King's Quest is a cancelled episodic series of games formerly in development by Telltale Games.
Background[]
Activision continued to look into viability and possibility of using and resurrecting some of the old Sierra IPs, it gained when it bought out Vivendi Studios. Activision's first attempt at this was passing the development rights of Sierra IPs over to Telltale Games. Telltale decided to start with King's Quest as the first game they would resurrect, with the possibility of resurrecting other IPs if it had been successful.
King's Quest was to be an episodic series of games in development by Telltale Games. Thought to be a 'reboot' but may have been intended to fit into the continuity of the original series (though possibly in the 'way' that The Odd Gentlemen material 'fit' but was still an rebooted universe with an alternate history)
Telltale sat on the IP apparently doing very little with it, while they were working on other successful series such as The Walking Dead. Activision chose to take back the licenses and claimed they would look at the possibility of doing a new series in-house. Though there were at least several other interested parties including Replay Games (Leisure Suit Larry Reloaded) that were turned down.
Activision would ultimately pass development rights over to The Odd Gentlemen, but keep publishing rights in house.
Since Telltale only sat on the developmental licenses of Sierra series, its not clear if any concept or ideas of King's Quest were even discussed in any detail. There are no screen shots or artwork related to this part of King's Quest history, other than Telltale's use of a golden variation of the King's Quest title (similar to the one used in King's Quest VII box), and the small blurb
Perhaps Telltale's paying for and collecting licenses, and then making formualic games with little innovation lead to its demise seven years later (2018).
Story[]
The press release stated:
Return to the Kingdom of Daventry as Telltale is working on new adventures based on the classic adventure game series!
Some of the ideas discussed (or perhaps just rumors) suggested that the series might have followed the entire main family, possibly with each episode having a different playable character (with perhaps some kind of story that linked all of the adventures together for the final episode). Connor however was not likely to have been playable.
Announcement history[]
- February 17, 2011: Telltale's Steve Allison (SVP of marketing) announces several franchises at a press conference including Walking Dead, and Fables. Telltale announces that they have obtained a Sierra license, King's Quest to be the first game, other series to follow. King's Quest is thought to be a reboot.
http://www.adventuregamers.com/news/view/21058
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/02/18/ki...y-of-telltale/ - February 18, 2011: Telltale announces King's Quest in a blog post on the Telltale website. It mentions that Walking Dead will be released first, followed by fable (they were projecting for a Winter 2011, and a Q1 2012 release). King's Quest's release is not clear, but implied to be an undertermined point in the horizon, apparently post Fable. Mentions 'reboot'.
http://www.telltalegames.com/community/blogs/id-764 - February 19, 2011: Telltale adds King's Quest to the Telltale forum list for people to discuss the game. The first post is by Alan Johnson the Telltale Community Manager.http://www.telltalegames.com/forums/...ad.php?t=22891
- March 14, 2011: Interview with Adventure gamer. Confirmed not to be a true reboot.
http://www.adventuregamers.com/articles/view/18536 - June 7, 2011: E3, very little confirmed. It's not to be reboot, and will probably star Royal Family of Daventry. Roberta Williams was 'consulted'. Hints that future Sierra games would be after King's Quest, possibly Space Quest or others. Telltale games to be pushed back to 2012 release dates (this moves Walking Dead to 2012).
http://uk.ign.com/articles/2011/06/0...-quest-details
http://www.destructoid.com/e3-robert...t-203396.phtml
http://www.cvgames.com/previews/kings-quest - September 11, 2011: Gaming Examiner interviews Alan Johson, who tells them that Telltale is working on King's Quest, but it won't be out for a long time.
http://www.gamingexaminer.com/interv...e-games/10877/ - March 14, 2012: CEO Dan Connors makes a nod to wards King's Quest Briefly in an interview. He picked up King's Quest because he felt it was a classic IP, and would be similar to resurrecting other classic adventures like they did with Monkey Island. He mentions that they aren't focusing on it yet (article discusses that Walking Dead and Fables are the next priority).
