#KQIV

[gerbiloftriumph]

Oh no, you have been caught by the vicious troll!

[theadventurerslog]

King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella | Part 2

The Adventurer's Log

King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella Part 2

Oh boy. Ohhh boy. This session is one of the highlights of the several ways you can dead-end yourself! Let's get to it, shall we?

I left off last time with my goal being to bring Lolotte the unicorn. I (mostly) knew what to do or this would have been more of a mess and probably would have had me running to hints.

First, while unrelated, I did want to have a quick look around for the minstrel to give him that Shakespeare book. I didn't find him, but the RNG (sooo much RNG in this game) was kind and I encountered Cupid at the pool who dropped his bow. At least I assume it was RNG; it could be a kinder situation have him always show up there after you're sent on the unicorn mission. That bow is one of the things we'll need for the unicorn.

After that I decided to just get on with things. First step: go back to the beach and start swimming. Now, there is a hint about this--at the beginning, when Genesta says it's time for her fly back while she still can she does fly out to the ocean. Still, I doubt I would have thought of that myself. But, since I did know, it was time to go swimming!

And get eaten by a shark.

I got eaten a few times before I made it. Gotta love that RNG. Hovering near the top or bottom edge helps, so you can switch screens quickly to hopefully get rid of it, but even that isn't a surefire way to be safe.

I did eventually make it to land--Genesta's island itself.

Pardon the tiny point discrepancy you may notice in the upcoming screencaps. I took this after wandering the island.

Look at that fairy-tale castle. It's actually quite a nice island. With peacocks!

But maybe I do need the peacock.

Further along the beach is a peacock feather lying on the ground. Unlike the peacock I apparently don't need, the feather is needed as will be shown soon.

More exploration. It's pretty! And I feel a good highlight in the update in graphics from the previous three games. Putting that SCI engine to work!

Then I entered Genesta's castle and was proven she's good. Look at these stairs having railings. I didn't fall off even once.

The most leisurely stairs ever.

At the top is Genesta's room.

I couldn't talk to her snow leopard :(. Rosella needs some dough in her ears.

Other than looking around and of course visiting that glorious snow leopard, there's no point in coming up here yet. If you look at Genesta the game reminds you she's fading. If you try to talk to her, her fairy companions get mad and furiously shoo you away. Still, seeing the snow leopard seems like reason enough to me to come up here.

Now that that's done, it's time to swim back to the main land. Start swimming back, hope you don't get eaten by a shark again (haha, that sure happened again) and then see a whale! Isn't that neat? Until a whirlpool sucks you in.

Here it is. We begin the chain of potential dead-ends and why was this a good idea again?

But first I was gross.

I love it when the game get emphatic at my crap.

Anyway, there's a bottle with a note in it. The note has a bunch of random messages pleading for various help with puzzles from Sierra's other games. Just a cute easter egg.

The skeleton is a skeleton of "an unlucky man (let's call him James)..." This feels like a possible reference I don't know.

And now the why. The first step to get out of this predicament is to climb that big ol' tongue. There is a set path. There is no way to identify that set path except to just keep trial and error-ing it. Even having a rough idea of where the path is from seeing it done, I still fell several times. You don't die from falling...which I shouldn't have to clarify, but this is King's Quest. But, it is still annoying to nearly make it only to fall. Also, you can die if you take too long because you succumb to noxious fumes. I did at least manage to avoid that.

Once you make it up you need to get close to the uvula, also without falling, and if you look at it the game tells you that it is an uvula and that it looks like a big punching bag, which is completely useless information. You can punch it, which is mean, but it doesn't do anything except to tell you it doesn't do anything.

Nope, you better hope you got that peacock feather on the island because you need to tickle the uvula with it.

If you miss the feather you're stuck here forever. Better hope you have a recent save.

The whale sneezes you out into the ocean near a small island where there are a couple more possible dead-ends.

A Monkey Island joke pardon me.

Okay, as said a couple dead-end possibilities here.

First: there's a mandatory item here. If you look at the boats it tells you there are wrecked boats and a glint though it doesn't specify which boat. Still, the one of the sand is the only one you can get to. If you keep looking you get the same message. You have to get close and Look in the boat to find a golden bridle. This is, as far as I can tell, your one and only chance. Once you get off the island you can't return and you can't get the unicorn so you can't progress. If you miss it you'd have no idea and there's 0 reason to even expect to find a golden bridle here. Not great!

