And then again, you have many fans who say TSL is very true to the King's Quest series, including its creator Roberta Williams herself. Let me say that I was very nervous of what her comments would be given the bleakness of Ep1. But she, as many others, found it to be very true to King's Quest.
We did play it safe by placing the story in the Land of the Green Isles. This story hasn't even started and there are a couple of twists down the line that I have no idea how most fans will take, but we are proud of where we took King's Quest. To us, King's Quest needed some reinventing, whether we did or did not do the correct thing, everyone will judge differently, but at the end of the day, we are very happy and pleased with what we put together. And again, if we got Roberta's approval on it, and many fans approval on it, that's more than we could have ever asked for.
I personally consider "Harry Potter" the fairytale of today's audience. I'm not the biggest fans, but I've appreciated its story. I call it "teen fantasy" but the truth is that it has captivated beyond its intended audience, and that's because that's what today audiences like. We basically decided to take the material of King's Quest VI and figured out what would happen if the story played closer to a "real" story. We wanted to develop these characters, to see them going through these trials and to see them affected by then. That was the choice we made. Personally, it's not that I deliberately chose a style other than Roberta's. If I had, TSL would be something else entirely. I took Roberta's world and gave it my touch in the writing style, because otherwise I wouldn't be honest, and I don't believe in things I do without being honest. I must have that thing that makes me push day after day to get it done, and that thing for me lies in the way the center themes are written. The magic/fantastical/whimsical side of King's Quest is in our game, and it plays as an absolute as the dark story does. But to me, the story, the center story, that which carries the game is the most important aspect of the two, and the fantastical side compliments this story, much like, again, Harry Potter, or in another perfect example, Kingdom Hearts.
Did KQ need to be reinvented? Some will think not. We thought that it needed it. And we went ahead and spent these many years holding true to that vision. Even Josh Mandel, who holds your same position congratulated me in staying true to my vision, and going through all the trouble to make it happen. So, I apologize if you don't like the story, you've made that extremely clear once and again, but TSL is here the way it is and it's not going to change its tone. It'll become brighter, the rest of the episodes are not as bleak in nature as the first one, which set the mood for what's to come, but it does hold its whimsical and goofy tone and balances it with the tone we introduced in Ep1. So there's a bit for everyone.