The World of King's Quest

[DawsonJ]

Thanks for the info, Cez. I'm working my way through most of the GameCube RPGs right now. I've only played FF Crystal Chronicles so far. But, FF is on my To Do list - right after Legend of Mana (PSX). I have, however, watched a documentary on FF (I-XII) and part of a Longplay of FFXIII. But, I'm just starting to venture into Final Fantasy as a series, so I'm not too knowledgeable on the subject.

The source of most of my FF knowledge:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AkzRBtsULo

Edit: Here's the link to the FFXIII longplay:
http://www.archive.org/details/PS3_Longplay_012_Final_Fantasy_XIII

The first few minutes of the Bonus video are amazing! Especially if you have a good sound system.

[Sir Perceval of Daventry]

To Baggins' point: I personally don't feel KQ was getting stale with 6 or 7 or 8....Nor do I think it really could so long as there are creative minds out there. TT's reboot really has the best chance of invigorating yet more life into the series. I don't see KQ as this narrowly limited thing, nor do I see it as running out of steam. Why should a KQ9 be the conclusion to the series?

[Baggins]

Gabriel Knight 3 wasn't really a failure, if we are talking commercial value. It sold the same amount of copies as the other 2, which was what a normal succesful adventure game sold during that period.

Which was unsuccessful from a marketing standpoint. It didn't compete with other games in the market. The industry was looking for blockbusters... Adventure just didn't have the sales numbers vs development cost. They were lucky if they broke even.

Actually I seem to recall a few interviews between 1995 and 1996 when Ken was still I'm control of Sierra that he was discussing to close the adventure game departments because they just couldn't compete in the changing market. KQ8 was sort of an experiment for the company to see if they could save the genre.

Even SQ7 was going the way of an action game with even multiplayer elements apparently in Ken's new outlook.

To Baggins' point: I personally don't feel KQ was getting stale with 6 or 7 or 8....Nor do I think it really could so long as there are creative minds out there. TT's reboot really has the best chance of invigorating yet more life into the series. I don't see KQ as this narrowly limited thing, nor do I see it as running out of steam. Why should a KQ9 be the conclusion to the series?

I don't think they were stale either but Roberta got several criticisms of that sort in KQ7 reviews and interviews at that time. They still sold more than previous KQ games, but didn't compete financially with other genres out there. Thus one o the reasons Roberta was trying merge successful elements from other series in kQ8.

[Sir Perceval of Daventry]

Gabriel Knight 3 wasn't really a failure, if we are talking commercial value. It sold the same amount of copies as the other 2, which was what a normal succesful adventure game sold during that period.

Which was unsuccessful from a marketing standpoint. It didn't compete with other games in the market. The industry was looking for blockbusters... Adventure just didn't have the numbers vs development.

To Baggins' point: I personally don't feel KQ was getting stale with 6 or 7 or 8....Nor do I think it really could so long as there are creative minds out there. TT's reboot really has the best chance of invigorating yet more life into the series. I don't see KQ as this narrowly limited thing, nor do I see it as running out of steam. Why should a KQ9 be the conclusion to the series?

I don't think they were stale either but Roberta got several criticisms of that sort in KQ7 reviews and interviews at that time. They still sold more than previous KQ games, but didn't compete financially with other genres out there. Thus one o the reasons Roberta was trying merge successful elements from other series in kQ8.

Sales wise, I don't think it was a comment on KQ series so much as the adventure genre itself.
The adventure genre never died....the thing is that the audience who wants to play adventure games is, and has always been, much smaller than the people who want to play RPGs and Action games. Why is this? Because the adventure genre was one of the first genres to ever grace the PC, and the people who were using or buying PCs in the early-mid 80s--when games like KQ first came out--were, let's face it, geeks. More intellectual than your average gamer of today, more patient. People who would be willing to spend hours solving a hardcore puzzle. The demographics changed, and dumbed down gameplay became what was hot.

I don't think the adventure genre ever died, nor did it's audience shrink. It's just that the core audience of the adventure genre is by and large much smaller than the audience of other genres, thus it was eclipsed by those other genres. Yeah, you might've had a few people who moved from Adventure games to RPGs--But I would imagine the numbers of adventure game sales, relative to the numbers of PAST adventure game sales, have remained stable.

