[keyboard typing noises] [MT-32 intro music from the SCI version of King's Quest]
(VO) There's hardly another computer game with more prestige behind it than King's Quest,
the game that placed the legendary Sierra On-Line, and game designer Roberta Williams, firmly in the history books.
So it's long overdue, here on LGR, to take a historic look at the original game.
Nope, not this one.
Not this one.
Not this one, either.
This one!
King's Quest, developed by Sierra On-Line and published by IBM in 1984 for the IBM PCjr.
And, uh, if you know ANYTHING about the game, then this cover should confuse the crap out of you.
Although you do play a knight, he never wears an outfit even close to this.
Not only that, but IBM has clearly taken the credit for King's Quest, with nary a Sierra reference in sight.
This continues to be apparent around back, where we have the single most-boring box backing I have ever seen.
It's a monochrome wall of legal terminology, license agreements, and straight-laced facts.
Typical IBM...
...and I freakin' love it.
They never failed to live up to the "Business" portion of their name.
The lack of surprises persist within, continuing the parade of "serious business"
on a boringly-labelled 5¼" floppy disk - now with a dash of red!
You also get a keyboard overlay for placing on top of the PCjr keyboard,
taking a cue from word processor applications of the time.
It's not until we get to the manual that we get some real color, and some more confusing tidbits as well.
The protagonist, Sir Graham, is referred to as
"Graham"...
"Gr- Gra-HAME"-
"Gr-Amy"?
Uh...
And the front of the manual refers to this as being the first edition of the game from May of 1984,
but, from what I can tell, it was around as early as July of 1983,
according to the manual from the later King's Quest Collection.
So... what gives? What's up with this funky IBM PCjr edition?
Well, for that, we have have to go back to 1981, and the birth of the IBM PC.
When International Business Machines decided to enter the burgeoning personal computer market,
they went straight for the business sector,
with a machine that was perfect for word-processing and spreadsheets.
But it was expensive as hell, didn't do color graphics out of the box,
and any kind of decent sound capability was out of the question.
But this didn't stop IBM from releasing games for it,
with titles like Adventure and Casino Games among their early offerings.
They also approached On-Line Systems, later known as Sierra On-Line,
to port their latest adventure game to the PC:
Hi-Res Adventure #2: "The Wizard and the Princess".
IBM was happy enough with the result, known as Adventure in Serenia,
to go straight back to Sierra when developing a home version of the IBM PC
to be dubbed "the PCjr".
In secret, IBM flew Sierra co-founder Ken Williams and programmer Jeff Stephenson
out to the IBM PC development facility in Boca Raton, Florida,
and asked them to pitch some ideas for PCjr software.
IBM wanted something along the lines of Adventure in Serenia,
but requested it be... more replayable, and more complex.
They wanted something to compete with Ultima and Wizardry,
and specifically asked for puzzles with multiple solutions, and varying paths to completing the game.
But although Sierra wasn't doing very well financially,
the guys pitched the idea of emphasizing detailed 16-color graphics,
and building a large believable world to explore.
IBM didn't buy it at first, believing it was unfeasible for the struggling Sierra,
and would take too long to do something so different.
But Ken Williams was adamant, and IBM took a chance on the idea.
Ken's wife and designer Roberta Williams soon had a clear grasp on the concept,
taking all of IBM's ideas and developing them into something that would make this new system work.
Early versions impressed IBM and its vendors in the Summer of 1983,
eventually receiving the name "King's Quest" for its public release in 1984.
It wowed gamers, and was unique among its peers,
but sadly, celebration was short-lived.
The IBM PCjr was a critical and commercial flop,
and although Sierra also ported the game to the IBM PC,
most owners of that system didn't care.
King's Quest may have been great,
but it wasn't available on systems that people were actually buying to play games on,
like the Commodore 64 and Apple II.
And these machines didn't have enough memory to run King's Quest in their base configurations,
so ports were out of the question.
And with the lack of sales, Sierra was on the verge of closing its doors.
But, in a serendipitous turn of events,
the Tandy 1000 came out at the end of 1984.
It used the same basic graphics and sound as the PCjr,
but did everything else better, and for less money,
quickly earning a major foothold in the marketplace.
Alongside the introduction of the popular Apple IIc, which also had the specs to run King's Quest,
Sierra finally started earning serious cash for their game.
King's Quest went on to become their golden egg for years,
spawning sequels, remakes, and tons of new games using its engine.
So as for the game itself, well, let's take a look at the original PCjr version 1.00,
in all its IBM-laden glory.
It starts off with a title screen and an intro tune,
but not the familiar "Greensleeves" from later games.
