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Fears and thoughts about the upcomming KQIX title from a dedicated fan.

Started by Noxion, December 11, 2005, 01:57:08 PM

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Noxion

Hi, first of all I would like to introduce myself. My name is Michael and I am a 20 years old graphic designer. When I first got a computer, I was really young - when you learn to walk I learned to type. The first game I played was King's Quest, and at that time I couldn't speak a word of english. I went through the game with my parent's help, translating for me every single hint (french is my first language) or helping me out with the game.

I played space quest too which I really enjoyed, and I also played all the gabriel knights too which were great.

Now, why do I say all that?

Well it's very simple. I love the story of king's quest, I love the enigms, I love the visual style. When King's Quest 7 was released, I was quite happy with the evolution of the game to better visuals and a better game mechanic, and really enjoyed the same good old enigms and play style. However, and I must admit that I am not the only one who thinks that, when King's Quest 8 was released I was really shocked and sad about the orientation that king's quest took.

By going to a 3D environment, and working more on the visual effects than the quality of the game, enigmas and mechanic, I think that the game was ruined and lost of it's quality. I was really sad to learn that after the failure of the last KQ, they would stop the devlopment.

When I saw this website about KQIX I was really surprised, intrigued and interested with the project, but I fear that my expectations of the good old King's Quest might actually be for nothing.

In other words, my fear is that the game engine will actually ruin the good quality of the game, where you actually had to concentrate on enigmas and interraction with scenes and people over having a kick-ass machine and combat like every other adventure game has done, thus making us loose the main idea of the game. Concentrating on the 3D environment can ruin such a game because it brings a hard-to-master element that is actually that environment itself that isin't scenes, that is large, that often brings more useless elements to the game.

Please keep in mind that what king's quest fan are looking forward is not another KQ8, but maybe more a kind of mix between the "according-to-me-ultimate-kq5" fun, story, enigmas and the interface and graphic style of KQ7.

I don't think that a king's quest needs anything else to be good.

Please tell me that you will meet fans expectation and that all this is not just a teaser that will actually get everyone deceived!

With respect,

- Jean Michel Desrosiers

Cez

Jean,

Believe me when I say I truly understand where you are coming from. As a long time fan of the King's Quest series, I too was let down by the release of Mask of Eternity.

However, I must disagree with you on the technical aspects. It's not that I don't agree in the sense that King's Quest spirit lies in the enigmas, the fantasy and the epic feeling, but you can have both. One thing should not ruin the other, but help enhance it.

For one thing, there’s no combat in KQIX. This is a true adventure, and even though it IS 3D, we decided to go screen to screen to keep the old KQ magic contained. However, 3D helps us in providing the story with such a cinematic feeling to it never seen before in a KQ game, and it does work, because it just helps to enhance it. For example, when you decide to talk to a character, the camera moves up right to close ups of the conversation. Think of Gabriel Knight 3. It helps it in a way that it makes it more dynamic, and more interesting.

And again, we have different teams working on different things. Some people take care of the 3D work, but they work from a finished script that contains all the KQ magic. Our Art Director, Richard Flores, understands very well the concept of the art of KQ and has made a beautiful translation into 3D.

That said, this isn’t just another “good old KQ game”. It contains the darker and more mature story to ever have crossed the KQ universe. Which in many people’s opinions is only a good thing. King’s Quest was ready for an epic, something that would take that mysteriousness to the next level. It’s still a KQ, but with greater developed characters.

Fear not, you will enjoy this game!

I recommend you to download the trailer of the game available at adventure-eu.com

Than you for your comments!


Cesar Bittar
CEO
Phoenix Online
cesar.bittar@postudios.com