But when you compare the numbers of adventure game sales, to those of say an action game, it looks tiny. Add to this that adventure games are generally much costlier to produce. It's easier to make a 3D shooter than it is to make a storydriven, handpainted, 2D adventure game with lots of puzzles and detail.

[Baggins]

I know I kind moved on after Sierra and Lucasarts stopped making adventures... I wasn't into those myst clones that dominated the market during the dark years...

Plus action-adventures were becoming much more compelling.

Right the cost of making adventures vs the sells numbers was an issue. Adventures were very expensive to produce, if try didn't sell enough, they were lucky if they broke even... In some cases companies lost money on them sold less than than the amount of money put in.

[Sir Perceval of Daventry]

I know I kind moved on after Sierra and Lucasarts stopped making adventures... I wan't into those myst clones that dominated the market during the dark years...

Plus action-adventures were becoming much more compelling.

Right the cost of making adventures vs the sells numbers was an issue. Adventures were very expensive to produce, if try didn't sell enough, they were lucky if they broke even... In some cases companies lost money on them sold less than than the amount of money put in.

Same here really. I moved on around 1999 or so, to RPGs like Baldur's Gate. Baldur's Gate and whatever games were hot at the moment (GTA, Kingdom Hearts, etc) became my new loves. I didn't re-discover KQ or Adventure Games until around 2001 or so.

I've never been able to really get into LucasArts adventures. I REALLY REALLY want to. I love the concept and art of Monkey Island but I HATE the interface, and the interface in a game is either what makes or kills a game for me really. If a game's interface feels clunky or weird, than it doesn't matter how great the game is because I get frustrated.

That's why I always loved Sierra's interfaces. They were always very simple, very accessible. You just either typed a word and the parser came up (in KQ1SCI or KQ4) or used the very simple interfaces of KQ5-8. The only exceptions to this are KQ1-3 and they've never been my favorites. I think that's how I became so easily hooked on King's Quest at just 4 years old. I was able to master that game relatively quickly and became absorbed into it so easily because the interface makes it easy to play.

Even my 5 year old niece, raised in an era of 3D console games and the like, is hooked on King's Quest because I hooked her onto KQ5. She LOVES KQ5.

[Damar]

I'd agree with the earlier point that King's Quest is about the characters.  However I don't think that's the only reason why King's Quest wouldn't work as this massive expanded universe (like a Dungeons and Dragons or a World of Warcraft or even with a spinoff concept.)  The main issue (and I think it would need to be included with Perceval's initial post of what defines King's Quest) is

First, though, I want to make this clear: I'm not knocking King's Quest in any way.  I'm not belittling it.  I'm not insulting it.

The main issue is that King's Quest doesn't have a mythology.  More than that, it doesn't have a universe.  Ok, yes, it's got different lands.  And yes, there's even a rudimentary concept of an underlying mythology with the Dimension of Death and the Realm of the Dead.  But otherwise, almost exclusively, the world of King's Quest is predicated on our own universe and mythology.  The folklore of our time exists (rather haphazardly) in King's Quest.  There might be different lands, however they don't particularly connect to each other in any way.  Rather it gives the feeling that someone was just making things up as they went along in order to create settings for the adventures they wanted the specific characters to get into.  Even the mythologies of the different afterlives (which I still maintain makes no sense whatsoever.  Completely separate realms predicated on different beliefs makes a bizarre, pluralistic reality) is still just an excuse to get the character into a new area.  There's no underlying dogma or philosophy.  Even that is taken from real life in the form of Christianity.  We see Christian churches in both KQ2 and MOE.  Even if you argue that it wasn't really Christian and the people of King's Quest just have another religious significance for the cross, it doesn't matter because the cross exists in real life, so the concept of religion in King's Quest is still predicated on reality.

