King's Quest Omnipedia
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King's Quest: Twins of Change was the ninth King's Quest (King's Quest IX) being designed in 2002 under Vivendi Games (Sierra)[1]

Background[]

Following the success of King's Quest 8 (it was a "minor hit" as Ken Williams calls it, and maybe not what everyone was hoping for[2]), and a year or two after Roberta left the company. Sierra started development on a ninth King's Quest game in 1999 under Sierra branding but to be published by Vivendi Games. It had nothing to do with any of Roberta William's earlier ideas, and conceived to be an original take on the series. However due to collapse of Sierra, it ended up being cancelled by 2002.

The game's staff included Mark Seibert (Director), Cindy Vanous (Writer), and Jimmy Kowalski (Art Director).

It may have contained chapter based levels like King's Quest VII with the player switching between Alexander and Rosella, or have had both characters be interchangeably by the player at any time.

Story[]

According to Cindy Vanous the game may have taken place in another world (an alternate universe Daventry) one that shared similarities to twins homeworld of Daventry, but regions that were clearly different in some way.

All my notes say is that it looks rather like Daventry, except for all the parts that don't.

The main characters were Alexander and Rosella, though they'd been hit by wild magic and weren't exactly human any more. We were just calling them Alex and Rose in the script, since that's most likely what they'd call each other familiarly.

Alex is re-imagined wearing a silver crowned metallic armored helmet, a variation of his father's Adventurer's Cap  (a chin strap holds it on his head, and protects his lower face). The helmet has a rhino-like horn where pointed part of adventures's cap would be, and the crown is the hat is a green turtle shell. He wears blue and red armor, and carries a huge sword. His gauntlets have claws like that of a predatory animal. It also shows him having the ability to flip.[3] He is sporting what appears to be dreadlocks for some reason (Or perhaps exaggerated warthog-like bristles). The callback to the adventurer's cap was intentional;

Yep, there were a lot of little touches like that planned, both artistically and storywise. Everyone involved had either worked on previous KQ installments or was... shall we say, "well versed in the lore", heehee.[4]

They each had a series of animal forms they could transform into, though you'd have to unlock them over time, to solve various puzzles.

Rose ended up tiny, so her forms were small flying creatures, and Alex had larger, stronger forms.

One of her forms was being turned into a tiny fairy, which she compared to the time she was turned into a troll back in KQ7.

We were putting in a lot of fun familial banter between the two of them.

It was a single-player game (no multi-player co-op mode):

No, this was definitely a single-player game. The two characters had to work together -- a rather unwelcome necessity to both of them, which would drive the first part of the plot -- but just one player to guide them. It was, after all, a King's Quest game: the interactive version of curling up with a good storybook on a cold winter's night. In the prototype, you controlled Alex, with Rose acting as a tutorial and navigation prompt (think Navi, from Ocarina of Time). Later in the game, as they discovered new transformation skills, you would control both characters. Alex's transformations were more geared to physical puzzles; Rose's were suited for tactical and stealth puzzles. As the game was shelved fairly early into full development, the design folks were still deciding whether the characters would have alternating chapters, or whether you would be able to toggle between them at will.

Characters[]

Lands[]

  • Lava World
  • Sea World


Other Details[]

The new King's Quest was one of the three games from prominent adventure franchises in Sierra On-Line's portfolio (King's Quest, Space Quest, and Leisure Suit Larry) that would receive a new version adapted to the gameplay styles that interested the common gamer at the time. It was to be a reinvention of the series. Like Escape Factory's Space Quest update, King's Quest would have been a cartoon-style action title with very little semblance to the previous titles in the series (even compared to KQ8). Unlike SQ and LSL, KQ never made it past prototype.[5]

According to Cindy Vanous;

9 was not in the title, because Marketing decreed that several other big companies' series were no longer including installment numbers, so we should follow the naming trend.[6]

According to Cindy, this is also the reason why '8' was not in the title for the released KQ8 either, despite King's Quest 8 appearing in nearly every preview for the game, and discussed by Roberta herself, Roberta had no control of putting the numeral into the title.

Cindy mentions about the prototype:

Ohhh, yes, and it was lovely. Rather than either of the earlier formats, Mark and the engineering team took a gamble on making it a console-style 3D title, in the style of Zelda: OoT.
Brighter colors, adorable characters, peppier music.[7]

The game had roughly started in 1999 (and had nothing to do with Roberta William's ideas for the game). The project was given over to Mark Seibert who was the director on King's Quest VIII: Mask of Eternity. So it would have involved at least some of the original developers. It was going to be designed as a more console style-action adventure game like Legend of Zelda, based on known information. This one basically died when Sierra Seattle studios finally died under Vivendi Games.

Mark was put on to head the game, but it wasn't something he himself felt was a good idea at the time.

What was being developed by Sierra for King's quest was very much a platform game that was more of a Mario type game. I thought it to be a very great diversion from previous games. It did not involve Roberta, and I'm sure she would have done something very different. I was not a fan of the direction it was going...[8]

The work on the game probably began around 1999-2001.[9] But may have been 'wounded' as early as Chainsaw Monday, February 22nd, 1999, and been affected by the domino repercussions of that event (taking out Sierra's Seattle studios as well, a few years later).

Mark Seibert notes[10]

Yes, we worked on a couple short sprints for a KQ console concept. It got 2 green lights as I recall (Which means we got to the 3rd iteration of design), but never got fully funded. The company pretty much imploded while this project was in the early concept phase. So not much to tell, other than we were looking at a more "console-like" action genre for the title. Sorry there's not more to tell - it would have been interesting to see how this might have developed...

Gallery[]

Here is presented some of the concept art from Jimmy Kowalski, the game's art director, who kindly supplied these materials for preservation on the Omnipedia.

Licensing Information: Published with kind permission of Art Director: Jimmy Kowalski.

References[]

  1. Cindy Vanous, pers.communication, 7/19/2021: "Oh, I did find our proposed name, "Twins of Change"."
  2. Ken Williams, Not All Fairy Tales Have Happy Endings, pg 358
  3. http://www.polygon.com/2015/7/28/9023667/kings-quest-history
  4. Cindy Vanous, 10/11/2020
  5. In early 2002, it was announced that the three most prominent adventure franchises in Sierra On-Line's portfolio (King's Quest, Space Quest, and Leisure Suit Larry) would receive new versions that were adapted to the gameplay styles that interested the common gamer, or re-inventions. Like Escape Factory's Space Quest update, King's Quest would have been a cartoon-style action title with very little semblance to the previous titles in the series. Unlike SQ and LSL, KQ thankfully never made it past prototype.) http://web.archive.org/20080205234843/sttnw.blogspot.com/2008/01/kings-quest.html
  6. pers.comm. 10/11/2020
  7. pers.comm 10/11/2020
  8. Mark Seibert, pers.comm 10/11/2020
  9. One designer (Cindy Vanous) was working for a time at Sierra on an aborted KQ which was for console, mentioned it was headed by Mark. From a comment on Facebook Sierra Gamers, Jan 24th (now removed)
  10. private correspondence, February 5, 2016
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