King's Quest: Quest for the Crown

King's Quest: Quest for the Crown is a computer game, originally published for the IBM PCjr and other systems simply as "King's Quest". Later rereleases added the subtitle to the packaging.

The story and the general design of the game is by Roberta Williams. Williams was the chief designer of all official releases of King's Quest, working with the series all the way up to the last official release.

Story
The Kingdom of Daventry is in serious trouble; its precious magical items &mdash; the Magic Mirror, Shield, and Chest &mdash; have been stolen. King Edward the Benevolent sends his bravest knight, Sir Graham, to retrieve them. If successful, he will become the next king. The original King's Quest 1 contained the introductory tale, The King's Appeal later releases included another version of the introductory tale.

Development and Technology
Released in 1983 by IBM as a demonstration product for their IBM PCjr, King's Quest I is not only the first "animated" adventure game, it was also the first Sierra game to use the AGI engine. (However, the AGI engine wasn't known as such until King's Quest II.) Since the IBM PCjr didn't sell particularly well, the game was later released directly by Sierra for IBM PCs in addition to other platforms such as the Amiga, Atari ST and Sega Master System.

King's Quest I was innovative in its use of 16-color graphics on the PCjr and Tandy 1000; even CGA owners could enjoy 16-color graphics if they used a composite monitor or TV. The level of interaction with the graphics was an enormous leap over the mostly un-animated "rooms" of previous graphical interactive fiction.

In previous games, each "room" was a static pre-drawn background and text description, and your character was usually not visible. You navigated by typing compass directions, which would instantly transport you to adjacent rooms. In King's Quest I, Sir Graham was a fully animated character walking through the CGA-rendered worlds, which were filled with other fully animated characters.

Pressing an arrow key would cause Sir Graham to begin walking in that direction. You could be southwest of a tree, walk east, and Graham would appear to walk in front of the tree. Then you could walk a few steps north, walk back west, and Graham would appear to walk behind the tree. Compass commands were no longer necessary, you moved to adjacent "rooms" by making Graham walk near an edge of the screen. Typing "OPEN DOORS" when near the castle would not cause a static predrawn image of a castle entryway with closed doors to be replaced with a static predrawn image of a castle entryway with open doors; it would cause the doors to visibly swing open.

The game relied primarily on textual input as its interface. Detractors often say that this way of interacting with games is time-consuming and frustrating, however others would argue that it requires more thought on the part of the player because it requires more than point and clicking. One review noted, "Things need to be worded a certain way. You might see a brown CGA lump on the ground and want it, but typing 'PICK UP ROCK' could very well yield you a 'You can't do that - at least not now.' error. But a little patience and a logical mind can always overcome this limitation. 'LOOK AT THE GROUND' You'll see it's not a rock after all; it's actually a walnut. Don't try and be verbose - the parser isn't as intelligent as today's gaming AI technology, or even Infocom's classic parser interfaces. You can't tell the game 'Offer to help the woodcutter with his poverty issues' without getting an 'I don't understand 'offer'.' error, but 'HELP MAN' does the trick." 

Releases
1st Release (1983, IBM PCjr) - The original IBM-branded release for the PCjr. Came with a full keyboard overlay template. "King's Quest". Has its own original soundtrack and sound effects (hear waterfalls, crickets, etc). Included its own original manual, with the story The King's Appeal.

2nd Release (1984, IBM PCjr) - A minor update to the original packaging. Includes a smaller function key template.

3rd Release (1984, Tandy) - A release repackaged for the Tandy 1000.

4rd Release (1984, PC, Apple, Amiga, Atari) - A set of ports for IBM PCs, Apple(with improved sound), Amiga and Atari computers.

5th Release (1987, PC) - A full re-release adding support for the Enhanced Graphics Adaptor (EGA). Ran under DOS, unlike the 1983-1984 releases, which booted directly at startup. The subtitle "Quest for the Crown" appears on the packaging for the first time.