So King's Quest doesn't have a culture, I guess is the best way of putting it.  It's its own thing, its own world, but it's a world that exists only to make adventure games.  Trying to turn it into anything else or expand the world just wouldn't work because it's too wide open.  What fits as a reference and what doesn't?  Alhazared's name is a reference to HP Lovecraft, but does that mean that it makes sense to say that Alhazared actually wrote the Necronomicon in King's Quest and the Cthulu exists in the King's Quest universe (both of which are apparently mentioned in the Companion.)  That seems off to me, but I can't make any claim that Cthulu just isn't King's Quest because the reality is that everything is King's Quest.  Whatever you want to toss into the universe is potentially in bounds because that's what the King's Quest world is.  It's a constant work in process and it's whatever you need it to be.  Which is why I never much cared about the Companion.  It seemed more like Peter Spear brings you King's Quest.  Which is what it was.  But the mythology of King's Quest basically has two settings: What Roberta needed for the next game and what professional fan fiction Peter Spear wrote officially for Sierra.

In comparison Tolkien's Middle Earth had a mythology.  Tolkien wrote his creation myth and his history before he published Lord of the Rings.  The Lord of the Rings was about characters, certainly, but they were living and dying in a world that had already been created and was unique.  That's why that world feels expansive.  Tolkien already had a mythology and languages and history created.  Likewise role playing games just expand on a world because they know that you're coming to play in their world.  They do nothing but create mythos and history so it's expansive.

So again, I'm  not knocking King's Quest at all.  I don't think that the games would have been any better if Roberta had sat down and created an entire world and mythology ahead of time, then created the games.  However the fact is that Roberta was about creating games for these characters (which is you.)  The lands were extensions of that.  And the legends and tales of the real world became characters and development in King's Quest.  It's certainly made for good games, but I don't believe it would make for an expansive universe.

[Sir Perceval of Daventry]

I'd agree with the earlier point that King's Quest is about the characters.  However I don't think that's the only reason why King's Quest wouldn't work as this massive expanded universe (like a Dungeons and Dragons or a World of Warcraft or even with a spinoff concept.)  The main issue (and I think it would need to be included with Perceval's initial post of what defines King's Quest) is

First, though, I want to make this clear: I'm not knocking King's Quest in any way.  I'm not belittling it.  I'm not insulting it.

The main issue is that King's Quest doesn't have a mythology.  More than that, it doesn't have a universe.  Ok, yes, it's got different lands.  And yes, there's even a rudimentary concept of an underlying mythology with the Dimension of Death and the Realm of the Dead.  But otherwise, almost exclusively, the world of King's Quest is predicated on our own universe and mythology.  The folklore of our time exists (rather haphazardly) in King's Quest.  There might be different lands, however they don't particularly connect to each other in any way.  Rather it gives the feeling that someone was just making things up as they went along in order to create settings for the adventures they wanted the specific characters to get into.  Even the mythologies of the different afterlives (which I still maintain makes no sense whatsoever.  Completely separate realms predicated on different beliefs makes a bizarre, pluralistic reality) is still just an excuse to get the character into a new area.  There's no underlying dogma or philosophy.  Even that is taken from real life in the form of Christianity.  We see Christian churches in both KQ2 and MOE.  Even if you argue that it wasn't really Christian and the people of King's Quest just have another religious significance for the cross, it doesn't matter because the cross exists in real life, so the concept of religion in King's Quest is still predicated on reality.

So King's Quest doesn't have a culture, I guess is the best way of putting it.  It's its own thing, its own world, but it's a world that exists only to make adventure games.  Trying to turn it into anything else or expand the world just wouldn't work because it's too wide open.  What fits as a reference and what doesn't?  Alhazared's name is a reference to HP Lovecraft, but does that mean that it makes sense to say that Alhazared actually wrote the Necronomicon in King's Quest and the Cthulu exists in the King's Quest universe (both of which are apparently mentioned in the Companion.)  That seems off to me, but I can't make any claim that Cthulu just isn't King's Quest because the reality is that everything is King's Quest.  Whatever you want to toss into the universe is potentially in bounds because that's what the King's Quest world is.  It's a constant work in process and it's whatever you need it to be.  Which is why I never much cared about the Companion.  It seemed more like Peter Spear brings you King's Quest.  Which is what it was.  But the mythology of King's Quest basically has two settings: What Roberta needed for the next game and what professional fan fiction Peter Spear wrote officially for Sierra.