Second: To get off the island you need to feed the pelican a fish. If you didn't fish up a fish, you're trapped here. Now it might be possible to fish up a fish here, but only if you found the worm! And that's assuming you've even gotten the fishing rod yet. I did try swimming away a few times and always drowned.

So, you feed the pelican the fish and it spits out a whistle. You use the whistle to summon a dolphin which you can ride back to shore. All is well.

So yeah, to sum up three rapid dead-ends. Miss feather: you're doomed. Miss fishing pole and/or worm or possibly fish: you're doomed. Miss golden bridle you're hooped without even knowing it until it's time to deal with the unicorn.

Thankfully, these were all things I knew aside from forgetting to feed the pelican and trying to swim away a few times before cluing in.

Safely back on shore and not in a dead-end state I wandered around until the unicorn appeared. Gotta love more of that RNG. And I kind of hate this.

First you have to shoot the unicorn with Cupid's bow to make it trust you. And then you can talk to it and it whinnies softly at you. You can pet its velvety nose. You can kiss its velvety nose. All these nice things before you put the bridle on it and have to ride it back to Lolotte's mountain where it makes a point of telling you it gets fearful.

I'm SORRY. The game is cruel in many ways, but I'll save you...

Once that wretched task was done, Lolotte decided she still doesn't quiiite trust Rosella, because of course she doesn't, not while she can still make us do things for her. Now she wants a golden hen.

This time in my wandering I found the minstrel. He very happily accepted my book of Shakespeare and gave me his lute, for he shall "become a famous ACTOR!". With lute in hand I quickly ran into Pan again and we had our own little jam session.

For Rosella's good playing or maybe just the fun had, Pan gave her his flute in return for the lute then off he went cheerfully playing at the end of this little trade chain.

I wasn't quite sure what to do next. I knew I'd have to deal with the ogres and after running into one of them a few times--yay more deaths--I was able to enter their house only to die to their big dog.

I wound up wending my way back to the manor. I did discover I'd forgotten to grab the shovel again after reloading away from the dreaded stairs last time. I also tackled the dreaded stairs again which went much better. At the top is a pipe organ you can play but it doesn't do anything at this point. At least I mended my wounded stair ego by making it up the stairs this time.

I mean, I accidentally stepped into the hole and died anyway but I did make it up!

None of this was helpful at this point and I wandered around more before succumbing to looking up a hint, not a walkthrough, just hints. I got bone. Yes, of course, that would be good for distracting the dog, and I was also reminded of the waterfall. Right. I knew I had to do something at the waterfall, but I hadn't been able to figure out how to get behind it because the water pushes you away. After staring at my inventory I realized I'd been forgetting that small crown from the frog.

The crown turns you into a frog and then you can hop into a cave behind the waterfall which leads to the other awful part of this game that I mostly avoided for now.

Most useless lamp ever. I got my bone from that pile there and skedaddled for now, but I will have to go there. The lamp at best lights up wall edges a little as you can see there. A troll will also randomly appear and is hard to get away from. I did make one attempt but ultimately got killed by the troll. So that whole bit will be stumbling through the dark while hoping the RNG gods are kind and won't keep spawning the troll...

I'm going to focus on getting the golden hen first, but then that'll be my next step. Getting the talisman back from Lolotte isn't the only goal after all; I still need the fruit.

Next time should be...interesting?

--

Points: 83/230

Deaths: 22

Time: 2:40

[applesofdaventry]

I'm continuing to read the King's Quest Companion and I am at KQIV and I just read this bit about Graham teaching his love of swimming to Rosella and I am now going:

Oh yeah, Alexander doesn't really know how to swim. Like he CAN swim but I am choosing to believe he swims like I do, which is to say: badly.

Therefore this brings about a prime opportunity for Father-Son bonding wherein Graham teaches Alexander how to swim.

[jen-kollic]

Another cross-stitch project I made recently. (maybe? my concept of time has gone out the window since lockdown) Image and text both adapted from King’s Quest IV - although I am not a huge fan of the KQ series, the pixel art in some if the games is pretty bitchin’. I always liked the unicorn in KQIV.

[dangerouscommiesubversive]

how did you learn to type so fast??

