King's Quest I: Quest for the Crown (Tierra)

The information in this article is from the fan game King's Quest I:Quest for the Crown VGA and is therefore not canon.

King's Quest I: Quest for the Crown VGA is the unofficial fan remake of King's Quest I, made by Tierra (later known as AGD Interactive) fan company. It is heavily based on the official 1990 remake of KQ1 by Sierra for EGA. Tierra received a special fan license allowing them to make the game. It was later completely redone with an enhanced edition. Version 4.0, the Enhanced Edition is published under the AGDI name.

Enhanced Edition

King's Quest I: Quest for the Crown Enhanced Edition is an enhanced version of the unofficial King's Quest I: Quest for the Crown VGA by AGD Interactive. The game includes new enhanced game backgrounds and character dialog portraits. It also includes an optional "No-Dead Ends" gameplay mode. It also added full narrator speech and lip-synching for all characters. Full Vista support. Like the previous version it is heavily based on the official 1990 sci/ega remake of KQ1 by Sierra. Unlike previous versions full speech and music is included in the program instead of separate downloads.

AGDI received a special fan license allowing them to make the game.

Behind the scenes

Differences between KQ1SCI and KQ1VGA

While mainly a 1:1 remake of KQ1SCI, that is to say it remains largely strict to KQ1SCI (I.E. no new events/puzzles/cutscenes) there are a few differences in the game.

The main differences are that the game lacks some of the more obscure narrations seen in KQ1SCI, due to the VGA version's lack of extra verbs such as 'smell', 'taste', etc. There were some specific bits that could be looked at in more detail, for example the leaves of the tree on the gnome's island would get a reference to how they shade from hot summer sun, another example is the white vanilla buttercream frosting description for the roof the gingerbread house (these references and others like them are missing in the VGA version). In addition some of the easter eggs such as trying to "pick lock" on the Door into Mountain is missing. So the remake is somewhat less verbose in detail (subtracting from the SCI original).

Though less apparent there are spots where the script was modified and changed. For example, the door to the gingerbread house is made out of chocolate (as opposed to candy canes in the KQ1SCI).

There are also a few places where designers took a slightly different art style, different choice of colors, for some of the screens in Daventry, even more so in the Enhanced 4.0 version.

In addition some of the items descriptions are different, and most of the item graphics are different.

Most characters and creatures encountered in the game have been reinvented from their appearance in KQ1SCI, having little resemblance to their original counterparts.

There are some edits to the game script when compared to the original. Such as "Ogre", "Sorcerer, and "Earth" being written in lower case as opposed to upper case as in KQ1SCI.

The ogre, sorcerer, etc are relatively very slow compared to the version in KQ1AGI and KQ1SCI, they are very easy to avoid.

Some of the death scenes are different, lacking some of the death animation, instead having a close up death description/graphic.

Differences between KQ1VGA and KQ1VGA Enhanced

Most of the artwork was completely hand painted in the Enhanced version, the original used a lot of material ripped from KQ5 (Dark Forest, Forest of Serenia, etc), Quest for Glory and other Sierra series simply recolored (photoshopped). For example, if you look closely you might spot the Bee Tree, and the Anthill, or the Arch from near the Dark One's cave in some of the screens.

Many of the inventory graphics were completely redone. Some areas like the gingerbread house were completely changed.

Version History

Tierra

Version 1.0, August 7th, 2001. Tierra's King's Quest I VGA is released.

Version 2.0, September 1st, 2001. Voice pack supported edition. Voicepack was a separate download.

Version 3.0, October 1st, 2003, features translation pack support, bug fixes, optimized music and speech packs, and more.

AGDI

Version 4.0, January 17th, 2009, King's Quest I: Quest for the Crown Enhanced Edition (AGDI) This build removed the translation support seen in the previous version. It however includes the music and speech packs as part of the game download, as well as adding a plethora of touch-ups, embellishments, improvements, and many other new features to the game.