King's Quest: Quest for the Crown

"This is one of the archetypes of graphical adventures."

In King's Quest I (KQ1), an adventure game based in a fantasy world, you move by using the arrow keys, and by typing commands into a command line you perform actions. When KQ1 was released in 1983, the ability of doing both of these things together in a game was novel. It would have been standard in an action game, which KQ1 was not, but it was innovative in a game using a command line and a text parser that you could, especially in an open environment, move using the arrow keys. Adventure games did have movement initiated with typed commands; for example, you typed 'NORTH' and moved in that direction, 'EAST,' 'SOUTH,' and so forth. In KQ1 you forgo typed movement and on your current screen (there are forty-eight of them) move any place that you want--deep water and cliffs excepted, unless you want to see the game's distinctive death system. Another distinction of KQ1 from earlier adventure games is being shown your surroundings. Traditional adventure games showed only text. and graphics, inasmuch as they applied, were blue or black backgrounds; and the font was a point of interest. KQ1, whether or not it was the first adventure game with these graphical innovations, began after its release two things: 1) an eight-game series of adventure games under its own name (KQ 1-8, that is,) and 2) a worthy company named Sierra that released, based on King's Quest's model of gameplay, four or five other series of adventure games, all of which neared the mark of eight games themselves. And it was natural that this happened; King's Quest was archetypal, and though simple, it was romantic and amazingly fun. Fight dragons! become heir to the throne! It is like a complete reintroduction to fantasy--all the better if it is a first-time introduction. By returning to the basics players will again recall their early binges in fantasy.

In a kingdom called Daventry there is a knight whom you control named Graham. You begin the game outside of a castle and before any fanfare, introduction, or so forth, must cross the castle's bridge and enter the king's chamber. But the moat has crocodiles inside of it. It is over for you if you slip off of the bridge en route to the gate. Particularly this reflects the predicament of KQ1. You need to go places and find items, but you must reload the game if you make a wrong move, which is done from your last saved game. Graham, peculiar to a knight, does not have a sword; the game has no action scenes. A moving monster occasionally appears on the screen, and Graham must typically avoid contact with the monster. Exceptions require that he subdue a monster by typing a command (for example, USE WAND) and pressing enter. Killing a monster, I believe, is never required. You use items that perform various tasks (ex: EAT BREAD or PUSH ROCK,) and you move about the game's world (this is done with the arrow keys; Graham is an icon on the screen that moves when you press the arrows,) completing your quest.

Your quest is the collection of the three displaced magical treasures of the kingdom of Daventry. The treasures were scattered, and the countryside of Daventry, comprising everything outside of the king's two-room castle, has by and large been ravished by certain forces (arguably, the castle was not exempt either given its size.) It is dangerous outside, and Sir Graham must find items that will help him in recovering all of the treasure. Using the arrow keys you walk him around the game world, and you find utilities that you can use to do things like open doors, subdue monsters, give to people, or operate devices. You are aware of the simplicity and the romance of your quest while doing all of this; and it is very fun. Besides yourself, does the king have other employed knights? Only one family lives in Daventry; the kingdom, divided into forty-eight screens is open and verdant, filled with magical creatures. Actually, because it ought to be said, King's Quest uses as a source of its content many of Grimm's fairy tales; fairy tales that include things like fairy god-mothers, witches, beanstalks, gnomes, and other curiosities (the mention of which might spoil things for the player.) If you have read these fairy tales before, you might find experiencing them again in KQ1 to be enchanting. I would actually consider KQ1, for what the mere thought is worth, based on its magic and romance, to be worthy of adding to Grimm's canon--that is how much it evokes this type of setting.