This might sound weird, but...kinda by accident? And because of a computer game. I’m going to tell you in way more detail than you probably need to hear, because I think it’s a fun story.

So my dad’s a software engineer, and when I was very young he was all the time going to trade shows for work and coming back with free software that he’d gotten from vendors. When I was about four, he went to one show, I obviously don’t recall which one, and brought back a game for me! That being King’s Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella, a fantasy adventure game where you play as a princess going on a quest to save her dying father. Obviously I was hooked, who doesn’t want to be a princess on a heroic journey? (It spoiled me for all other games, honestly; I was so puzzled and irritated to find that most games didn’t let me play as a girl at all, let alone a princess.)

The thing is, KQIV originally came out in 1988! And even when I got my copy, it was maybe 1991. So it had some rudimentary point-and-click mouse functioning, but to really play the game you had to type all the commands. Look under the bed, pick up Cupid’s bow, tickle the whale...the only thing I didn’t need to type was what direction to go in, because I could use the arrow keys.

Being four years old, I couldn’t read much yet, so Dad played it with me. However, as soon as I did learn to read, which I picked up very quickly, I started to play by myself--which meant typing everything myself, initially very slowly and then with increasing speed as I got the hang of it. By the time I was eight and we were moving to New Hampshire, I was a decent typist, at least in short bursts, and then I discovered that my teachers would often accept assignments that were typed instead of handwritten, which was a blessing, since my handwriting was and still is atrocious. (This was before everything had to be typed, because this was still the mid-Nineties--not every home had a computer in it yet.)

Basically, I learned to type because I wanted to play my princess adventure game, and I got better at it because learning how to type quickly was easier than learning to have better handwriting, and at this point it’s just a question of practice and muscle memory. (Also the fact that I started writing fanfiction when I was thirteen and promptly wrote a novel-length fic about my Dragonball Z Mary-Sue, which caused me to get a lot of typing practice.)

The really fun thing is, at my middle school we had to take a typing class, where they tried to teach us “proper” typing where your fingers hover on the home row and everything. I never got the hang of it. The way I’d taught myself to type was already too ingrained for me to learn a different way.

Anyway, typing’s like any other skill, it just takes practice and focus. Most people type at about 40 wpm because they’re not called on to type all that much; I type quickly because at least 75% of the things I want or have wanted to do in my life required it.

[vladora-sims]

So...  I bought the King's Quest Collection yesterday and played through KQIV.  This was one of my favorite games as a kid.  I thought it was awesome to have a female protagonist...  And I still think female protagonists in video games are awesome.  (As long as they're done right, of course.) 

Anyway, I thought it might be fun to try to build the haunted mansion in the Sims 2.  It's cleaned up a lot since I don't have much abandoned house-type CC. I don't have much build mode CC at all, to be honest.  While I got things to fit more-or-less, it's not really practically playable due to large empty spaces and... lack of bathrooms.  If I wanted to be REALLY cool, I'd have added the ghosts, but, eh, effort.

[theadventurerslog]

King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella | Part 1

The Adventurer’s Log

King’s Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella Part 1

Release date: 1988

Introduction:

We've had two games with Sir Graham turned King Graham, we've had a game with Gwydion actually Prince Alexander and now it's Princess Rosella's turn.

The game picks up right at the ending of III with Graham tossing his cap to Alexander and Rosella. However, things aren't so happy after all. He once followed King Edward in becoming king himself; now he follows again with a heart attack. Thankfully, unlike King Edward he's dying, not dead. Leaving Valanice and Alexander to tend to the ailing Graham, Rosella retreats to the throne room in her grief.

Not all is lost. She wonders what to do and the Magic Mirror activates again and through it the Good Fairy Genesta of the land of Tamir appears.

She offers Rosella a deal: she can take Rosella to Tamir where a magic fruit can be found that will cure King Graham. However, Genesta's talisman was stolen by the evil fairy Lolotte and she only has 24 hours before she fades away without it and if she doesn't get it back she won't have the strength to send Rosella back home.

We can make Graham better than ever!

Rosella agrees to be taken to Tamir after some hesitation, but she wants to help her father. On the shores of Tamir Genesta explains her situation and how her talisman was stolen by Lolotte.

Very tentatively Rosella agrees to help and Genesta switches her dress to a peasant's clothing so no one will grow suspicious of her. And so we have two goals: get the talisman back and find the fruit.

Let the quest begin...!

