King's Quest is an adventure game where you play Sir Graham, a brave knight who is sent on a quest to retrieve three treasures that were stolen by deception and stealth: a shield that protects its bearer from invaders, a mirror that foretells the future, and a treasure chest that is forever filled with gold. If Graham takes these treasures back to the royal castle, then the ailing King Edward the Benevolent will hand over the crown. During his travels, Graham will meet characters that will either help or hinder him.
You move Graham around with arrow keys, and perform actions by typing commands into the game, usually a verb/noun sequence. Some of the puzzles in the game rely on fairy tales, and a good knowledge of them is needed to complete them.
Made by the legendary Roberta Williams, King's Quest 1 laid the foundations for what was to become the “graphical adventures” genre. Released as early as 1983, it overshadowed the text-only Infocom games in terms of technology. At the time, the graphics were astounding, resulting in a huge hit in the USA (although much less so in Europe).
Sadly enough, that's where the positive comments have to end. Yes, KQ1 crossed many boundaries and introduced to us the foundations for a new genre, opening the door for games such as Maniac Mansion, Space Quest and other classics BUT … well, the game is crap. I'm sure the critics will chastise me for saying so, but Infocom pushed the genre forwards by making complex and involving text adventures with clever puzzles and imaginative worlds to explore when King's Quest came along and took a BIG step backwards by undoing everything Infocom did.
For starters, the story is laughable and generic and the world is bland and ripped straight out of classic (yet also long-in-the-tooth) fairy tales and those aren't even the worst parts about the game! No, the worst mistake is the way the game plays. You simply can't make an adventure game that is all about exploring and investigating and yet punish the gamer every few minutes because he's … exploring and investigating. There's many dozens of ways to die and most of the time, it's unpredictable and unavoidable and you're left feeling cheated. Clever ideas don't work and the text parser is incredibly primitive. Often, you'll have the right idea but using the ‘wrong' words will result in you mistakenly believing it's not the right solution.
On top of that, the game seems to love hitting you over the head for unforeseeable circumstances. It's very well possible to die because you didn't pick up a certain object even if that object was in a very obscure corner of a screen. Or worse: you forgot to do something vital which results in the game becoming impossible to complete but for some reason, the game doesn't tell you. You're happily wandering around for hours trying to figure out what you did wrong. And don't expect the game to give you any hints!
So in the end, as historical as this game may be, there's no excuses for such poor design decisions. It's not the limits of technology that makes you die so often or gets you stuck. It's Roberta who seems to be a closet dominatrix, getting a kick out of seeing Sir Graham get killed in dozens of different ways. I can't help but wonder why a game that seems to be aimed at kids contains so much deaths and is so unforgiving.
If you do plan to try this game, however, I can only encourage you to use a walkthrough. Without it, you're bound to feel like strangling Roberta after just a few hours of playing. KQ1 commits about every sin a graphical adventure can make! To be fair, the other Quest series (Space Quest & Police Quest) did not do much better at first either and I have a feeling that this level of absurd difficulty was really a ploy by Sierra to sell their Hint Books (which they even advertise in their games!). Still, you're warned. Play this to see a piece of history but don't expect a top quality game!
Part of the King's Quest Series
This is the first King's Quest game by Sierra. A nice adventure where you have to type your way through it. In short the gameline. The King of Daventry is old and about to die soon. Unfortunately he has no heir to carry on the royal line. Three treasure are lost in the kingdom and Sir Graham (that's you) must find those treasures in order to become King.
The story in the game is quite short and it only contains one page of text, making it very short. You start as Sir Graham, just outside the castle and when you met King Edward, he tells you that you must go on a quest, because King Edward is dying and if you manage to complete this quest you will inherit the throne and also because your kingdom is weak and poor and if you get these 3 things, your kingdom will become strong and wealthy. You have to get a magic mirror which can tell the future, a magic shield which protects the bearer from any mortal harm and a magic treasure chest that is always filled with gold coins. There isn't much more of a story in this game. A part the makers could have spent a lot more time on.
The graphics are like the regular Sierra game graphics at that time (like in Space Quest 1, Leisure suit Larry 1 and Police Quest 1). The graphics isn't that bad even though they dent to interfere with the game play. The game play was okay, with some nice puzzles, but like in so many Sierra games, it can become quite annoying. You can die and if you die and haven't saved for a long time and die, you have to go back to the old save and do all the things you just done all over. This can be very annoying. Also there are things that try and kill you if you enter the map where they are, and there the witch is by far most annoying.She got me probably a dozen times. I also noticed that if you enter another screen and there is a tree where you entered, you will get stuck in the tree and that is quite annoying.
There isn't much sound in the game, some music when you die and when you accomplish great achievements. There isn't much more sound or music in it. This game could have been far worse than this but also a lot better. There wasn't really a story and you had to figure out most times what to do on yourself and there wasn't a real story that helped you do it. The game play was sometimes annoying, but not at all as annoying as in games like Space Quest 1, and it was a lot easier to avoid dying. This is a great classic though and you should get it.
King's Quest is an adventure game series created by the American personal computer game company Sierra Entertainment. It is widely considered as a classic series from the golden era of adventure games. Following the success of its first installment, the series was primarily responsible for building the reputation of Sierra. Roberta Williams, co-founder and former co-owner of Sierra, designed all of the King's Quest games. The King's Quest series chronicles the saga of the royal family of the Kingdom of Daventry through their various trials and adventures. The story takes place over two generations and across many lands, including Daventry, Kolyma, Llewdor, Tamir, Serenia, Eldritch, Etheria, Land of the Green Isles, Realm of the Dead, The Swamp, Dimension of Death, Underground Realm of the Gnomes, Barren Region, Frozen Reaches, Paradise Lost, and Realm of the Sun. In February 2011, it was announced that the series will be rebooted by Telltale Games. Description The world of King's Quest is sophisticated and immersive. It encompasses many different kingdoms ...
How to run this game on modern Windows PC?
People who downloaded King's Quest 1 have also downloaded:
King's Quest 4: The Perils of Rosella, King's Quest 3: To Heir is Human, Space Quest: The Sarien Encounter, King's Quest 5: Absence Makes the Heart go Yonder, Kings Quest 2: Romancing the Stones VGA, King's Quest 7: The Princeless Bride, King's Quest: Quest for the Crown VGA, King's Quest 6: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow
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