King's Quest I

King's Quest

Publisher(s)	IBM, Sierra On-Line
Designer(s)	Roberta Williams
Writer(s)	Roberta Williams
Composer(s)	Ken Allen (1990 remake)
Series(s)	King's Quest
Engine	Adventure Game Interpreter (original) Sierra Creative Interpreter (remake)
Platform(s)	IBM PCjr, Tandy 1000, Apple II, Apple IIGS, Atari ST, Amiga, Macintosh, MS-DOS, Master System
Release	May 1984 1990 (remake)
Genre(s)	Adventure
Mode(s)	Single-player

King's Quest: Quest for the Crown, originally released as King's Quest, is an adventure game developed by Sierra On-Line and published originally for the IBM PCjr in 1984 as the first entry in the King's Quest series. It was released for several other home computer systems between 1984 and 1989, as well as the Master System console. The game follows the young knight Sir Graham as he journeys through the pseudo-medieval fairy tale-inspired fantasy realm of Daventry, on a quest to recover three magical items and become the next king. It is presented as an interconnected set of locations, or flip-screens, with a pseudo-3D art style. The player interacts with locations and items using text commands, and must avoid numerous hazards and obstacles in their quest.

King's Quest was developed by Sierra after it was approached by IBM to make a game similar to Sierra's Wizard and the Princess (1980) that would showcase the computing power of the upcoming PCjr with animation and complex graphics. It was designed by Sierra co-founder Roberta Williams as a blend of common fairy tales, and was completed over the course of 18 months by Williams and a team of 6 programmers and artists, who had to develop new techniques for making graphical adventure games with visual depth. A reusable game engine was developed for the game, the Adventure Game Interpreter, which was reused for later Sierra games.

The game was a bestseller, with over 100,000 copies sold by 1986. Critics applauded the advances in graphical gameplay, as adventure games previously were text-based or had static images, though some found the game slow-paced and very difficult. An official remake was released in 1990 with updated graphics, and an unofficial remake was released in 2001 for modern systems. King's Quest has been credited with saving Sierra from the financial effects of the video game crash of 1983, and has been considered the start of the graphic adventure genre. The series it started, which includes a further seven games by Sierra, has been termed its flagship series. King's Quest has been named as one of the most important computer games of all time, and in 2020 was inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame.

Information about the game was referrenced from: Space Quest III

Table of Contents[hide]

The Wrong Way To Score Points

Graham sees Dead Goats

Get a Kick Out of This!

There is a goat.

Out of Bounds

Plot

The original release version of the game has a minimal story, mostly told through the game's manual. The Kingdom of Daventry is suffering from recent disasters and hardship. King Edward calls his bravest knight, Sir Grahame, to his throne and tells him he has heard of three legendary treasures hidden throughout the land that would end Daventry's troubles if found: a mirror that shows the future, a shield that protects the bearer from all harm, and a never-ending chest of gold. If Grahame succeeds, he will become the new king.

In later releases, Grahame was renamed to Graham, and the backstory in the manual was expanded; that expansion was brought into the game in the 1990 King's Quest I: Quest for the Crown remake. King Edward the Benevolent was tricked three times in his reign by magical beings who stole the precious magical items of the kingdom, causing the kingdom to fall into ruin. At the end of his life, the dying King Edward sends for his bravest knight, Sir Graham, to retrieve the three lost treasures. As the king has no heir, if Graham succeeds, he will become the next king.

In all versions of the game, Sir Graham embarks upon a quest for the items through Daventry, climbing to the Land of the Clouds to recover the chest of gold, facing underground leprechauns to retrieve the shield, and outwitting a dragon to get back the mirror. After retrieving all the items, Graham returns to the throne room in time to present them to the king. Just before the king dies, he passes on the rule of Daventry to Sir Graham as promised.