In comparison Tolkien's Middle Earth had a mythology.  Tolkien wrote his creation myth and his history before he published Lord of the Rings.  The Lord of the Rings was about characters, certainly, but they were living and dying in a world that had already been created and was unique.  That's why that world feels expansive.  Tolkien already had a mythology and languages and history created.  Likewise role playing games just expand on a world because they know that you're coming to play in their world.  They do nothing but create mythos and history so it's expansive.

So again, I'm  not knocking King's Quest at all.  I don't think that the games would have been any better if Roberta had sat down and created an entire world and mythology ahead of time, then created the games.  However the fact is that Roberta was about creating games for these characters (which is you.)  The lands were extensions of that.  And the legends and tales of the real world became characters and development in King's Quest.  It's certainly made for good games, but I don't believe it would make for an expansive universe.

In a lot of ways what you said makes KQ actually much more fertile ground for future stories than some say. While it may not be able to expand to become it's own universe (I still think it could if people began writing side stories which at first had marginal ties to the main KQ series and then just later letting them become works of their own), it allows for KQ to practically go anywhere. That's kind of why I love every one of the KQ games--for the variety. Because there are very few rules. Each game brings something different to the table. You want a simple quest centered around retrieving treasures? KQ1's your game. You want a romantic, simple fairy tale mixture with a bit of poetic depth? KQ2's just for you. You want a more mature game with spells and a sense of urgency? KQ3! You want a dark, eerie, spooky almost horror tale, with a dreary storyline and a lonely, dangerous realm? KQ4! You want a fun, beautiful, epic journey through several worlds, with an everyman sort of Harrison Ford film plot? KQ5! You want a love story mixed with a complicated conspiracy and back stabbing and the like and a deeper storyline? KQ6! You want a fun, cutesy, adorable, Disney-esque game for you and your kis to both enjoy? KQ7! You want a deep, religious themed, Tolkien-esque, high fantasy, darker sort of tale? KQ8.

The possibilities are endless really. With such loose rules, you have a series which could go on as long as there's interest and creative minds. And I do believe there is room for the universe of KQ to expand.

Consider Wizard & the Princess. It's set in the King's Quest universe. in fact, right in Serenia (which we visit with Graham in KQ5), but it isn't a KQ game. Why not have other games like that? Set in the world of KQ, in a land or lands established in a previous game, but not be a pure KQ game? It could start as easily as that, slowly, until elements are added and the universe expands and begins to take on a life of it's own.

[Cez]

I stopped playing for a while, and picked up with the Playstation 2. I moved on from adventures to JRPGs, then to all other things.

[DawsonJ]

I agree with your points, Damar. I appreciate that there are many here who can explain their thoughts so well. Unfortunately, my opinions tend to be less than clear. You've clarified some of my points about KQ. Thank you! But, I want to expand a little by saying that there was nothing, outside of the Royal Family and the word "Daventry", that connected most of the stories and lands. Along with that, Roberta often left us with little-to-no info on supportive NPCs. For example, in KQ6, the pawn shop owner, though often visited throughout the game, never had so much as a name until Peter Spears wrote about him.

[Baggins]

KQ8 is probably the only KQ game that hints at world creation myth, but it's largely based on judeochristian myth. In DOD one of the poems speaks of Creation, the number seven, and the trinity.

Seriously the the material that develops KQ world's cultural elements, creation stories, etc, are  mainly found in the manuals, novels and king's quest companion.

Christianity actually is mentioned I KQ4 thanks to a quite from the Shakespeare book!

[DawsonJ]

Seriously the the material that develops KQ world's cultural elements, creation stories, etc, are  mainly found in the manuals, novels and king's quest companion.

... Just not in the games. 

[Baggins]

Well KQ6 an KQ8 are probably the only game worlds filled with major backstories and culture. In Kq6 it's even discussed in the narration to a degree. Many characters even go into the backstories and history of the islands and land of the dead.

To a lesser extent KQ7 world has a well developed culture. You also get hints into life at the castle from discussion between Rosella and Valanice in the intro.

KQ5 had nods to a larger world behind the scenes... We learn tantalizing tidbits about organizations such as the Society of Wizards... It talks about kingdom of the Green Isles, etc.

