King's Quest: Quest for the Crown

"The first chapter in what would come to be one of the greatest adventure game series of all time."

 
A few notes about the adventure genre in general and the history of King’s Quest:

The denizens of the video world claim that the first interactive electronic game was Space War, a relatively simple battle between two opposing rocket ships belonging to the action genre. They are wrong. The first game was not an action game. It was an adventure game – a text adventure game, to be more precise, developed at MIT several months before Space War came into being. The title was very obscure then, and the genre itself was unknown. It would remain that way for several years until it came into the spotlight with the advent of Roberta Williams, adventure game genius.

Roberta was responsible for the creation of several games of tremendous popularity, including Mystery House and Wizard and the Princess, both of which brought the adventure genre to fame. After becoming a master of the adventure game universe, Roberta went on to found Sierra On-Line with her husband, Ken, and to create King’s Quest I: Quest for the Crown, the first electronic game ever to involve all three dimensions in its gameplay instead of just two.

King’s Quest I (or KQ1, as it will be referred to throughout the rest of this review) puts you in the shoes of Sir Graham, a knight in the court of King Edward, ruler of the failing Kingdom of Daventry. Ever since the theft of the kingdom’s three magical treasures, conditions in Daventry have been on the decline. Just what were these three magical treasures? Well, there was a magic mirror that could foretell the future, used by the royal court to determine the worthiest time of year for the farmers to plant their crops. There was a magic shield made of titanium and encrusted with various precious jewels that could protect its bearer from any and all mortal harm, carried by Daventry's generals in times of war. And last, but not least, there was a magic chest that was always, always filled with gold coins the next time you opened it, employed when the kingdom’s treasury was running low. These three items had once made Daventry strong and wealthy, but since they were stolen, the country has been significantly weakened. To make matters worse, the king has yet to produce an heir, and is now on his deathbed. Without a deserving man to take his place when he dies, Daventry will certainly fall into ruination and despair.

Enter Sir Graham. You. You consult King Edward one day when he is feeling well. He speaks to you about the state of Daventry, the three magical treasures, and the key role they must play if the kingdom is ever to be restored to its former glory. He requests that you search the nation far and wide and leave no stone unturned in recovering the three lost treasures. For this, you will be entitled to the throne of Daventry when he dies. In his own words: “To prove yourself worthy of my crown, I command you to journey out into the world and retrieve the three great treasures taken from Daventry by treachery and stealth. Fail, and our beautiful Daventry will grow ever weaker until it is invaded and conquered by an unfriendly nation. Succeed in this great quest, and you shall become King upon my death. This I promise by all that is honorable and right.

“May you return victorious, Sir Graham!”

That is the story and your quest. Your journey through Daventry will take you to several unique and interesting places, including a city in the clouds where giants lurk, a witch’s gingerbread house, and an underground cavern of leprechauns. Granted, these places aren’t very original, nor is the story as rich or elaborate compared to the complex characteristically-enhanced plots of today’s games. However, keep in mind that KQ1 was made in 1983. Such ideas had never before been implemented in any sort of game. In its day, the theme of this game was quite novel.

Because Daventry is a large country, it cannot be displayed all at once in detail. Thus, the kingdom has been divided into smaller areas called screens. Each screen portrays a different location in Daventry. For instance, one screen displays Castle Daventry, another hosts a gingerbread house, a third flaunts the entrance to a cave… you get the picture. Using the arrow keys or the number pad, you can navigate these screens, and with the letter keys, you can interact with the environments contained within them. KQ1 uses what is referred to as a text parser interface, wherein you physically have to type what action you’d like to take in the game. For example, if, by chance, you happen to wander across a nice, juicy apple in your travels, you would type, “Get apple,” and the fruit would be added to your inventory. Later in the adventure, if you start to get hungry, you would type, “Eat apple.” Depending on the conditions, the result of this action may be either good or bad. Perhaps the apple is poisoned, and will cause your immediate death. On the other hand, maybe the apple is untainted, and will satisfy your hunger. In the words of Sierra, “The player must live by – and die by – his decisions; at least, until he restores his game.” Now, this would all be fine and dandy, except for the fact that the interface is very stubborn about what you tell it to do. Often, your commands will be either not accepted or misinterpreted, which is very annoying, to say the least. Admittedly, the text parser interface makes some of the puzzles impossible for those with a smaller vocabulary. This is KQ1’s biggest downfall. Another problem with KQ1 lies in the speed at which the game takes place. There are three speed settings. The first is Slow, which isn't nearly fast enough. The second is Normal, which is just slow enough to be mind-numbingly painful. The third is Fastest, which is exactly what it says: as fast as your computer can possibly go. This is, unfortunately, usually fast enough to get the oneself killed within a few moments, so the player is forced to play the game at the Normal speed setting, which is still annoying, to say the least.

The graphics were terrific at the time, although they are substantially less than spectacular by today’s standards. Because of the strict limitations of computers in 1983, KQ1 only features sixteen colors. The usage of these colors throughout the game is anything but professional. For example, the grass over which Graham treads is a bright fluorescent green that would make most modern gamers want to claw out their eyes if they were to see it, and the coloration of most of the lakes and rivers throughout the land is exactly the same as the coloration of the sky, making for some very confusing situations. Furthermore, nothing in the game’s scenery actually moves. The Raging River, for example, is not portrayed as having any motion. It just stands there, unmoving, frozen in time. Yet, if by chance you happen to fall in, the game will describe the river as having “rushing waters” and a “raging current.” This strange anomaly can be seen in countless places throughout the game, such as at the aforementioned river, at a waterfall that doesn’t fall, and at the leprechauns’ cave. Nevertheless, for all its graphical faults, it must still be remembered that KQ1 was the first of its kind. The visual effects in this game, although obsolete by today’s standards, were stunning compared to games of the past, which featured two colors at most and pictures that looked like they were drawn by a four year-old.

Because this is such an old game, sound is composed of nothing more than beeps and clicks generated from the PC’s internal speaker. That said, audio in KQ1 is nothing special, and is undoubtedly one this game’s weakest points. No sound plays during the game, which makes the task of walking from screen to screen very boring at times. There’s not much more in the way of music. There are only five tunes that play in the entire course of your adventure, and none of those tunes comes often enough to make things interesting. There’s Sierra’s version of “What Child is This?” (or “Greensleeves”), which plays at the title screen; there’s a catchy little jingle that sounds whenever an enemy appears; there’s a short song that plays when you open the castle doors in the beginning of the game; there’s a brief toe-tapping tune that plays that sounds when you play the fiddle; and finally, there’s a rendition of “Pray For the Dead”, which plays whenever you die.

I’ll end this critique exactly how I started it: with a reminder that this is an adventure game. By nature, games of the adventure genre are not heavy in replayability. After completing KQ1, you’ll seldom come back to it. Sure, you may find yourself replaying it once or twice to get the maximum possible score, and you might start a new game every so often when you’re bored out of your mind and have nothing else to do. But ultimately, there’s really no reason to return to it after having beaten it once, as nothing changes the second time you play it. Despite this, I recommend that you purchase King’s Quest I if you happen to come across it. It’s a classic game and a member of one of the most successful lines of adventure games of all time.

Gameplay: 7
Storyline: 9
Graphics: 10
Audio: 6
Replayability: 5
Total Score: 7
 

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 03/10/02, Updated 08/08/02