Cartoon

From King's Quest 1 sierra approached IBM to promote the idea of creating an 'interactive cartoon' game for IBM's PCjr. This game became known as King's Quest (inspired by the non-animated Wizard and the Princess before it.)

Since then King's Quest became known for its three-dimensional cartoon quality overwhelming and delighting its hundreds of thousands of fans. Since then it had been a tradition for Sierra, on up to many of King's Quests, and many of the later VGA Sierra games (until the company dabbled with "full-motion video") that Sierra often categorized their games as 'interactive animated cartoons', with what it called '3D Animated Adventure Games'. (compare to Sierra's Disney's Black Cauldron for similar influence by Disney on early AGI 3D Animated Adventure style, made in part due to the success of King's Quest on the market)

Keep in mind that cartoon does not denote 'unrealistic' or 'silly' but has to do with 'animation', so there could be a blend of both 'exaggerated' silly antics of Merry Melodies, or Looney Toons, but also more serious elements of Don Bluth or Disney Animated Films. Just as you can find different styles of cartoons/animation on TV to this day.

Background
King's Quest 1 and the first few up to King's Quest IV (with a slight change to the artistic style with KQ4 SCI, but still relatively the same as the AGI version of the game) were expecially intended to look like interactive 'cartoons'. In Roberta's own words on the series in 1988; 'it's the ultimate cartoon - a cartoon they can participate in.' It was this style that may have later influenced the look of later King's Quest 7, when Roberta decided to try to emulate feature length animated movies.)

In fact the back of the boxes for each of these games, and the Sierra catalogues at the time included the quote from "Compute! magazine" stating that the series; "It's like playing an animated cartoon" as part of its advertising.

For example this longer comment on the back of the KQ2 box: "King's Quest II: Romancing the Throne takes the technologies initiated in the original King's Quest and refines them into form. "It's like playing an animated cartoon," claims Compute! magazine. The animation and music in the game are unparalleled in the realm of computer adventure."



The Original "Interactive Cartoon"
The earliest release of "King's Quest" (King's Quest Classic, the first game) even included cartoonish depictions of "Graham", roughly similar to how he appeared in the game (in a Fractured Fairy Tales style of Jay Ward Productions). This was likely due to the fact that Roberta presented the game to IBM as an 'interactive cartoon' series. The main character Sir Graham (Grahame as he was known back then) is noted for how he looked and moved like a cartoon figure.

While King's Quest IV SCI, and King's Quest 1: Quest for the Crown SCI remake, both updated the graphics to slightly more realistic style, they both maintained certain exaggerated cartoon sensibilities, such as birds or stars circling a character's head if they trip and bump their head. As well as with often funny death sequences such as Graham being flattened like a pancake, fights often depicted as Graham in a cloud of dust (with random arms and legs sticking out), Graham being disintegrated by dragon fire with only his eyeballs left to fall into the pile of ash left behind, or leaving a Graham shaped hole after falling from the sky.

These and other events that would better fit in with Looney Toons or Merry Melodies (Disney) than 'realistic' animated movie.

Another example of cartoon exaggeration is the addition of the 'comic' book like spell casting in which sound effects were written out across the screen in comic sans style lettering, such as Manannan's 'ZAPPP!', or the teleportation stone's 'POOF!'. Other elements were in the dialogue such as Manannan's use of puns whenenver he thinks up a punishment for Gwydion, or puns and other jokes that are given when a character dies.

The the animated intros and cutscenes are referred to as 'cartoons' in the manual, and in the AGI developer Easter egg as well.


 * "Teresa Baker is the blond with the pony tail. She programmed the beginning and ending cartoons plus a few other miscellanous rooms."-From the KQ4AGI developer Easter egg.

A Shift in Style
With King's Quest 5, and 6 its noted that the series cartoon flavor was lost to a more realistic animated 'storybook' look. Still the development material still calls the animation between actions: 'cartoons', and it is still highly influenced by Disney and Don Bluth, especially in the background artwork. The process to make the animation was still very similar to the process that Disney or Don Bluth or any number of studios did for classic 'cell animation', even with newer processes such as 'blue screen/green screen' being utilized and then recolored for certain scenes and animation. There were still elements that maintained the 'animated cartoon' influence:


 * "Among the clever, "musical" sound effects created by Chris Braymen, the game's composer, are the clattering bones, twisted xylophone notes, and rattling chains made by a gang of dancing skeletons. The effect is reminiscent of classic Disney cartoons of the '30s and adds a special dimension to the adventure."

Like KQ4 the game and it's developers refer to the cutscenes (including the intro scene) as 'cartoons'.


 * Warning: This is the opening cartoon of the game, and should be viewed to receive an overview of the plot.-From KQ5CD


 * "Warning: This cartoon contains material that may be necessarily for information or clues to complete this game. Please be sure to check your inventory if you decide to skip."-From KQ5CD


 * Opening Cartoon by
 * Kronos:
 * Stanley Lui & Albert Co.
 * -From the KQ6 credits.

The Return to Animated Roots
King's Quest 7 went especially to emulate a Don Bluth or Disney feature film look. Something they previously did not have the technology to conceive.

According to Andy Hoyos, who may not fully understood the 'cartoon' inspiration behind earlier games in the series:
 * "The look of King's Quest VII," says Art Designer Andy Hoyos, is that of an intensely brilliant cartoon. It's different from anything we've done before in the series. We were inspired by the animated feature films of Disney and Don Bluth...particularly "Aladdin." The intensity of the palette used by the "Aladdin" artists was amazing."

Mask of Eternity had a look somewhere between storybook realism of KQ5/6, some Don Bluth inspiration (where the Don Bluth tended to lean on more realistic 'darker' approach than Disney did), with facial and body animation styles of 7.

The new series of King's Quest, goes back to the series roots with a mix of storybook visuals, a lot of Don Bluth film (see Dragon's Lair game), and a mix between realism for some characters and cartoon silliness for others (Graham stuffing entire person's in his 'inventory' cape).