King's Quest: Quest for the Crown

There is really no underestimating how many hours of my childhood was spent playing computer games designed by the folks at Sierra On-Line. King’s Quest, Space Quest, Conquests of Camelot, The Colonel’s Bequest, The Black Cauldron... truly, they made up a massive part of my early years, and have had an indelible impact on my imagination. I vividly recall writing stories about these games at school, and places like Daventry and Tamir provided settings for most of my day-dreams and dress-up games (I had a red dress that was referred to as the “Rosella dress”).

They also piqued an early interest in Greek mythology and Arthurian legend, and I was writing King’s Quest fanfiction before I ever knew what fanfiction was! Sometimes I didn’t even play the games as intended, but simply made up my own stories within their virtual worlds.  “Computer nights” were an event at my house, in which various family members would attempt to play together, and I well remember the thrill of moving ahead in the game after solving a puzzle... so perhaps we can also credit them for my enjoyment of riddles and problem-solving.

In short, these games were a formative part of my childhood, and I can draw a straight line between them and my interests as an adult, from the broad enjoyment of fantasy, to the more specific fascination I have with fairy-tale crossovers and the underlying interconnectedness of myths and legends (after all, King’s Quest is a series of games in which Greek gods, fairy tale creatures, characters from the Arabian Nights, and Count Dracula all rub shoulders).

Aside from my own fond childhood memories, these games – particularly King’s Quest – hold a place of honour in the history of computer gaming, having been vehicles for the period’s cutting-edge technology in visuals and sound. Sure, they all look incredibly primitive these days, but back in the eighties simple things like figures that could walk behind obstacles on the screen or follow simple commands such as “swim” or “talk to...” had never been experienced before.

(So it’s ironic that I have zero interest in gaming these days, but was right there on the ground-floor of some of the industry’s most innovative and important leaps forward).

Let’s start at the beginning, and in doing so introduce you to Roberta Williams, one of my idols and a pioneer in the gaming industry.

Roberta and her husband Ken

Born in 1953 and raised in rural California, Robert Williams née Heuer was a lover of fairy tales and storytelling, though it wasn’t until she was a married woman and mother that the opportunity to weld these interests with her husband’s career in computer programming became apparent. Though both had a background in software design, it wasn’t until Ken Williams introduced his wife to the industry’s earliest text adventures that Roberta’s imagination took hold of her. In her own words:

“As I puzzled my way through those early text adventures, I had a sense of exhilaration and a heavy dose of computer adventure addiction. I was also deeply disappointed with the lack of graphics and plot. I read and daydreamed about a lot of fairy tale books and kid adventure novels while growing up... so I sat down at my kitchen table and mapped out my own adventure while watching the kids. Three weeks later I handed a script to Ken. He wasn’t impressed until he saw I wanted pictures in the game; then he created the tools to make the art and programmed the logic while I did the art, wrote the text, and QA-ed the game. That was the beginning of my career as a game designer, the beginning of Sierra On-Line, and the beginning of an industry.”

Now look, I’m going to choose my words carefully here. Although there were thousands of people working in the computing industry at this time, and it’s nearly impossible to pinpoint who exactly did what, when and where, it’s not an exaggeration to say that Roberta Williams essentially invented adventure gaming, if we define that term as a computer game that has a story, graphics, and an interactive setting. That’s what she brought to the table back in 1980 with Mystery House, so whatever bits and pieces you want to accredit to other designers and consultants (of which there were many) there’s really no minimizing her contribution to the history of gaming.

Mystery House was a murder-mystery inspired by the boardgame Clue and Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, in which the player has to solve a murder before they themselves are killed, which was followed by the more fantasy-based Wizard and the Princess (1980) that required the player to save a kidnapped princess (and would later be folded into King’s Quest continuity with the reappearance of the Land of Serenia in King’s Quest V, where this game is set).

Next came Mission Asteroid (also in 1980) and Time Zone (1982) the latter of which was the largest game on the market, released with an unprecedented six double-sided floppy disks (before this, most games only required one) and containing 1,500 areas (or screens) to explore. According to Wikipedia, it is also the first example of a modern game-development model in which programmers, artists, and designers were each tasked with different responsibilities in a team larger than a few people.

What began as a pet-project for Roberta Williams had become a series of worldwide bestsellers, leading Ken Williams to quit his job to focus on what was obviously the future of computer programming: GAMES, with his wife at the helm of a ship heading into uncharted waters.

Which brings us to what this post is really about: the King’s Quest series. Originally commissioned by IBM as a showpiece for their newest home computer, the first of the King’s Quest series was conceived as a blend of fairy tales that could be experienced as an interactive game. Although the IBM PCjr was a failure, the game became a bestseller when it was ported to other platforms, with cutting-edge technology such as sixteen colours and the ability for the player character to move in front of, behind, or over other objects on the screen.

