KQ1AGI development

==COMPUTE! ISSUE 53 / OCTOBER 1984 / PAGE 32=
 * Quite a different approach has been taken—and very successfully—by Sierra in its graphic adventure game, King's Quest, for the IBM PC and PCjr.


 * Requiring 128K of memory and the use of a color monitor, the adventure game actually lets you control the movements of an onscreen knight, Sir Grahame, as he moves about the colorful kingdom of Daventry.


 * The movement is smooth, the screens are redrawn rapidly, and Sir Grahame is seen walking in front of, behind, and even between objects. He climbs, jumps, ducks, swims, and can be warned of impending danger by sound effects. The command parser for such a game is necessarily much smaller than that used in an Infocom game, but the play requirements are not based on having a huge volume of words.


 * There are helpful fairies, elves, condors, and a god�mother. But there are also unfriendly sorcerers, dwarfs, ogres, wolves, and an airborne witch.


 * Roberta Williams, who designed King's Quest for Sierra, admits that the game represents a big change from what has been done with computer adventure games in the past. "There's nothing like it," she says. "It's innovative."


 * Sierra's King's Quest, for the PC and PCjr with 128K, offers the best quality graphics in an adventure thus far.

The interaction between the text and the onscreen graphics is clearly the way many future adventure games will be constructed. One element complements the other.


 * Bowing And Doffing


 * For example, as Sir Grahame stands before King Edward, type in the words BOW TO THE KING. As you hit the RETURN key, Sir Grahame can be seen bowing and doffing his cap.


 * And, Williams adds, subtle clues can be built visually into the game that an all-text adventure couldn't have. When Sir Grahame stumbles upon the house of a poor woodcutter and his wife, the screen shows an old and pitifully thin couple in a rundown house. The room is bare of food, a subtle clue to the player that an offering of something to eat might be very much appreciated by this mysterious couple.