King's Quest
King's Quest | ||||||||||||||||
Amiga - USA - Re-release. |
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King's Quest is a graphic adventure puzzle video game developed and published by Sierra On-Line, for the IBM PCjr on 1984-05-10, and later ported to several other platforms. It is the first in the King's Quest series and the first game to utilize Sierra's Adventure Game Interpreter engine. It is a pioneer of the PC graphical adventure genre, a genre that remained hugely popular for another decade in the industry and spawned many rivals, most of whom made better games than Sierra. After a sequel was released, Sierra re-released King's Quest in 1987 with the title King's Quest I: Quest For the Crown with new box art and a slightly improved program.
Contents
Personal
Own? | Yes. MS-DOS port on Steam. |
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Won? | Yes, without a full score. |
Finished | Around 2000. |
I first played King's Quest around 1995 after it was re-released in the King's Quest: Collection Series. Having already played King's Quest VI, I remember being very unimpressed by the low-quality graphics and sound. Over the span of a couple years, I worked at the game long enough to beat it.
Review
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3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 |
Best Version: DOS (SCI Remake)
— This section contains spoilers! —
Good
- The game has a fair amount of charm, incorporating various fairy tales.
- Though very dated now, the game is a pioneer in the PC-based adventure game. Hundreds of games have used this game's concept of a single screen as a room and walking off-screen into the next room.
- The AGI engine was well-made and served to make about another dozen Sierra games.
Bad
- There are far too many ways to die!
- By using fairy tales as a basis for several of the puzzles, the answers were often too obvious.
- Some of the monsters aren't really puzzles they just get in the way, like the wolf, troll, and thieving gnome.
- The jump, duck, and swim buttons are annoying, and I'm glad they got rid of them in the sequels.
- The wrap-around world layout is dumb. It basically means the world is a tiny torus floating in space.
- Although it was acceptable for the day, the graphics are not very professionally drawn. There is even the occasional uncolored pixel that was overlooked.
- There are a couple of ways to put the game in an unwinnable state, most of which are caused by the gnome, but I've always just reloaded if he every robbed me. Another way that's built right into the game is with the ability to drop items. Dropped items cannot be picked back up again, so they usually make the game unwinnable. They wisely removed this ability in later versions of the game.
Ugly
- Too many of the puzzles are just walking hazards. That's not adventure, that's keyboard dexterity. And, since you can save anywhere, the only purpose they serve is to slow the game down.
Media
Box Art
Documentation
Maps
Font
Screenshots
Videos
Play Online
Apple II, Master System, MS-DOS
Representation
Strong female character? | Fail | There are a couple women, but they're ancillary characters. |
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Bechdel test? | Fail | The women never talk to each other. |
Strong person of color character? | Fail | Everyone is white. |
Queer character? | Fail | There are no queer characters. |
Links
- Video Games
- 1984 Video Games
- Video games developed by Sierra On-Line
- Video games published by Sierra On-Line
- Amiga Games
- Apple II Games
- Apple IIgs Games
- Atari ST Games
- DOS Games
- Macintosh Classic Games
- Master System Games
- PC Booter Games
- IBM PCjr Games
- Video Game Genre - Adventure
- Video Game Genre - Graphic adventure
- Video Game Genre - Passive puzzle
- Video Game Genre - Puzzle
- Media Theme - Adventure
- Media Theme - Cartoon
- Media Theme - Fantasy
- Software Distribution Model - Commercial
- Video Games I Own
- Video Games I've Beaten
- Video Game Rating - 3
- Video Game Graphics Rating - 3
- Video Game Sound Rating - 2
- Video games which can be played online
- Video games without a strong female character
- Video games that fail the Bechdel test
- Video games without a strong person of color character
- Video games without a queer character
- Video Game Prime Order - Adventure, Strategy, Action
- Game Mechanic - Unwinnable State
- Monochrome Graphics
- 2-bit Color Graphics
- 4-bit Color Graphics