Remakes
SCI remake of King's Quest
 * King's Quest: Quest for the Crown (SMS) (1989, Sega Master System)
 * King's Quest I: Quest for the Crown. (1990, PC, enhanced SCI engine)

Behind the scenes
The original King's Quest, and Apple II versions have a different soundtrack than the later AGI game.

There were apparently two versions of the KQ1 hintbook written by Al Lowe of Leisure Suit Larry fame, magic marker and the hidden window versions.

King's Quest I AGI has been rereleased (2010) in a collection by Activision through GOG.com. The King's Quest 1+2+3 collection.

Look command
The 'look' command cannot be used by itself, it must be paired with another word, such as 'look room' or in a few instances, 'look around' (for a general description of the room the player is in), or more specific commands based on objects on the screen such as 'look lake'. Some descriptions in the game can only be seen if Graham is standing next to the object. For example on screens with more than one tree, there is a generic default description if you type "look tree", but if you are standing next a tree, there may be an alternate description, specific to the tree. Move to another tree, and you may get yet another description for the same command of 'look tree'. KQ1SCI remake took this further, offering many descriptions on screen, but to access some of them you had to 'right click on an object to look at it'. Another example in the original is being close to an object my solicite a different description, than being far away from it. For example being close or on top of the clover patch would offer a different description than standing away from it elsewhere on the screen. The game's different descriptions based on Graham's physical perspective on the screen offered more descriptions that could be read by simply typing out general look commands.

In some cases, looking at an object might give a 'random' description. For example on some screens "look tree", might give 2-3 different generic descriptions from anywhere in the screen. This can be seen by just standing in one place and typing 'look tree' multiple times in a row, too see the varous messages.

Seasonal placement
The age of Graham during KQ1, comes from the KQ6 hintbook and KQ7 hint guide. The KQ7 guide states that he went on the adventure only a few days past his 19th birthday.

There are a few references which imply the season in KQ1 SCI, a squirrel is collecting nuts, "...before next winter..." (so it takes place before winter), and if you look at the leaves on the trees growing out of the old gnomes house, it says "...broad leaves provide shade for the gnome during the hot summer months..." (which could imply that the game takes place during or just before the summer), and in one meadow it states, '...beautiful spring flowers ring the meadow..." (implying that it is still spring). There is also a death scene involving falling off the Magic Beanstalk, where it says "have a nice fall this spring." Which would also imply the game is set during the spring. There are several descriptions that describe the weather, one description states that the the weather is "party cloudy, with a high in the mid seventies". Other descriptions state that "...the hot Daventry sun is taking its toll on you", "...the hot Daventry sun is getting to you". The King's Quest companion also states that walked through a field of wildflowers, fresh with their springtime smells. These references imply that Graham's birthday takes place during the spring (but likely late spring on the edge of summer).

There is at least one reference to the hot sun in KQ1AGI.

The King's Quest V Hintbook by Roberta Williams states that Graham went on his adventure during the spring (which would support the reference in the King's Quest Companion to "springtime smells", and KQ1 SCI to the "...spring flowers"...). However, other references in the KQV hintbook are not entirely consistent with other sources. It may indicate however, that Roberta/Josh Mandel took the companion into consideration on that seasonal fact, when making the KQ1.

Fan remakes

 * See King's Quest I: Quest for the Crown VGA.

In 2001, the group AGD Interactive released an unofficial remake based on Sierra's 1990 version, updating the graphics to use 256 colors, dropping the parser in favor of an interface that mimics that of King's Quest V and King's Quest VI, as well as adding full speech for all characters of the game. The latter is especially noteworthy in that even though it is an unofficial, fan-made project, the game's protagonist King Graham is voiced by Josh Mandel, who also spoke the part in Sierra's official CD-ROM full-speech versions of King's Quest V and VI.

In 2009, AGD Interactive released the unofficial King's Quest I: Quest for the Crown 4.0 Enhanced Edition.

Links

 * AGDI Remake
 * Original Soundtrack