it.
Or the AdventureGamers preview (a site which is pretty purist) that pretty much loved the game?
I've not seen a single neutral or negative review of the demo that was sent out; All have been positive to overwhelmingly positive. The only people with any criticisms seem to be at this point a very small group of very loud 1992 purists, who feel the game should be exactly like KQ5-6 in every way even though that's utterly unrealistic and would only set the game up for gigantic failure.
Do you consider KQ7 to be of a different canon than the rest of the series? Roberta didn't write it and the characterization of Rosella is utterly different from previous games and Edgar's backstory is totally rewritten? Or what about KQ8 with the way EVERYTHING is changed, even that Daventry has none of the landmarks or layout seen in KQ1-3 and there's now three realms of the Undead? I'd say this game is going to change much less than those two games did.
Actually there is ONE somewhat negative review for it out there. In German.
But still, you're pretty much saying what I'm thinking and want to say. I can't though, because I don't want to be hounded by naysayers by saying they're all wearing rose tinted glasses. Again.
Numbers hates 7 with a fiery passion, and I doubt he considers it canon. MoE I am not sure. Me, I love 7, which I've already defended why once already and don't feel like doing so twice.
I wouldn't be surprised if there continuity snarls. It IS a story being embellished by a grandfather to his granddaughter, after all.
Yeah, I don't consider 7 to be canon by any means. If it's not Rosella's insulting portrayal, it's Edgar's backstory being retconned. I don't consider MoE to be canon either, though I enjoy it for how offbeat it is--and though it changed a lot, it didn't mess with any of the previous main characters outside of giving Graham a British accent in his one very quick scene.
TOG's King's Quest is going to be different from Sierra's. The AGDInteractive games were similar to Sierra's, though they had more complicated storylines. TSL is different from Sierra, thanks to an even more involved plot. The King's Quest Companion is different from the actual games. The EU novelizations were different. All of these are different from each other, and no two are the same. TOG's take on KQ is not the same as the original series was. That's all there is to it. Stop arguing with me. Stop pulling in outside sources as if they have some kind of credibility. Just accept the fact that I have a different opinion from you and move on.
Alternate universes are fun.
Personally I do think the new King's Quest looks really good. I'm sure it will bother some purists though, but that's to be expected. Those sort of changes will always alienate some people
That's a good point there, Numbers. That's why Baggins bugs me so much, even though I've never formally even met the guy on here, because he nitpicks every detail in TSL so much that it's ridiculous. Story and writing flubs I get, details like the Pun Garden's wall bricks being a different color I don't.
Though he has made me think up a theory about Derek...
Don't follow through with it. No good will come from any idea inspired by Baggins.
Well, to be fair, I didn't even know who Derek even was until I read TFW. So therefore, before reading Baggins's complaint about it, I was none the wiser.
My theory is, and you're all free to correct me as I have not recapped myself on TFW in a long time, is that the Derek from TSL and the Derek that wrote the Guidebook to the Land of the Green Isles are not the same person, but they are related possibly father and son or grandfather and grandson, with the younger Derek being named after the older. It would explain why TSL's Derek is not as chummy with the Royal Family as he's supposed to be, at least. And something else too, but I can't remember what it was from last night.
Both Dereks are the same person. Derek not being "chummy" with the royal family is something that happens only in TSL's timeline. Of course, the "canon" Derek is never seen in person in any of the games, so much of his characterization is glossed over in favor of his accomplishments.
A couple of the articles, can't remember which, have mentioned that the way Graham can tell the story to Gwen whether to be brave, wise or humble. What I find interesting is those are all traits that Graham has been established to have... but which do we emphasize on here?
*sniff, sniff* :D I smell possibly multiple playthroughs for me~!
Quote from: GrahamRocks! on March 25, 2015, 08:25:33 PM
A couple of the articles, can't remember which, have mentioned that the way Graham can tell the story to Gwen whether to be brave, wise or humble. What I find interesting is those are all traits that Graham has been established to have... but which do we emphasize on here?
*sniff, sniff* :D I smell possibly multiple playthroughs for me~!
One of the previews have said the developers have done it just with the idea of multiple branching paths and numerous endings (ala KQ6) in mind--each little decision could steer the game's plot a totally different way.