http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/...telltales-ceo/ - May 16, 2012: Dan Connors confirms, that Dave Grossman, and his group was starting work on King's Quest. It is mentioned that they were trying to put together the staff, and get it into production. They mention that they had talked to alot of people about it. Other than that he said they didn't have much to say about it yet. Still looks like they were looking for a post-Fables release. Walking Dead is their main focus at that point.
http://www.siliconera.com/2012/05/16...re-game-genre/ - February 6, 2013: Telltale launches beta for new website and forums, that will ultimately replace the old website. There is currently no webpage for King's Quest, and no direct access to a King's Quest forum either. However, the forum still shows up through a hidden link (and is useable).
https://beta.telltalegames.com/news/
https://beta.telltalegames.com/commu...ies/kingsquest - February 12, 2013: It is announced that Fables game will be more of a tie-in, and won't be called Fables. It is looking more likely that it will be the next game released. Walking Dead Season 2, will be a future release (how far in the future is unknown). It is also mentioned that Telltale has many other projects they are working on at at the same time (but no specifics as to what these projects are, or when they will be announced). IGN appears to assume that this will include King's Quest. Fables was originally to be released in Q1 2012, got pushed back to Q3 2012, but was not released.
http://uk.ign.com/articles/2013/02/1...telltale-games - February 17, 2013: Two year anniversary of when Telltale's King's Quest was first announced (nine months from the previous major announcement).
- March 1, 2013: Dan Connors states that they aren't ready to say anything about the King's Quest project yet, but will say something when they are ready to talk about it. Rock Paper Shotgun asked if there were anything beyond Fables and King's Quest down the pipeline, and Connors mentions that they have a couple of unannounced projects being sorted out.http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013...-to-the-punch/ Fables and Walking Dead Season 2 are projected for 2013 releases.
- April 3, 2013: Steve Allison confirms that Telltale has since cancelled work on the franchise. http://www.joystiq.com/2013/04/03/te...s-quest-plans/
- April 4, 2013: The King's Quest forum at Telltale Games is now closed, but still includes a link on the main forum page, and still readible. It has not bee deleted.
Note (miscellaneous):
We also know that this year in 2013 that Telltale is expanding in size, to make more games. No idea what they are expanding to make though.
http://www.joystiq.com/2012/11/20/te...n-spring-2013/
Paul Trowe/Replay (3rd party)
- April 10, 2012: "The remaining issue, as with King’s Quest, would be licensing the games from owners Activision. Trowe explained that Activision had been a touch unrealistic when he first approached them. Activision told us that they wanted $500,000 up front,” he explained. “And greater than 50% revenue share for those properties. I told them ‘good luck on getting that’, because I don’t think anybody’s going to pay that fee. I can tell you that they changed their tune about six months after that.” But since then Space Quest has been licensed elsewhere, and Replay are currently in negotiations over getting the rights for themselves. “I want to say it’s looking good,” said Trowe, “but right now I’d give us 50/50.”
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012...t/#more-103251
RPS: So also with King’s Quest, they’ve been uncharacteristically generous in allowing fan projects. Have you seen the project the Silver Lining?
Paul: The Silver Lining wasn’t available for sale…
RPS: That’s right, yes.
Paul:And in addition it wasn’t really a King’s Quest. In my opinion they did an injustice to the King’s Quest franchise.
RPS: That’s interesting, why do you think that?
Paul: I just don’t think it held true to Roberta’s vision, just like I don’t think the Leisure Suit Larrys that have come out after Al wasn’t involved held true to Al’s vision. And that’s why I refuse to work on a Leisure Suit Larry game if Al wasn’t involved. I refuse to work on a King’s Quest game if Roberta’s not involved.
RPS: Would Roberta be willing to be involved, she’s been out of the industry for a while hasn’t she?
Paul: I can’t speak for Roberta, but I can tell you that we’re currently talking to her and Ken.
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012...e/#more-103200
- April 12, 2012: "I love the Sierra classics!! Can you bring back King's Quest, Space Quest, or Police Quest? Our good friends over at Tell Tale have licensed King's Quest from Activision. If we do our job right then maybe, just MAYBE we'll be able to partner with them and ruinite the Space Quest team, King's Quest team (go Roberta!!!!) and Police Quest team for re-makes or new versions of those (Space Quest 7 anybody?)."
