Space Quest heading to the iPad!

[dark-daventry]

Seriously, I'd love to see one of Activison's Nintendo DS/Iphone departments use the IP. A new portable KQ, would probably sell pretty well. The systems are easy to develop for, built for adventures, and as I understand fairly cheap to develop for. All they would need is some decent advertising and they'd be good to go.

It doesn't necessarily have to be an 'adventure game' I think KQ1 is detailed enough that an overhead rpg could be designed within the bounds of the universe. I know some people are die hard against violence in KQ games, but imo I think RPG's allow for tight stories to be told, and violence need not be a detriment to the enjoyment of the game. Besides, I'd still have alot of fun.

IMO, I don't think Police Quest breaking out of the constraints of the Adventure Game genre, hurt the series at all. The SWAT games were loads of fun (especially the ones that dropped the Police Quest moniker). But I think it would be cool if they did go back to the series roots for a DS/Iphone app.

I'd love to see the first KQ game re-tooled for the iPhone or DS. The DS would be a really cool take on it, being able to use the touch screen for the inventory and the top screen for the gameplay.

[Baggins]

You know I had a typo in my last post, I meant King's Quest in general, not KQ1 remade as an RPG. But come to think of it, maybe its freudian... Actually KQ1 could easily be remade into an RPG. It already has "random encounters". You'd just have to allow Graham the ability to fight them to gain experience. It would need alot more encounters. It's also got a decent overworld map that could inspire a much larger version of Daventry to explore.

The three great treasures? That's not unlike finding the mythic treasures in every Zelda game. Lunar had its Dragons (and the Dragonmaster armor). So you could see them tied into the expanded story, perhaps flash backs to their use in some great war centuries before, and a prophecy that Graham must fulfill beyond simply the "Quest for the Crown". There are several major creatures that could be retooled as boss fights.

Plus they could add in many new events. Perhaps collecting the crown, 1/3 of the game, and only leads to an even greater danger, predicted by the prophecy (which the three treasures are needed to thwart).

Perhaps Graham would have to go through early adventure, training to be a knight, proving his worth to Edward, before the "quest for the crown" portion even begins. Allowing for a kind of prequel to KQ story.

Fitting in a party need not be difficult either. Perhaps a minstrel character that joins Graham to chronicle his adventures (every game needs a "Spoony Bard"), another fellow knight in the land, who also competing for the crown (but slowly becomes loyal to Graham), and some kind of female mystic/healer/oracle of sorts met in the kingdom.

[dark-daventry]

You know I had a typo in my last post, I meant King's Quest in general, not KQ1 remade as an RPG. But come to think of it, maybe its freudian... Actually KQ1 could easily be remade into an RPG. It already has "random encounters". You'd just have to allow Graham the ability to fight them to gain experience. It would need alot more encounters. It's also got a decent overworld map that could inspire a much larger version of Daventry to explore.

The three great treasures? That's not unlike finding the mythic treasures in every Zelda game. Lunar had its Dragons (and the Dragonmaster armor). So you could see them tied into the expanded story, perhaps flash backs to their use in some great war centuries before, and a prophecy that Graham must fulfill beyond simply the "Quest for the Crown". There are several major creatures that could be retooled as boss fights.

Plus they could add in many new events. Perhaps collecting the crown, 1/3 of the game, and only leads to an even greater danger, predicted by the prophecy (which the three treasures are needed to thwart).

Perhaps Graham would have to go through early adventure, training to be a knight, proving his worth to Edward, before the "quest for the crown" portion even begins. Allowing for a kind of prequel to KQ story.

Fitting in a party need not be difficult either. Perhaps a minstrel character that joins Graham to chronicle his adventures (every game needs a "Spoony Bard"), another fellow knight in the land, who also competing for the crown (but slowly becomes loyal to Graham), and some kind of female mysic/healer/oracle of sorts met in the kingdom.