...and the quest ends because like father like daughter I got killed right away.

Fell off a cliff in true King's Quest fashion. Thankfully I'd saved immediately after all the talk with Genesta. Boy, did her plan fail miserably in this timeline.

I set off again to explore and get the lay of the land as there's no magic map this time. It's back to manual mapping for me. I met a wandering minstrel who's not very good at playing his lute but I still requested a couple songs anyway. He's trying!

I found a fisherman's cabin. I looked around it and made a discovery.

These are truly the important facts to know about Rosella.

The woman was quite worried, grumpy and unfriendly. She wasn't willing to talk much and I bothered her until she yelled at me to "GIT, and I mean GIT!"

Outside was a pier where her husband was fishing and he wouldn't talk to me at all.

It was back to exploring for me and I ran into a satyr named Pan, playing his flute. I tried to talk to him, but he was too busy with his playing. I tried dancing and the game told me, "You couldn't keep up with him, Rosella." I tried singing and the game told me, "You hum along with Pan, but he doesn't pay any attention." Ah well, something else to deal with later.

I found a nice little stone bridge over a stream. Under the bridge was a gold ball, and I could see there was something under there! Unlike a certain closet top. That gold ball found its use very quickly as I soon found a pretty little pond with a crown-wearing frog. This was another case of I think a fairy tale/story I don't know, but thank you let's plays.

You can't get close to the frog without scaring it off. Instead you 'accidentally' drop the golden ball into the pond and then the frog fetches it for you and comes to the shore. You go to the frog, scoop him up and now we're back in familiar territory because naturally there's only one thing for a princess and a frog to do.

Look at it of course! Isn't he cute?

But, no, we've gotta kiss him.

With a...bit of a puzzling message.

Of course this transforms the frog back into a prince! And he sucks! He thought 'she was supposed to be a princesss?!' But 'she's nothing more than a PEASANT girl!' Eww. Rosella blanches at that a bit but says nothing. She could've kicked him.

Oh fine, never mind then. (unrelated incident but it fit you know. Incident being me trying to kick the rock just to see what would happen.)

Snotty ungrateful prince leaves behind the golden ball and little crown, so we got that for our efforts.

Continuing on I came across the Seven Dwarfs' house. It was a mess. I looked at different things then tried to take the soup.

Oh but Graham can steal soup; I see how it is.

After a little while, one of the dwarfs came back, got mad, accused me of trespassing and kicked me out. Oops. He yelled at me some more when I tried entering again so I left the screen and came and then was able to enter the now-empty house. What can we do to not get kicked out? Clean!

Once finished the dwarfs all come back happy as can be and get their soup.

Not looking so great, but the last dwarf does get an extra bowl for Rosella and invites her to join them. They talk and a friendly time is had with some tasty soup before it's time for the dwarfs to go back to the mine. But they've left a pouch of diamonds on the table! Naturally we take that. Thieving adventurer jokes aside I did bring the pouch back to them in the mine and they let me keep it and gave me a lantern.

Some nice exploration happening but of course I still needed to find Lolotte and that's what I ended up doing. Hello mountain path and hello goons.

Looks bad but let's be real: it's nice to not have to go up that winding path.

Lolotte's goons take us straight to her.

Rosella tries to defend herself, but Lolotte doesn't believe her and has her tossed into a rather grim looking cell with torture implements and two skeletons. There's not much to do but look at things and wait. Thankfully, unlike a certain boat, the wait isn't long and the goons come back for her and take her back to Lolotte.

Turns out her son, Edgar, convinced her Rosella was telling the truth, more or less.

He got shy...

Lolotte still doesn't quite trust Rosella and will only do so more if she completes a task for her. There's a unicorn she wants. Bring it back to her and we may gain her trust.

Not a pleasant task but we've gotta do what we've gotta do and the goons deliver Rosella back to the base of the mountain. I did actually see the unicorn already a few times, but lack the means to catch it or even get close.

Nearby I found some eeevil trees.

And then I died. I gotta go back and do that more because there are more death tree puns to be had and I can't not get those.

You can't go north from here because of all the murder trees so I went back west to more evil trees and then a cemetery and a decrepit old manor.

Naturally I had to read some of the graves. No love lost there it seems. There are others to read, some goofy, some more serious.

The manor itself didn't have too much for me yet. I found a book of Shakespeare--I guess he exists in this world. And I found a terrible staircase.