Btw Damar, Quest for Glory also has a pluralistic religious viewpoints a well. In QFG3 the game discusses the Egyptian afterlife and the player even talks to Ra from that afterlife. In QFG5 the game shows Hades, but mentions Hell exists as well!

The manual for KQ6, Derek, suggests that there may be more than one afterlife, but it's discussing the version believed in the Green Isles...  KQ7 suggests at several points that Ooga Booga is the afterlife for those that die in Eldritch and Etheria! They go on to live there!

[Damar]

In a lot of ways what you said makes KQ actually much more fertile ground for future stories than some say. While it may not be able to expand to become it's own universe (I still think it could if people began writing side stories which at first had marginal ties to the main KQ series and then just later letting them become works of their own), it allows for KQ to practically go anywhere. That's kind of why I love every one of the KQ games--for the variety. Because there are very few rules. Each game brings something different to the table. You want a simple quest centered around retrieving treasures? KQ1's your game. You want a romantic, simple fairy tale mixture with a bit of poetic depth? KQ2's just for you. You want a more mature game with spells and a sense of urgency? KQ3! You want a dark, eerie, spooky almost horror tale, with a dreary storyline and a lonely, dangerous realm? KQ4! You want a fun, beautiful, epic journey through several worlds, with an everyman sort of Harrison Ford film plot? KQ5! You want a love story mixed with a complicated conspiracy and back stabbing and the like and a deeper storyline? KQ6! You want a fun, cutesy, adorable, Disney-esque game for you and your kis to both enjoy? KQ7! You want a deep, religious themed, Tolkien-esque, high fantasy, darker sort of tale? KQ8.

The possibilities are endless really. With such loose rules, you have a series which could go on as long as there's interest and creative minds. And I do believe there is room for the universe of KQ to expand.

Consider Wizard & the Princess. It's set in the King's Quest universe. in fact, right in Serenia (which we visit with Graham in KQ5), but it isn't a KQ game. Why not have other games like that? Set in the world of KQ, in a land or lands established in a previous game, but not be a pure KQ game? It could start as easily as that, slowly, until elements are added and the universe expands and begins to take on a life of it's own.

In my opinion, that much freedom would dilute the nature of the game.  It's like going to a restaurant and having Mexican, Chinese, Thai, burgers and fries, BBQ, and vegetarian all on the same menu.  You need to have focus if you're going to expand otherwise you get lost in the variety.  (The only restaurant I've ever seen that pulls off an expansive menu is the Cheesecake Factory, and that's because you're there for the cheesecake.  The meal is just foreplay.  But I digress...)  I think ultimately the wide open rules in the King's Quest world would rob the game of what we enjoy about it and make it feel nebulous.  The King's Quest games all had the Royal Family (the cheesecake) as a grounding influence.  Trying to expand King's Quest without any grounding influences would just lead to people feeling that the concept of "King's Quest" has been lost and transmuted into something new (or a copy of something old like Tolkien or the myriad clones that copied from him.)

Not to mention it also results in people saying, "That's not King's Quest," which then results in a "Yeah-huh!" "Nuh-uh!" argument.  As an example see any discussion on MOE.  I can verbalize exactly why I feel MOE doesn't work as a King's Quest despite being a fun game made by Roberta Williams and Baggins can verbalize exactly why it is connected with King's Quest.  To which I can verbalize why those connections aren't enough.  To which Baggins can verbalize why they are and expound on other connections.  King's Quest will collapse under the expansiveness of its own universe if people try to keep adding to it (again, it's the main reason I don't own or care to own the Companion.)  The menu is just too expansive.  It needs the grounding influence of the Royal Family, and even then the universe can still grow too big for them, like Dawson was saying (by the way, loved the Klaus Nomi reference a page back, Dawson).

And yeah, I know we get references, Baggins.  But the issue is that nothing is really expanded.  The mythology of the Green Isles was created for KQ6.  The socio-political issues of Eldritch were created for KQ7.  Malicia's volcano had no apparent implications for Llewdor, though.  The Realm of the Dead was later tossed to create the Dimension of Death for MOE.  The Society of Wizards is a throwaway line that has no bearing on the quest (outside of why that impotent governing body didn't sanction Mordack when they had the chance.)  Everything is created for the game itself, is my point.  And that means no overarching culture of the King's Quest world.  It is entirely predicated on the real world and creating and selling games.