I'd rather KQ remain an adventure game. Sierra's RPG series is Quest for Glory, after all, not KQ. By changing KQ into an RPG, I personally feel it's not the same game. That doesn't mean I'm not open to the idea of expanding on the overall KQ plot, but I'd rather not have the series turned into an RPG. It's one thing to make an adventure game more "sellable" to today's audience by retooling the genre a bit, like adding new interfaces, and extremely limited combat, but it's quite another to turn it into something it isn't. I'm all for changing the formula of the adventure genre, but not changing the game into a different genre. But that's just me.

[Baggins]

Well to be fair, its said the new changes, including RPG bits brought new audiences to KQ8, and praise at the time of its release (it received great reviews from companies that rarely looked at Adventure Games genre at the time). Even Just Adventure, and Adventure Gamers that were primarily adventure game reviewers, gave it great reviews, even though it was marred by limitations (by today's standards). A few of old timer reviews for KQ7, on the contrary, from places like Adventure Gamers, and Just Adventure were saying that the series was showng its age at the time of its release, and offering anything new.

But again, this is a matter of tastes. I respect that that not everyone would want to see another KQ RPG, or even a KQ re-imagining.

I'm also seriously at a point, where I'd like to see Activision use the IP in anyway possible, rather than let it linger and rot into obscurity. Except to us diehards...

As for Quest for Glory, I'm not sure who owns the rights to that anymore. I've heard rumors that rights might actually be in limbo... Some bits belong to the Coles, and some bits to Activision... Hurting its future... and may be the reason why the collection hasn't been rereleased in a while.

Case in Point the Cole's "School for Heroes" uses many elements from the QFG universe, but you don't see any reference to the name, "QFG". As I recall, they have admitted they can't use the term QFG itself.

[dark-daventry]

Well to be fair, its said the new changes, including RPG bits brought new audiences to KQ8, and praise at the time of its release (it received great reviews from companies that rarely looked at Adventure Games genre at the time). Even Just Adventure, and Adventure Gamers that were primarily adventure game reviewers, gave it great reviews, even though it was marred by limitations (by today's standards). A few of old timer reviews for KQ7, on the contrary, from places like Adventure Gamers, and Just Adventure were saying that the series was showng its age at the time of its release, and offering anything new.

But again, this is a matter of tastes. I respect that that not everyone would want to see another KQ RPG, or even a KQ re-imagining.

As for Quest for Glory, I'm not sure who owns the rights to that anymore. I've heard rumors that rights might actually be in limbo... Some bits belong to the Coles, and some bits to Activision... Hurting its future... and may be the reason why the collection hasn't been rereleased in a while.

I heard rumblings that either a remake and/or new game in the QfG series was under development. Whether or not there's any truth to that, I couldn't tell you.

And don't get me wrong; I love RPGs. I'm a huge Fable, Fallout and Oblivion fan. I love my RPGs. I just don't want to see KQ turned into one. And MoE wasn't a bad game necessarily, I just don't think it works with the KQ series well. By itself, it was a great game. I just don't feel it deserves the title of KQ8. In my mind, it is part of the KQ series, I just wouldn't give it a numerical value. I've played the game beginning to end, and it's not bad. The plot is decent, the controls aren't bad; the whole game is good, but it's just not KQ as I remember it. And that's not to say KQ can't change, but a change that drastically in that span of time is another thing. It went from point and click straight to RPG. There was nothing in between to get acclimated to, and to perfect future revisions of the formula.

[Baggins]

Well, don't want to go into this arguement again, but KQ8, actually used a similar point and click single cursor,  inventory interface of KQ7, with its form of menu bar, interaction, etc.

The hack and slash was tacked on top of that.

So it is a rather strange hybrid of sorts. It has more in common with early QFG (1-4)'s style of RPG elements mixed with inventory adventure puzzles, i'd say (but much simplified with only one experience bar, rather than experience for different traits).

As far as Adventure/RPG hybrids are concerned, I haven't seen many out there, and about the only ones are QFG, KQ8, and Maddog Williams... These types of games shouldn't really be lumped together with "RPGs" as a rule (as they are more than that), as they are something different.

http://www.gamecrafters.com/gamecrafters/maddog/

A fun free game, btw (very KQsty, especially some similarieties to KQ8, but in 2-d format). It has limited single RPG experience bar as I recall, but maintains the point and click aspects of adventure games like KQ8 did Edit: (actually its been a while it might actually have a parser).