Okay, it sounds ludicrous by today’s standards, but at the time it was ground-breaking, and set the standard for all the graphic adventure games that were to follow.

So now we get to it, my opportunity to talk about the King’s Quest series in its entirety, and in great detail. Huzzah! I’ve had some time off from work, and revisiting these games has been a highlight, not only for the nostalgia quotient, but in giving me added appreciation for what these games contributed to my childhood as well as the gaming industry in its entirety.

Released in 1983, King’s Quest was originally called just that: King’s Quest. The subtitle Quest for the Crown was added later, much like A New Hope was to the first Star Wars movie, and it remains the only title in the series not to be a play on the words of a famous proverb (“to err is human” becomes To Heir is Human and “absence makes the heart grow fonder” becomes Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder).

It also set the precedence for nearly all of the Sierra games to include the word “quest” in their titles, from Space Quest, Police Quest and Hero’s Quest (later retitled Quest for Glory due to copyright issues) to more sneaky inclusions such as The Colonel’s Bequest and Conquests of Camelot.

The plot is simplicity itself. Good King Edward the Benevolent is very old and frail, and to restore the kingdom to its former strength and glory (make Daventry great again?) he sends one of his knights out into the world to find three magical treasures that will increase its fortunes: a mirror that shows the future, a chest of gold that can never be emptied, and a shield that will render its owner invulnerable.

The knight is you, Sir Graham of Daventry, and after accepting your quest you’re given the run of the kingdom in which to find your objectives. As kingdoms go, Daventry isn’t too impressive: it’s a cyclic world of six-by-eight screens (forty-eight altogether) and seems to be inhabited by nothing more than a woodcutter and a goat. There are some magical creatures here and there, but the castle is deserted and there are no citizens to speak of (besides said woodcutter and his wife). The only signs of sensible infrastructure are the carrot patch behind the castle and a well.

But there are large bodies of water, including rivers that are too swift to be traversed safely. There are plenty of trees, a few of which provide hiding places for valuable treasures. There are natural landmarks such as caves and bridges and massive cliffs to be explored, and you have the ability to swim, climb, jump or duck at various points across the game (though there’s never actually any need to duck).

There are allies to be found: elves and fairy godmothers and gnomes that are willing to help you with advice or magical assistance, but also dangerous creatures lurking on certain screens: thieving dwarfs, wicked witches, paralyzing wizards, and at least one big bad wolf. They can be outrun or avoided entirely, though the trick is learning which screens are “safe” to wander across and which ones will trigger the appearance of a deadly foe.  

And because designer/writer Roberta Williams was such a fan of fairy tales, the realm is replete with characters, scenarios and settings from famous children’s stories, the presence of which provide clues as to how you can proceed. The most explicit ones include Rumpelstiltskin, Jack and the Beanstalk, Hansel and Gretel, and the Three Billy Goats Gruff, so ask yourself: how did Gretel defeat the witch in the gingerbread house? Who is the mortal enemy of bridge-guarding trolls? What did Jack find at the top of the beanstalk?

Familiarity with these stories certainly helps, but there are just as many elements to the gameplay that have no direct correlation with traditional tales. A dragon guarding a treasure, a bowl that magically fills with stew, an underground realm of leprechauns, a variety of helpful animals – they can be found in the old stories without belonging to a specific one... but the echoes of their meaning and purpose still remain.

***

When it comes to the actual gameplay, there are a couple of glitches. Like, for example, how you can complete the game without ever entering the castle and getting instructions from King Edward, or alternatively, fetch one of the treasures, bring it back to the castle, but be unable to present it to the king.

Furthermore, the shield is meant to render you invulnerable to harm, and does in fact protect you from the likes of the witch, ogre, wolf, etcetera. However, if you fetch it before visiting the dragon cave, you’ll still be burned to a cinder. Heck, the fairy godmother’s spell won’t protect you from the dragon either. 

(In the remake, the condor that provides you access to the shield doesn’t appear until after the other two treasures are in your possession, a change I couldn’t fathom until I realized it was to plug this plot-hole).

You can finish the game with or without the maximum points, usually by finding treasures dotted about the kingdom – a golden egg, a pouch of diamonds, a golden walnut – and hanging onto them instead of trading them for passage to a certain area (the troll bridge for example). Points are deducted from your score if you give them up.

Likewise, it pays to be cautious when it comes to using deadly force: you gain more points for dousing the dragon’s flame and putting the giant to sleep than you do for killing them, though full points are still given for pushing the witch into her own cauldron. This can be frustrating at times, as there are no real clues given as to who is redeemable and who is pure evil – the giant, for example, will still crush you to death if he catches you, and the scenario is further complicated by the fact the means of his death (a slingshot, à la David and Goliath) is hidden in the screen right next to him.