Gameplay

King's Quest is an adventure game set in the pseudo-medieval fairy tale-inspired fantasy realm of Daventry, in which the player controls the character Sir Graham to complete a quest for three magical items. The game world is divided into dozens of locations, or flip-screens, with one location visible at a time. These locations are presented in pseudo-3D as if viewed from the side, with the player moving Graham around the screen in front of and behind other elements of the location.

In addition to moving Graham, the player can interact with the objects, obstacles, and creatures within the location. This is done by entering text commands, which can be one or two words (e.g., "get stone") or more complex phrases (e.g., "use key on lock"). The allowable commands are contextual to where Graham is standing in the location the player is in; for example, "get stone" only has an effect if Graham is standing in a part of a screen where there is a stone present. Some locations have, sometimes randomly, other characters which, if they come near Graham, can take items, move Graham to a new location, or kill him. Graham can also die from numerous hazards in the game, such as drowning or falling; upon death, the player can reload the game from the last time they saved their game. The game only supports a single saved game, and it is possible for crucial items to be stolen, resulting in a game that can no longer be won.

The goal of the game is to find three magical treasures and return to the castle at the beginning of the game, at which point the game ends. There are additionally many items which can be obtained and put in the player's inventory; most are used to solve puzzles or unlock new locations, while some can be used to prevent Graham dying from monsters or enemies. Some items have no gameplay impact but solely award points, which are tracked throughout the game but have no effect otherwise. Some puzzles have multiple solutions depending on the items the player has found, and the order the player solves puzzles and finds locations is restricted only by the items they have.

References

Trivette 1988, pp. 35–36 Trivette 1988, p. 47

Bugs and Glitches

If you want to score that badly, Sir Graham, go play Leisure Suit Larry!

The Wrong Way To Score Points

Category: Variable Overflow
Credit: SantaClaus
Additional Research: Kuro-chan

1.0U

Flag 184 controls both looking at the bowl and filling the bowl, but the points are rewarded based on if the flag is set. So, 'look bowl' will give 1 point and 'fill' will give 2. Consuming the contents will remove 2 points, so repeating this will cause the player to lose a point at a time. Since there is no oversight to make sure the player does not drop below 0 points, the score will loop around to 255.

Graham, enough. The poor fellow is dead.

Graham sees Dead Goats

Credit: Kuro-chan

Even after killing the goat, the player will continue to get messages about how the goat is still alive, such as:

look goat

kill goat (no longer possible, since the Dagger has been used)

give carrot

ride goat

show carrot (see this for more details).

talk goat

In the Tandy version, the goat will continue to make noises, as though it were still alive.

This issue clears once the player leaves the screen.

This appears in 1.0U. The other versions are unknown.

Get a Kick Out of This!

Credit: Kuro-chan

If the player shows the carrot to the goat after killing it, the goat rises from the dead and follows Graham. Apparently, it does not hold a grudge.

I kid you not...

This appears in 1.0U. The other versions are unknown.

There is a goat.

Credit: Kuro-chan

The game is in denial over there being a goat on the screen.

This appears in 1.0U. The other versions are unknown.

Okay, those magic mushrooms are taking an obvious toll, here...

Out of Bounds

Category: Out of Bounds
Credit: Kuro-chan, Santaclaus

1.0U

Around the mid-point, a several pixel tall gap in the control layer exists. This can allow a player to clip outside the beanstalk and safely walk around the map. Trying to climb back onto the beanstalk will cause the player to fall unless they re-enter exactly where they first left.

Gameplay, this accomplishes very little since walking up and down will put graham back on the beanstalk again.

Games

King's Quest Series	King's Quest I · King's Quest III · King's Quest VI
Leisure Suit Larry Series	Leisure Suit Larry I · Leisure Suit Larry II · Leisure Suit Larry III
Police Quest Series	Police Quest I · Police Quest II
Quest for Glory Series	Quest for Glory · Quest for Glory II
Space Quest Series	Space Quest I · Space Quest II · Space Quest III
Courtesy of Japan	Silpheed · Zeliard
Misc.	Winnie the Pooh In The Hundred Acre Wood

Category:

Police Quest II Space Quest III Zeliard

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