King's Quest: Quest for the Crown

King's Quest I: Quest for the Crown is a computer game, originally published for the IBM PCjr simply as "King's Quest".

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 the last official release &mdash; King's Quest VIII.

Story
The Kingdom of Daventry is in serious trouble because 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 he succeeds, he will become the next king.

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 and Remakes
1st Release (1983, IBM PCjr) - The original IBM-branded release for the PCjr. Came with a full keyboard overlay template.

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.

6th Release (1990, PC) - This release is the "Enhanced" version of King's Quest. It uses the SCI engine, the same engine used in titles such as King's Quest IV; while it still used 16-color graphics, it featured twice the resolution, as well as music card support instead of the PC speaker, and mouse support. There are two different box variations for this release This release also featured an enhanced story, with a linear order for the puzzles, and a change to the Rumplestiltskin puzzle.

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.

Cat's Cute and Thorough Description
In KQ I, King Edward commissions his knight, Graham to find the three treasures of the kingdom, the Chest of Gold, which never empties, Merlin's Mirror, and the Shield of Achilles. Graham sets out and goes into an underground cavern to find the mirror. Although it was guarded by a dragon, Graham splashes it with a bucket of water. Embarrassed, the dragon tucks its tail and runs away. Success! One treasure down, two to go!

He makes it to a gingerbread house. After he enters, he waits in the bedroom for Dahlia, the witch, to enter. Then, as she's cooking, he pushes her into her cooking pot. No one really knows WHY he did that, but he did.

Graham later meets a gnome who is spinning gold and has to guess the gnome's name. Any guesses? Anyway, he guesses correctly and receives three small beans, which he plants. An enormous beanstalk suddenly grows and he decides to climb it. Once he reaches the land of the clouds, he sees a giant carrying the magical chest. Graham decides to wait around until the giant falls asleep... which works. Once the giant's asleep, Graham walks right up and takes the chest away, runs down some stairs, out a door and is safe!

Finally, on to the shield which keeps the person holding it from harm. Graham looks up and sees an eagle. For some odd reason, he gets the idea to jump up and have the eagle carry him across the river. Why he couldn't swim, I don't know *shrugs* But the eagle drops him off next to a hole. He drops down the hole, around the corner, and sees a giant rat! What do you do with a rat? Feed it cheese! Thus, the rat runs away, with a full stomach. Behind the rat is a doorway, which Graham goes through and sees some leprechauns. Using the talent of the knight that he is...he plays the fiddle for them, and they all dance off. Graham walks into the throne room of the king of the leprechauns and sees the shield has been left by the king. He takes the shield (is he now a thief??), walks out of the underground cavern and heads back to the castle.

As soon as he arrives, he presents the treasures to King Edward. Just as he's about to crown Graham king... he dies *tear* And thus, the castle and all of Daventry becomes King Graham's.

Now to just find a queen... *dum dum duuummmm*

Links

 * AGDI Remake
 * Original Soundtrack