Heck, you even get points for finding it and picking up a handful of pebbles on a riverbank that can be used as missiles.

Then there are the points that defy logic. For some reason, you gain more points if you exit the dragon cave the same way you entered it (going back up the well) instead of taking the more intuitive option and leaving through the secondary cave that the dragon unblocks when it slinks off in embarrassment.

Elsewhere, you get a more satisfying outcome if you put the magic bowl on the woodcutter’s table and fill it (thereby demonstrating its powers to the poor woodcutter and his wife) than you do if you fill it first, then give it to them (presumably they can’t read, so for them it’s just a last meal). And yet both options reward you with the exact same points, and provide you with the fiddle in the corner.

Then of course, there’s the infamous gnome puzzle. Once you make your way past any of the three the troll bridges, you’ll meet a gnome that tells you he’s willing to give you something you need to succeed in your quest if you guess his name correctly. For those versed in fairy tales, it seems obvious that his name is Rumpelstiltskin. I mean, duh, right?

Nope, that’s not the answer.

The correct response to the question is Ifnkovhgroghprm, which requires the player to take the name Rumpelstiltskin and apply it to the “backwards alphabet”, in which A becomes Z, B becomes Y and so on. There is only one clue to the solution to this puzzle: a note you may or may not have picked up in the witch’s house that reads: “sometimes it is wise to think backwards.” There’s no indication that this is a reference to the gnome’s name or how exactly one is supposed to think backwards, and even those players that did put two-and-two together and spelt out Rumpelstiltskin’s name in reverse order found that their guess was incorrect.

If you lose the guessing game, you get a key to the mountain doorway that takes you up into the Land of the Clouds, where the giant and the chest of gold are to be found – it gets you less points than if you guess correctly, win the magic beans and climb the beanstalk, but since the stairs are so much easier to navigate, it’s almost preferable to forego a perfect score and just go this way!

Out of interest, I played trying to get as little points as possible (giving away treasure, killing instead of trickery, avoiding the woodcutter and the witch’s house entirely) and managed to finish with the bare minimum of 64 points out of 158. Then I played with the intent of getting a perfect score, and ended up with 159 out of 158. Not sure how I managed that.

***

In 1990, a remake of the game was made with heightened graphics and sound, though unfortunately its release was met with massive backlash by fans, complaining that it was an insult to the original game by comparing it to the colourization of old films, thereby putting an end to any more official remakes. Yes, annoying purist nerds were depriving us of cool stuff even back in the nineties.  

So what are the differences between the two games? Aside from the improved graphics, the remake does iron out a few issues. For starters, there’s a skippable introduction that automatically ensures Graham does go into the castle and receive his instructions before the quest begins (which also prevents you from getting the treasures and then going to the castle, as in this continuity the gates are permanently closed until the quest is complete).

There are also more people in Daventry, including guards posted at the gates, courtiers who are witnesses to the king’s demise, and a doctor who declares Edward’s death. An extended ending involves Graham presenting the three treasures to the king, and a proper crowning ceremony (the original game just had him take the crown from Edward’s corpse and settle down on the throne while his predecessor is still on the floor!)

In terms of the actual gameplay, there are only three major differences. As mentioned, the condor only shows up after you’ve attained the first two treasures in order to prevent the magic shield from making the other quests too easy, the correct answer to the gnome’s riddle is simply ‘Rumpelstiltskin’ spelt backwards, and (for whatever reason) the pebbles for the slingshot are found in a different location.

Other than that, it’s mainly superficial stuff: there are serpents instead of crocodiles in the moat, the creepy effect of a demon face emerging in the smoke from the witch’s cauldron, a few extra clues for guessing Rumpelstiltskin’s identity (a spindle and a pile of gold/straw outside his house) and lots of natural wildlife to add colour to the surroundings: birds, fish, butterflies, squirrels and at least one snake.

The sequence with the woodcutter and his wife plays out a little differently (you have to fill the bowl, then give it to the woodcutter) and Graham will automatically start wading, then swimming, when he enters water. Also, to prevent Graham using the ring of invisibility in the leprechaun kingdom, it slips off his finger when you’re trying to grab the condor, though I don’t think you lose any points.

Honestly, the main drawcard for the remake is the enhanced graphics, which really are beautiful. Some of the details are especially gorgeous, for example, the stone pillars in the leprechaun realm that depict a four-leaf clover:

Or the strange trees that grow in the Land of the Clouds:

Or this ominous pool with the snake in the tree – it doesn’t signify anything, and you can’t interact with it in any way, but it adds so much ambience to a scene that’s essentially just filler.