Move on to Action/Adventure realm, and you can toss in Alone in the Dark, and Tomb Raider/clones (MOE had a bit of the latter in hits hybrid nature).

Now, QFG5, that game went almost straight traditional action-RPG, hack and slash, and lacked proper adventure puzzles... (actually the inventory is primarily used for weapons, armor, food, and medicine). There is like at the most 10 actual "puzzle items" but they aren't really used for much as far as interesting solution (I could probably name many of them from memory, if I tried). It almost has more in common with the interface in Return to Krondor if anything (although that had a more turn-based rpg rather than hack and slash IIRC)...

[MusicallyInspired]

I wouldn't mind seeing QFG rebooted into something like Oblivion. I also wouldn't mind seeing King's Quest rebooted into something of a combination of adventure a la Telltale and a slightly more balanced and enjoyable rendition of the action/adventure style of MOE. I'd totally be cool with all that.



If the stories were good.

[Baggins]

I'm all about the story!

[dark-daventry]

if the story is good, I'm willing to give in to such a change, but I wouldn't expect such an outcome. Both of the newer Leisure Suit Larry games have sucked, and I wouldn't expect a good outcome for any official KQ game coming out in the future. Although, it sure would be a good idea for Activision to officially reboot the series. I mean, it's been dormant long enough that the reveal itself would add shock value. And shock value is good for a company. If Activision announced a new Quest game at E3 2011 during their press conference, it'd be good for them. I don't care what series it's in; announcing a new Quest game at a major Video Game event would bring recognition back to one of the most influential genre's of all time, and, if the game/trailer/reveal is any good, could rebuild an entire franchise for the modern age. There is life left in the Quest family, lot's of it. But it's up to activision, and activision alone, to realize and utilize this life. Activision holds in its hands what was once among the most popular game series ever created. Each KQ game that was released pushed the boundaries of technology. The entire Quest series is legendary. Ask any first generation gamer. They'll most likely tell you they played KQ or another of Sierra's Quest games. And you know what? I'd be fine if they started out small; release an official port on the app store to gauge interest. If the interest is there, start development on a new game. And don't just throw a story together at the last minute. Get a good story, one that would honor the Quest series. Heck, hire TellTale to do it. That'd be better anyway. They have experience with modern adventure games, so why not?

[Baggins]

To be fair, I wouldn't place my judgement on LSL games, they never had stories that I found all that interesting... :p... Its really a completely different genre of story telling. They Activision have never been behind those games as far as  I know that was Vivendi and later Code Masters... So no telling what Activision could do with the IP. They don't have rights to it anyways, so we'll never know. So you can't really attack Activision for the quality of those games, its a bit unfair.

I'm not sure what Activision could do with a fantasy game, since I haven't really played any fantasy games they have put out in recent memory (a long time ago they used have a nice Adventure Game division though, but that's long gone). I think they were behind the american publication of the first and possibly second Simon the Sorcerer's back in the day. Do they have any recent fantasy games (not counting Blizzard of course)?

I love COD, but I don't think you could have Call of King's Quest. CoKQ?

Btw, seriously walls of text, could you break up your paragraphs a little bit more?  

hire TellTale to do it. That'd be better anyway. They have experience with modern adventure games, so why not?

Good question though, other than Cez, who are KQ fans at Telltale? I've always got the impression from people who are fans of Telltale, and the occasional developer there that have posted, that they are more "Lucasarts" fans, and never "got" what the big deal was with Sierra games. ...and who knows what would happen if they designed a King's Quest from a Lucasarts mentality?

I think there was especially a disconnect, when people were discussing, idea of a "space quest" sequel, most forum members, not really understand it's brand of humor, and prefering Lucasarts humor instead.

[MusicallyInspired]

I don't trust Telltale to handle Sierra games. They don't 'get it'.