[Baggins]

Star Trek in many ways is the same way, everything revolved around the crew of Enterprise. Yet each story are stand alone for the most part with little interconnecting elements with other episodes. Set on a different world, different adversaries etc.

Enterprise is like Daventry, the crew is like the Royal Family...

[DawsonJ]

Star Trek in many ways is the same way, everything revolved around the crew of Enterprise. Yet each story are stand alone for the most part with little interconnecting elements with other episodes. Set on a different world, different adversaries etc.

Enterprise is like Daventry, the crew is like the Royal Family...

Unfortunately, most of the other lands - Llewdor, Tamir, etc... - wore red shirts, and they disappeared once each new game came out.

[Baggins]

Dawson, Lol.

t professional fan fiction Peter Spear wrote officially for Sierra.

Sort of an oxymoron... The correct terminology is licensed fiction, or profic (licensed fiction may not necessarily be written by a series fans but someone commissioned for the work). For example Sierra commissioned eluki be shahar a professional fantasy novelist to write the KQ6 novelization for the third edition. If she was a KQ fan or not is unclear (Actually Peter Spear's suggests she wasn't a KQ fan, and never knew what KQ was until she wrote the story for Sierra (i'm paraphrasing past his fictional suggestion that the story was given to her mysteriously).

Also unlike most fan fiction (which btw fan games fall under) some licensed fic is developed or overseen by the creators of the series. In the case of the KQ companion Peter Spear directly worked with Roberta, Ken Willians, Jane Jensen and even Lorelei Shannon on his work. There is a reason why Derek Karlavagen appears in KQ6.

The KQ novels were also licensed products had little or no input from Roberts (in contrast to the Companion), and more than likely the authors were just commissioned novelists rather than fans (but who knows). But considering that the Thr Floating Castle tends to have a different vibe is more serious story than KQ tends to be, is more high fantasy than fairy tale, and a darker more melancholy tone, I wouldn't be surprised if author (Craig Mills) wasn't a series fan. Also consider that the author's previous works were also certainly not KQ in style and rather melancholy dark fantasy.

Btw some of the Companion's material made it back into the games. A line in Roberta's updated script in KQ5 NES was taken from the Companion for example. The manual from KQ5 and a quote in KQ5 also references the Companion. There is even a line in KQ6 in some versions that makes reference to Derek Karlavaegen, and Several more references in the official KQ6 Hintbook by Lorelei Shannon! Of course quite a bit of Companion references in the 15th Anniversary KQ collection, and Sierra's King Questions trivia computer game!

Fan fiction unlike some of the licensed fiction has no direct impact on development and stories of official games. Fan fiction is not likely to be referenced in official games.

[Bludshot]

Critics still complained that adventure games were old and outdated, even with 3d the genre hadn't innovated itself.

It's a sad fact, that Sierra's last true adventure went out with a market wimper.... The powers that be never gave the genre another chance.

In all fairness, GK3 didn't innovate anything except having a movable camera.  I think it's silly to complain about outside forces when every other genre adapted and ultimately improved with the times.  Do you think we'd have so many FPS games if we were still operating on a Doom level of gameplay?

RPGs did the same thing, they found the need for more involved plots and more streamlined gameplay. 

Adventure games found innovation in KQ5's user interface and beautiful painted backgrounds...in 1990.   And nothing really changed past that.

[Baggins]

Bludshot, I think you are just reinforcing one of many points i've tried to make in this thread, and others...

Adventure games were bound to die, because they were not innovative anymore... The fans who stuck with them were not open to innovation. Those who stopped playing them, stopped playing them because they weren't innovative anymore. Most of other game audience otu there wasn't interested in them because other genres were innovating the gaming market...

Roberta tried to 'innovate', and it backfired.

[DawsonJ]

Personally, I sometimes need to take a break from one type of games - especially if a series is becoming redundant. Adventure games really did that; they just became too repetitive. Now, we've had some time without any big series, so adventure games are making a comeback, though still not comparable to many other genres in numbers. There's some success, due to TellTale and others' releases, such as Machinarium, Edna and Harvey, Kaptain Brawe, etc. which are encouraging a new generation of gamers.