Special Project

[JDHJANUS]

So, I've mentioned this on Twitter, and I've discussed it with GrahamRocks, but in honor of The Odd Gentlemen's upcoming King's Quest game, I've decided to play through all of the King's Quest narrative games. And I mean ALL of them, to include the various releases of King's Quest I (AGI, SCI, SMS, and VGA), fan games, etc. I'm not playing through trivia/other games that feature the KQ characters, such as King's Questions, King Graham's Board Game Challenge, the Hoyle Book of Games that feature King's Quest characters, etc.

I've played through most of the games growing up, but I haven't played either remake of King's Quest III, or The Silver Lining, or even Mask of Eternity, so this will be interesting when we get to those games!

My rough order is to play them in order by release date:

The Wizard and the Princess
King's Quest I AGI
King's Quest II AGI
King's Quest III AGI
King's Quest IV AGI
King's Quest IV SCI
King's Quest I Sega Master System
King's Quest I SCI
King's Quest V (EGA)
King's Quest V (VGA Talkie)
King's Quest VI (original floppy)
King's Quest VI (CD Talkie)
King's Quest V NES
King's Quest VII
King's Quest ZZT
King's Quest: Mask of Eternity
King's Quest ZZT 2
King's Quest I VGA
King's Quest II VGA
King's Quest 2 1/4
King's Quest III VGA (Infamous Adventures)
King's Quest V: The Text Adventure
Owl's Quest
The Silver Lining (Episodes 1-3)
King's Quest III VGA (ADGI)
The Silver Lining (Episode 4)

That is, to my knowledge, a complete list of all of the King's Quest games. Are there any that I'm missing?

I played through the AGI version of King's Quest I last night. It's been over 10 years since I last played it, but I was impressed at all that I could remember (played this game tons of times growing up). I totally didn't think about The Wizard and the Princess technically being a King's Quest game until someone mentioned it to me (it's set in the same universe as King's Quest, as definitely serves as a precursor), so I will technically play that one out of order, but I'm looking forward to this little project!

Talk to you later!

JDHJANUS
Josh

[Numbers]

That was me who mentioned Wizard and the Princess. It takes place both before and after the rest of the series, as it's a time-travel story. The prologue, as it were, is your character being sent back in time many years to before the events of KQ1, in the land of Serenia, which is where the rest of the game takes place. So technically, Serenia shows up twice in the franchise: once in Wizard and the Princess, and once in KQ5. In the far reaches of the future, the villain of the game, Harlin, comes across your player character who has already defeated him in this timeline, and challenges you to beat him again, sending you back in time, where you will repeat the actions that led to Harlin's defeat, and thus creating a stable time loop.

I must warn you, though; Wizard is not a fun game to play by any means. It came out before KQ1 did, and it shows. The graphics are eye-bleeding, there is barely any sound, and the game misinterprets your text parser a lot. Because of how primitive it is, most screens look exactly the same, and much of the game relies on either sheer luck or you knowing ahead of time what to do. You will also have no idea what the plot is unless you have the game manual.

Oh, and uh, have fun playing Owl's Quest.

[GrahamRocks!]

Is King's Quest ZZT even available to play anymore anywhere? I haven't found anything about it, not even any footage, aside from what the Omnipedia tells me.

[Numbers]

There are multiple download links right there on ZZT's Omnipedia page.

[GrahamRocks!]

Oh.

[Numbers]

"Oh" equals "Facepalm," apparently.

[stika]

Hehe me and Janus had a nice discussion about it on twitter too. Or well, Janus and the PO account

[JDHJANUS]

I have actually played and completed The Wizard and the Princess, as I played through all of Sierra's Hi-Res Adventures once upon a time. It's been quite a while, and at the time, I didn't really think about its connection to King's Quest, so I'm looking forward to playing through it again. Will probably tackle it tonight, since I've already beaten KQIAGI.

If anyone is interested, I will be live-tweeting my thoughts of my playthrough for Wizard and the Princess as I did with King's Quest I. My Twitter handle is @JDHJANUS.

Talk to you later!

JDHJANUS
Josh

[Jack Stryker]

Unicorn Tales is working on a 3D remake of King's Quest IV.  It's been difficult, since the tragic passing of our artist, but we have managed to produce a playable demo here:

http://unicorntales.org/kq4-perilsofrosella-remake/2013/kq4-general-category/fully-playable-demo/playable-demo-v11-released/

[JDHJANUS]

So, thoughts on The Wizard and Princess (played through on Friday night): It's an interesting game. I used a walkthrough, due to my mostly unfamiliarity with the game, as well as its rather unforgiving nature. Not a bad game by any means, but it is definitely something that I would love to see remade into a point and click game, fleshing out the storyline and going more into detail with its connections to the King's Quest plot. Overall, it wasn't a bad game, but it wasn't anything really to write home about. I did notice that there were a LOT of themes that would be repeated in later Roberta games, to include a boat with a hole in it that you had to fix, a bird you had to feed a cracker to, a lion you had to feed, a princess who followed you after you rescued her, using a word on an item to cast a magic spell, someone who steals your treasure if you interact with them, etc.

Tonight I will be playing through the AGI version of King's Quest II. Feel free to read my live tweets at @JDHJANUS.

Talk to you later!

JDHJANUS
Josh

[DreamFan]

Does Peasant's Quest not count as a King's Quest fan game? Maybe, I shouldn't give wikipedia so much credit...

[GrahamRocks!]

Aside from a couple screens looking like King's Quest like the lake, it has nothing to do with it at all. So I doubt it. If anything, Peasant's Quest is moreso a parody of old school adventure games.

It's funny, but has nothing to do with KQ at all.

[Numbers]

Yeah, Peasant's Quest is a parody of the Quest series of games made by the same guys who did Homestar Runner. The fact that Trogdor is the villain of the game should clue you into the fact that it has nothing to do with King's Quest.

[JDHJANUS]

Played through King's Quest III on Saturday and Sunday nights. KQIII has historically always been my least favorite, due to a combination of the threat of the wizard, the annoying-ness of having to cast all of those specific spells so exactly, and the 600 different tiny mountain paths you have to traverse in that game. O_o

Playing it again for the first time in probably 15 years, though, I found that I remembered more than I thought (plus it helps that the ingredients of the spells are all nicely listed in the manual). I will say that this game has improved with age for me. Although I'm still not a fan of Sierra's AGI engine, some of the artwork in this game is pretty stunning, and I was very impressed by what the team did with they resources that the AGI engine held.

I also discovered a few new things, such as:

1. Exploring around the pirates ship just for fun (and dieing numerous times as a result)
2. Finding out that Manannan can teleport you to your room if you don't do your chores
3. Some of the countryside of Daventry has inexplicably changed (such as the well moving right next to the mountain door, despite them being 3-4 screens apart in KQ1, and them both moving up closer to the castle), and
4. Alexander and Rosella can have quite the conversation (where Rosella's characterization is also different from both KQIV AND KQVII), in which Rosella repeatedly calls Valanice "Mum", and Alexander has some rather inappropriate thoughts towards his sister (which I chalk up to being due to the fact that she's the first woman around his age that he's ever seen before...)

Anyways, I will soon continue the project with King's Quest IV AGI!!!!

Talk to you later!

JDHJANUS
Josh

[Numbers]

Make sure you get that "beam me" Easter egg in KQ4 AGI.

[JDHJANUS]

Oh believe me, I intend to do both the beam me and the kqrap easter eggs in that game! It's quite sad that they didn't include them in the SCI version!

Talk to you later!

JDHJANUS
Josh