Miscellaneous Observations:

There is also a second remake of the game, which was designed by AGD Interactive in 2001 and is essentially a fan remake. As far as I can tell, it offers heightened graphics of the 1990 remake (more colours and shading) as well as better sound and a voiceover cast. Most notable is the fact that Graham is voiced by Josh Mandel (who originally voiced Graham in the official King's Quest V) but the gameplay remains exactly the same, unlike AGD's remakes of King's Quest II and III, which add more plot and puzzles (but I'll get to those in due course). You can watch a Let's Play of this version on YouTube, and it's probably most recommended for newcomers to the franchise. 

Of the three quests you have to perform, I don’t think anyone would argue that the mirror is the easiest, the chest is the hardest, and the shield the most fun to complete. I’ve always loved flying along with that condor.

Although the text in the game itself has Edward tell Graham he’s only heard of three treasures that can restore Daventry back to prosperity, the game manual provides a bit more context as to their history. Turns out that the treasures originally belonged to Edward, only for him to be tricked out of all three by various villains that appear in the game: the sorcerer promises Edward and his wife a child in exchange for the magic mirror (she does not get pregnant), the dwarf offers him a root to heal his dying wife for the price of the shield (she dies anyway) and the chest is taken by a woman called Dahlia who presents herself to the king as a beautiful young damsel in distress. She ends up stealing the chest on their wedding night – but not before revealing herself as the wicked witch.

This actually matches up pretty well with where the treasures end up: it’s easy to infer that there’s a connection between the dwarf and the leprechaun kingdom, the witch obviously had easy access to the Land in the Clouds where the chest was guarded by the giant (perhaps he was under one of her spells?) and the sorcerer presumably hid the mirror at the bottom of the well with his magic.

The mirror ends up being what kickstarts nearly all of the games that follow, though the chest and the shield are never seen again. I suppose a chest that constantly replenishes endless gold coins would play havoc on the economy, and a shield that renders the player invulnerable would immediately destroy all suspense, so perhaps it’s for the best that they’re never mentioned again.

The original game opens to the tinny melody of Greensleeves, which ends up being the unofficial anthem of the series in its entirety.

Despite the rudimentary nature of the graphics, Roberta Williams manages to add beauty and intrigue to the game, such as her description of the old well: “this well is one of the most ancient sites in the entire kingdom. History and mystery seem to echo from its every stone.”

There are also unanswered questions inherent in the game itself, like – what kind of bird laid that golden egg? Who left the pouch of diamonds in the stump? And whatever happened to Graham’s fairy godmother? She’s never seen in any of the other games, and you think she’d be a major character going forward.

Every game in this series has a pixelated nightmare of a climb: it’s usually stairs, but in Quest for the Crown it’s the beanstalk. It took me years to figure out that your feet must always be touching the green of the trunk, which given its narrowness, means that sometimes Graham’s arms appear to be flailing through the air. Likewise, the bridges either side of the castle can be a headache: you have to step onto them as though they’re two-dimensional, which hurts the eye.

I cannot maintain a mental map of Daventry for the life of me, which is strange because I have no problems doing so for the other countries that can be explored in the future games. Perhaps it’s because they’re smaller, perhaps because there are less “empty” screens where there’s nothing to discover or run away from, but for whatever reason, Quest for the Crown always involves me wandering around, completely lost, just hoping I’ll eventually end up where I want to go.  

There are some cute gags and Easter eggs strewn throughout, like how Graham’s hat falls off when he bows, or the deadpan look on his face when he falls through the hole to the leprechaun kingdom, or Edward's melodramatic death scene, in which he lands flat on his back and kicks his legs in the air. At one point the game suggests that “perhaps you should count your fingers” after a giant rat snatches something from your grasp, and you can follow this up by actually counting them. And once you’re in possession of the magic mirror, you’re able to look into it to see your reflection with a crown on your head (though this doesn’t make much sense if you end up dead, or never complete the game).

There are so many fun sound-effects, most of which are imprinted deep in my subconscious. That warning tune whenever a monster appears probably triggers me more than a siren or a fire alarm. Then there’s the effect for falling and getting up with a dizzy head, and that monstrously annoying sound of the leprechauns. What was that even meant to be?

If you’ve never played any of the King’s Quest games before, then this is the place to start, though if you don’t have the advantage of a nostalgic history with the series, there’s every chance that you’ll find Quest for the Crown as tedious as it is primitive. For me, half the joy is soaking in the images and sounds that defined a substantial part of my childhood, and perhaps you can enjoy it in the same way you would a black-and-white movie with rudimentary special effects.

It may have dated terribly in almost every respect, but this game is a touchstone in the history of gaming: the very first graphic adventure game in which a player controlled the movements of a distinct character and attempted to complete a series of specific tasks. And it was just the beginning...