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...QuesOrPoliQues - June 5, 2012: Trowe related Kickstarter sabotage controversy (false claims/smears about several other competing projects, and sockpuppetry). He later apologies. However it is unclear how much the duplicity affected any previous claims made before it was discovered by MixnMojo and others.http://mixnmojo.com/news/Is-Paul-Tro...r-Kickstarters
http://www.spacequest.net/index.php/...2266#entry2266
- April 1, 2013: “They had [the King's Quest rights], and we were going to license it from them to make the remakes. I wouldn’t do a King’s Quest without Roberta. [Telltale senior VP of publishing] Steve Allison told me that they have the rights but they don’t have the bandwidth.” Allison offered to look into sub-licensing King’s Quest out to Replay, but Trowe hit a dead end when he brought the conversation over to Activision. ”I talked to the guys at Activision and they were like, ‘No, we’re pulling it [from Telltale] because we’re going to do it ourselves.’
http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/...th-paul-trowe/
“Activision’s probably not going to give us the King’s Quest rights,” Trowe told us. “[Telltale] had it, and we were going to license it from them to make the remakes.” Telltale senior VP of publishing Steve Allison told Trowe that it was an issue of bandwidth; the studio behind 2012′s*The Walking Dead simply did not have the resources to handle*King’s Quest, what with a second season and the launch of*Fables both in the works.*
“Then I talked to the guys at Activision and they were like, ‘No, we’re pulling it because we’re going to do it ourselves,’” Trowe revealed. He doesn’t know what the publisher’s plans are for*King’s Quest, but they don’t seem to include either Telltale or Replay. We’ve reached out to Activision for comment and will update this post accordingly when we hear back. Be sure to check out our full interview with Trowe, and to head back here tomorrow for our extensive GDC chat with Telltale CEO Dan Connors."
http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/...elltale-games/
Josh Mandel comments (3rd party)
- March 8, 2011: "Telltale and I have spoken a bit lately, but there's nothing more I can (or should) say about it! But I would love to be King Graham for Telltale, and I trust them completely with the property."
http://archive.adventuregamers.com/f...6&postcount=27 - Jan 19, 2013: Josh Mandel comments & Chat Log:
"And Activision would be foolish to say, "Here, we're renting you the license to King's Quest. Do nothing with it in perpetuity...Telltale seems to be going in another direction anyway. Walking Dead was a hugely popular license and a big success for them, I think. King's Quest would be a big step backwards, a far less well-known and far less popular license...I think it's been safely reported that Activision and/or the Sierra licenses (except Larry) are up for sale...they *had* the KQ license and did nothing with it, opting instead to pick up a license of a national television show that certainly didn't need Telltale's help."
http://www.telltalegames.com/forums/...&postcount=122
http://pastebin.com/ktzRV5FU
Behind the scenes[]
First announced on February 17-18, 2011, with very little information.[1]
"Much like we did with Tales of Monkey Island, we're rebooting King's Quest with all new episodic games and multiple series."[2]
This game is not to be a true 'reboot' as in starting the series over with new continuity, but rather it is a direct continuation (as Tales of Monkey Island was for the Monkey Island series). It's a 'revival' of sorts to the series that has (officially) lain dormant since 1997 (though there were at least a couple of previous attempts at making King's Quest IX that were never completed). It is conceptually King's Quest IX as the ninth official continuation of the series.
- "There’s a lot of great history in KQ, and we want to make a game that fits into the established canon, and that fans will actually want to play."[3]
- "...preserve those elements of peril, challenge, and yes, death, but also hopefully do something to address the frustration that unfortunately tended to come along with them all too often and alienate some of the players (maybe if the game just saves and hits “restore” for you automatically that will be enough)."
At E3 2011;
- Grossman said Telltale actually approached Roberta Williams, one of the designers of the original games, to see if she was interested in working on the new one. While she declined by saying she had retired from games, she did offer the development team advice, some of which was "very valuable," according to Grossman. When asked whether the new King's Quest would be a full reboot or more like a sequel, Grossman said there's "a lot of canon and it would be a shame to ignore it."[4]