Though the kingdom of Daventry is mostly a chunk of screens that can be accessed from north, south, east, or west, there are some areas blocked by obstacles. You will, if you travel far enough, explore one or two caves, enter a house, see an island, and walk on the clouds. The map, due to the game's age, does flip unrealistically over when you exceed its boundaries; for example, you go miles south of the king's castle, and when you step off-screen and southwards you appear inside of the castle moat--swimming alongside crocodiles. These things happen--even on other screens you can appear in water (if it is deep enough you instantly die) by traveling from an odd angle on the screen. Since you can save your game anywhere, however, it is seldom disappointing. This was obviated in King's Quest II when the designers placed boundaries at the edge of the map, not adjoining the edges of a lake, for instance, to the top of a cliff going south-to-north, which is a plague in KQ1. Otherwise, the number of visitable places probably matches the limitations of memory in these days, and one wouldn't at any rate want to go too much farther. KQ1, unless you look at someone else's map, is the type of game where you will want to create your own--there are many screens available for exploring.

The game has enemies other than water and crocodiles. You can die in natural ways, such as falling off of stairs, and there are enemies on the overworld who appear at random and chase you off of the screen (or catch and kill you.) In the underworld and other similar areas you find the enemies that you must subdue. These are usually guarding one of the three treasures that you must take to the king, but only after you have all three. Climbing stairs in the game, amusingly, is not trivial, and Graham imitates humpty dumpty if he isn't dilligent when climbing them. Stairs were a staple of the King's Quest series till they disappeared in KQ5. Encounters with them can be annoying. There is in KQ1 at least an option of avoiding them, even if it is far-fetched--I don't want to spoil things, but there is a puzzle where you must guess someone's name, if you guess it correctly you avoid two or three screens of stair-climbing.

KQ1 admittedly does have some problems. Besides some challenges of subjective merit, the game's speed, which I have not mentioned, is one. The enemies move quickly, but Sir Graham, who slumps about, is slow. The game offers three speeds, slow, medium, and fast, that seem imbalanced. As you change speeds you notice significant differences, though that is half of the problem: slow and fast speeds are ridiculous extremes, and normal is too slow. When I would become tired of normal speed I would kick on fast, shoot through four screens in a millisecond and drown in a lake. When I felt like a mopy knight I hit slow and started brainstorming for this review. You will eventually become accustomed to the normal speed, but it is things like these that reduce an 'excellent despite being old' game to a 'despite being old, excellent' game, which are not the same thing. The distictintion is perhaps as subtle as the trouble of having to move slightly slower, but you do at first notice how slow it is.

The graphics and sound of KQ1 highlight its subtleties, which is the greatest distinction that they could have had in the year of 1983. Graphics are simple, reminding you of the childlike appeal of fairy tales and basic fantasy, and the derivative sound, when it appears, which isn't often, is useful; Greensleeves is both the title and the ending theme, and Chopin's Funeral March is the death music. You also see a cute pun or joke when you die, which is often appropriate, poking fun at your mistake--I suppose this falls into the 'graphics' category. Mainly, the superficial aspects of the game contribute to its appeal, of childlike romance and unpretentious fantasy. Also without the graphics KQ1 would not be what it is; it would be a text adventure; its being a graphical adventure was what distinguished it when Sierra released it.

KQ1 is perhaps old; nobody, except the student who used a mainframe computer and played the original Adventure on it, will say that games made in 1983 are not old. But with one exception nobody since has recreated a game quite like it (introducing King's Quest 1 VGA!--which seemed buggy when I tried it, but it is a pretty game,)and with a few exceptions I could not confidently choose another graphical adventure and beat it in a day, not worrying about becoming mentally cluttered or reading an instruction manual. You will enjoy KQ1 if you have an idea of simple English, because none of the game's commands exceed two words. You will map an undeceptive game world whose only downside is that its edges loop over. KQ1 is an archetypal graphical adventure, needed to be played at least once if one is a fan of graphical adventures (I have beaten it three or four times.). It typifies the scavenger-hunting-style of these games and asks that you do a heroic quest, rewarding you with a touching ending if you complete it. Finally, for replay value, KQ1 shows you what your score was/is, and if you want you can try in subsequent replays to improve it.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/18/05, Updated 06/08/07