[square wave music mimicking trumpet fanfare]
Yeeeep, the IBM release features a bland selection of notes to accompany its bland packaging - how fitting.
Once that's over with, you take control of Sir Graham: brave knight of the kingdom of Daventry,
that- d'aaaawwwwww.
Heh, well THAT was a quick death, even for a Sierra game.
Uh, well yeah, let's... let's try that again.
You play Sir Graham -
or... "Grahame", I suppose -
and the king has called for you.
Make your way inside his castle, take a respectful bow, and talk to the aging King Edward the Benevolent.
It turns out three treasures have been stolen, and it is your quest to retrieve them for the king.
A "Quest for the Crown", if you will.
These missing items consist of a shield that protects its bearer from invaders,
a mirror that foretells the future,
and a treasure chest that is forever filled with gold.
Obviously whoever owns these will be totally OP, so you better go and find them or else Daventry goes down the crapper.
Aaaand that's it.
Use the arrow keys or joystick to move Sir Graham around,
type in text commands to interact with the world,
and just go exploring.
You're not given any direction, no clues are handed out,
it's just you and a beautiful fairy tale world at your fingertips.
Well... beautiful for the time, but y'know it was made in 1983 on a system referred to as "the peanut". Cut it some slack.
Personally I still find these chunky graphics to be charming as balls,
and WAY better than the typical CGA fare seen on the IBM PC.
For comparison, here it is on the PC.
Ugh.
And there isn't much in the way of sound effects or music either, for that matter,
even though the PCjr was capable of very impressive stuff in that regard.
But that's okay, because... somehow the world of Daventry is simply captivating.
It goes beyond technical features, puzzle-solving or even writing.
For me, this world just... feels real, like I'm looking into a window to another world, through the computer screen.
Obviously this is all imagination, since we're looking at something that would run on a bar of soap nowadays,
but that's what I mean: the wonder and sense of adventure
that this somehow inspires through imagination is fantastic.
Even though it's far more complex than The Wizard and the Princess, on which it's based,
it's still minimalist enough to really draw me in.
This PCjr version helps in that regard, since other than the text parser at the bottom,
there's really no interface to speak of.
Unlike later AGI Engine games, there's no scoring system or menu bar at the top of the screen,
which I find actually helps in letting me forget that this is a game when I'm playing.
You can bring up this information and the inventory by pressing Tab,
but otherwise it's out of the way, and I kind of like that.
I'm just a little dude in a feathered cap,
wandering around world filled with twisted weirdos, dangerous creatures and unusual items.
Y'know, it's easy to forget that King's Quest was the progenitor of the third-person graphical adventure game,
because it's been done a thousand times since then, and improved upon almost every step of the way.
But try to let your mind wander to the mindset of early 1984,
when a game like this just burst onto the scene, and it was the first of its kind.
Even though I wasn't introduced to this game and style of game until the early '90s,
it was still brand new to me, so I remember that feeling of astonishment like it was yesterday.
Ah, but enough nostaliga; is the game still any good?
Well, it is a product of its time, and a product of its designer, Roberta Williams.
And by that, I mean... the game tries to kill you on it seems like every screen,
the puzzles can be absolutely obtuse,
the game is too dependent on CPU speed and makes controlling Graham unpredictable from screen to screen,
and it's over in less than an hour, if you know what you're doing.
But it did do what IBM wanted in that it made some much-needed improvements over their previous games,
like providing multiple ways to solve many puzzles, and branching paths to complete the game.
The ending IS always the same, though, with you gathering all the items, and returning to King Edward,
just in time for him to crown you king, before he keels over on the stairs in front of you.
Then, as his body disappears, you just sit down like,
"Eh, I've seen crazier stuff today; I just slayed a dragon and grew some plants."
It's silly and abrupt, but I can't imagine it ending any other way.
Well, unless you play the SCI remake from 1990,
which some find to be a better game for its additional features,
and reworking of the more irksome puzzles into something less evil.
Rumpelstiltskin, I'm looking at you, you maniac.
And I have to mention the IMPRESSIVE, yet unofficial, Enhanced Edition remake by AGD Interactive,
which features so many updates to the original while keeping the game intact, it's astounding.
So... that's King's Quest: The Quest for the Crown.
I don't want to imagine a universe where Sierra didn't exist beyond 1984,
but y'know that almost happened, and thankfully, King's Quest happened.
King's Quest came to define Sierra On-Line, and for good reason.
Thanks to its success, the golden years of Sierra were able to exist,
and for that, I am grateful.
[MT-32 fanfare, from the SCI version of King's Quest's title screen]
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