Skipping parts of King's Quest: Mask of Eternity

[Matthew1987]

In late 2013, Korzic posted a speedrun of King's Quest: Mask of Eternity in which he, in a segmented run, beat the game in a little over an hour.  He took advantage of bugs in the game to skip various parts, without cheating.

After he made that speedrun, he started to find some additional tricks.  I tried doing the tricks he did, and found some additional tricks myself, which I told him about.

In the year and a half since, he and I have been finding more, and more, and more ways of skipping parts of KQMOE.  Recently, I did a full playthrough of the game in which I did extensive searching for tricks.  Of course I did this when playing it in stereoscopic 3D with my modified version of OpenGlide (I always play it in S3D now).

This has been an amazing experience that has changed the way I look at that game.  Although I knew it was buggy, I had no idea how incredibly broken a game King's Quest: Mask of Eternity is.  Here are some of the many, many things that Korzic and I have found:



* Many of the walls can be clipped through by moving against them in certain ways.  This is tricky to do, but allows you to skip many parts of the game.  It also allows you to go out of bounds in the "enclosed" regions (Castle Daventry, The Underground Realm of the Gnomes, and The Temple of the Sun).

* For example, in Daventry, you can clip in and out of the knight's tomb, the waterfall area, the area in the mill where the rope and hook is, and the mausoleum at the graveyard.  If you clip into the back of the mausoleum at the graveyard, you will be in the Dimension of Death, with the Shadow Bane just standing there doing nothing.  You can go through the portal to the other side, which will still activate the cutscene where Connor sees Dante, and get the necessary information for the wizard.

* In a number of places, it is possible to pick up or use an object that Connor shouldn't be able to access because it is obstructed, by manipulating the camera.

* For example, in Daventry, if you move the camera inside the wall of the church, it is possible to pick up the candle from outside.

* In the Dimension of Death, with the portal to Daventry, if you go around the portal entry trigger, the portal can be clipped through.  You can then run around the region, and get back in a few places, including the Hall of War, from which you can then get to the area where the portal to the Swamp is.  This allows you to skip the entire region.

* In a number of places, it is possible to jump up to places that are supposed to be too high for you to reach, by exploiting the game's physics.

* For example, in the Swamp, at the corners of the wall at the Golden Ladle area, you can backflip onto the wall by using the adjacent terrain to boost the height of the jump.  You can also clip through the wall and the doors.  This allows you to skip using the Henchman's hand to open the door, which allows you to skip getting the second Mask piece (which you don't need; you'll see why later).

* At the Swamp Witch's castle, by manipulating the camera in a certain way, it is possible to purify the cauldron from outside the Witch's castle.  This allows you to skip killing the witch, and skip getting the bow and arrow (which you normally need to open the gate).

* In the Gnome Realm, at the start of the region, if you clip out of the tunnel in the right location, you'll end up on top of another tunnel.  By navigating on top of the tunnels, you can skip to the Dragon Wyrm's lair, clipping in through the south wall.  You can then bypass the Dragon Wyrm by clipping through the adjacent walls (this allows you to skip getting the crystal by the fire).  You can then clip through the bricks.

* In the Barren Region, at the entrance to the Fire Dwarf area, if you clip into the wall and backflip against the adjacent terrain, Connor will get caught in the gap between the terrain and the wall and be forced up to the top.  You can then navigate on top of the tunnels and skip ahead to the room where Queen Freesa is, clipping in at that location.  By having the camera in the correct position, you can then pick up the hubcap from behind the gate.  You can also clip into one of the walls of the room with the safe, move the camera inside the safe, and pick up the other hubcap, without having to open the safe, or even enter the room.  This allows you to skip rescuing Queen Freesa.

* In the Frozen Reaches, it is possible to clip into the tunnel where the entrance to Paradise Lost is.  This allows you to skip getting the Flame Sword, and skip killing the two-headed dragon.

* In Paradise Lost, the game only checks for the Barren Region and Frozen Reaches Mask pieces.  This means that you don't have to get the Swamp Mask piece.

* In the Temple of the Sun, the locked doors to the room with the Temple Sword can be clipped through.

* In the Temple of the Sun, with all three of the level exits, the doors can be bypassed by clipping through the adjacent walls.

* In the Temple of the Sun, with the doors leading to the Altar Room, the area above the doors can be clipped through.  This allows you to skip getting the fifth Mask piece.  When you place the Mask pieces on the pedestal, the game will always place them in the same order, regardless of which pieces you click on, will allow you to place a piece you don't have if you click on another piece, and will remove from your inventory the pieces the game places (if you have them), not the ones you click on.  This allows you to beat the game with only three of the Mask pieces.



With all this, the game can probably be beaten in around 30 minutes.

Here is a video Korzic recorded of Daventry being beaten in less than 12 minutes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYLnr0Oxv0w

And that's just Daventry.

EDIT: I've now discovered even more things.  I've updated this post.

[Numbers]

Playing Mask of Eternity without running into game-breaking bugs? 'Tis beyond your reach!

Mask certainly had a troubled production, didn't it? How could a game with that long of a development cycle play so sh*tty? I've never heard of--



...oh.