
Royal with Cheese: A King's Quest Primer - lermontov
http://www.polygon.com/2015/7/28/9023667/kings-quest-history
======
pimlottc
This is a fine basic plot overview, but if you really want to get the full
backstory of how the original King's Quest came to be, I recommend this piece
from The Digital Antiquarian:

[http://www.filfre.net/2013/07/the-unmaking-and-remaking-
of-s...](http://www.filfre.net/2013/07/the-unmaking-and-remaking-of-sierra-on-
line/)

A note of warning - if you're of a certain age, be prepared to get sucked in.
It's a massive trove of some of the best written and researched longform
content on the history of PC gaming I've ever seen. Sierra, LucasArts,
Infocom, Origin, Broderbund, Commodore, Atari... it's all there. Great stuff.

~~~
gjtorikian
You're completely right. I started reading this on my commute and am
thoroughly enjoying it. Thanks for sharing!

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ovulator
What I miss most about the old point and click adventure games, that is sorely
lacking in modern video games is the humor.

Modern video games are so dark, and take themselves so seriously, it is just
tiring.

~~~
dade_
LOL, point and click. More like press F3 and type LOOK UNDER THE BRIDGE

Oh, they were the good old days and to your point about humour, the responses
from Space Quest to text commands it didn't understand were a perfect example:
"Pardon me. This program is too stupid to glean your desire from such a
wonderfully crafted sentence. Please try something else."

[http://spacequest.wikia.com/wiki/SQ3_transcript](http://spacequest.wikia.com/wiki/SQ3_transcript)

------
sp332
You can play the 1983 King's Quest (in your browser!) here
[https://archive.org/details/a2_King_Quest_1983_Sierra_Save](https://archive.org/details/a2_King_Quest_1983_Sierra_Save)
Unfortunately they don't have the others (or at least they're not up and
running yet).

~~~
benologist
You can get them all on GOG too, along with all the other Sierra classics:

[https://www.gog.com/mix/sierra_quest_games_1](https://www.gog.com/mix/sierra_quest_games_1)

[https://www.gog.com/game/quest_for_glory](https://www.gog.com/game/quest_for_glory)

~~~
mzs
Careful, I bought some and they were worse versions than I played. Can't
recall the details, but I think KQ5 was not the CD version and KQ4 was the
original graphics with some game ending bugs version too. Maybe GoG updated
them since.

~~~
benologist
I've beaten KQ 1 through 4 from GOG, 4 definitely has some bugs and took
several restarts - the whale sometimes didn't exist.

------
dharma1
Like the hand painted textures. Good to see Sierra return. Hero's Quest next?

~~~
cowpewter
Do you mean the Quest for Glory series? The original designers having been
working on a spiritual successor through Kickstarter:
[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/transolargames/hero-
u-r...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/transolargames/hero-u-rogue-to-
redemption)

I backed it, but it's been slow going, and they've already run out of money
once (and rather controversially had a _second_ kickstarter to raise more
money), so I'm not very optimistic. Video game projects seem to flounder on
Kickstarter unless they've already got a decent playable demo made before they
start raising money.

~~~
genericuser
Hero's Quest was the original name, the EGA version of the first one was
released under. Due to Sierra not trademarking it, the name had to be changed
to Quest for Glory. 1 and 2 are still some of my favorite games of all time,
if you haven't played the VGA port of 2 that was done by agd interactive I
strongly recommend it.

~~~
cowpewter
Quest for Glory 4 was always my favorite of the series. I loved the darkness
and lore of Mordavia, and had a huge crush on Katrina. 2 was the first one I
played, but most of my memories of it involve dying, getting lost, and was
there some time-based mechanism in that game? I feel like some of my failures
were based on not getting to certain places by a certain time... I was only 10
years old, and some of those puzzles were pretty difficult.

I haven't replayed any of them since around the time 5 was released. I am
definitely going to have to look up that remake.

~~~
bentcorner
I _loved_ QfG2. I even hand-made a map of the entire city and labelled where
everything was. It made traversing the mirror city a lot easier. I also got
really really quick at typing "ask about".

Fun game. That "Suleiman" answer later in the game was total bullshit though.
I only learned that through one of those red-cellophane sierra hint books and
never could figure out how you were supposed to know that.

It's been a _long_ time, but I think the time-based things might have just
been a day/night cycle?

~~~
cowpewter
Oh man, I never had one of the red text hintbooks, but I do remember paying my
parents back out of my allowance to call the 1-900 hint line a few times.

It's amazing some of the things that don't exist anymore in this modern world
of internet and gamefaqs.

------
smcl
I may have just skewed memories/expectations but the graphics in the earlier
games are excellent compared to what I remember at the time. I'm thinking
specifically of the screenshots of:

KQ5 (1990): [https://cdn1.vox-
cdn.com/thumbor/OIoS9JrnCaaX60mJWfECdJjtVus...](https://cdn1.vox-
cdn.com/thumbor/OIoS9JrnCaaX60mJWfECdJjtVus=/1000x0/filters:no_upscale\(\)/cdn0.vox-
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/3900566/KingQuest5.0.jpg)

KQ6 (1992): [https://cdn2.vox-
cdn.com/thumbor/kZopVZ3ZIoxfkmLrQXeKxlmiVto...](https://cdn2.vox-
cdn.com/thumbor/kZopVZ3ZIoxfkmLrQXeKxlmiVto=/1000x0/filters:no_upscale\(\)/cdn0.vox-
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/3900554/kq6_garden.0.png)

~~~
ovulator
KQ5 also came in an EGA version, so you may have played one with significantly
worse graphics than the 256 color screenshot you provided.

[http://scummvm.org/data/screenshots/sci/kq/kq5-ega-1-full.pn...](http://scummvm.org/data/screenshots/sci/kq/kq5-ega-1-full.png)

~~~
smcl
Ahhh gotcha. Still that EGA screenshot is pretty nice. I think it's running on
an emulator that's applying some smoothing algorithm, but nevertheless I'm
impressed

~~~
coroxout
Not Sierra, but I accidentally bought the EGA version of Monkey Island despite
having a VGA card (I didn't realise there were separate versions and only saw
the sticker on the side when I got home), but they did a really nice job on
the EGA version:
[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B0BX6n1CUAARP_S.jpg](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B0BX6n1CUAARP_S.jpg)

------
megaman22
Definitely brought back memories to see that Sierra loading screen at the
beginning of one of the play-through clips. I spent an embarrassing number of
hours playing Lords of the Realm 2 and Civil War Generals on my first PC. Also
Half-Life, which I believe Sierra published.

Damn, I would love to see Civil War Generals on GoG...