Please no.

I made one attempt, fell off and died and decided that's a battle for another day and left.

I did a little more exploring to fill in my map, headed back to the fisherman's house, getting killed by an ogre on the way. Back at the house the fisherman was still on the pier, but this time he got up and I was able to follow him back into their house where I talked to him and found out they haven't been able to catch much fish so he and his wife are struggling. I gave him the pouch of diamonds for which he and his wife were thrilled. He gave me his fishing rod in return and both he and his wife are much friendlier with Rosella now.

With a worm I'd found earlier I went fishing for... a fish, so now I have a dead fish because all inventories need a dead fish I suppose.

Next goals: keep exploring, find the minstrel and offer him the Shakespeare book and look for ways to get a unicorn.

Points: 32/230

Deaths: 5

Time: 1:20

[theadventurerslog]

King’s Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella | Part 4

The Adventurer’s Log

King’s Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella Part 4

Rosella falls. A lot. But victory is had in the end because it is indeed finale time!

I thought I had the stairs up to the pipe organ in the manor well in hand. Apparently not because I still managed some falls. The way it spirals is confusing for the controls and there's another spot later that has the same issues. Regardless I got up there in the end and used the new sheet music to play a new song, which opened a little drawer in the pipe organ revealing a skeleton key.

Nothing like a skeleton key for a crypt, eh?

The crypt is just one room with a sarcophagus and Pandora's Box just sitting there on the floor. Naturally a sarcophagus means a mummy coming out of it, but the scarab wards it off just like the zombies and it goes back to the sarcophagus. If you try to look at mummy the game tries to pull a jedi mind trick and says "There is no mummy here." Hmph.

With the box in hand it's time to go back to Lolotte. After falling a couple more times because I don't learn and kept creeping up the path instead of just waiting to be grabbed as if that went oh so well last time.

It's a nice view at night though.

Lolotte is pleased with our efforts and for our reward... Well, Edgar has fallen for Rosella, so...

All of our precious inventory is taken! And Rosella is escorted to Edgar's room for the night; too bad for him, but he can just sleep elsewhere.

The door is locked. There's no getting out the windows. All seems lost until Edgar comes!

Edgar slips the rose under the door and then leaves. The rose has a golden key attached that unlocks the door. Edgar is sweet.

Sadly his efforts were wasted multiple times.

More blasted super-easy-to-fall off stairs and not even the only set in here! And then once you do get down you have to evade Lolotte's goons which for the most part is easy. They're all asleep, so as long as you don't get too close you're good to go.

I, of course, still did it once deliberately and then did it several more times because there was one spot that was tricky to get by.

Ring the evil wedding bells! They are pronounced man and wife! Edgar may kiss the bride! And does so and Rosella faints.

And so another game over. And then another 6 that happened accidentally. That's a lot of marriages.

I eventually got through and made it up to Lolotte's room including up another annoying staircase with more falls. The perspective on these stairs is just confusing.

It was time to finish this! ...except I forgot to find my stuff, so there was nothing I could to do except go back down for the search or let her roast me by talking to her or trying to grab the talisman. I reloaded an earlier save to avoid the staircase and went back to the search and that's actually when a lot of those marriages happened.

Once I got back my stuff back it was time to face Lolotte for real! Armed and dangerous with Cupid's Bow, I shot her.

The power of love and revenge saves the day!

Edgar shows up and acknowledges her death. He says we can freely walk around the castle and starts to say something else before breaking off with a blush and leaving. Now, the way this session had been going I wouldn't have been surprised if I'd just walked out forgetting to grab the talisman...thankfully I was more on the ball than that on this one.

With free reign of the castle, simply leaving is an option but that will miss points. No, now's the time to undo the damage and get back the stuff we gave to Lolotte. The hen and Pandora's Box were both in the same room. There was a cute little tune playing while the hen ran around the room until I picked her up.

The unicorn is in a small stable outside. I got the guilt all over again.

:(. I set it free at least...

So, that mountain path I kept falling down when I could have just stayed still and been carried? Yeah, now you do have to walk down it. And it was finicky. A few falls later... I made it down. Never to have to do it again.

I still needed to return Pandora's Box. But of course I couldn't just do that. Science must be done! What else can you do, but open it?

Science often results in death in these games. But, hey, that's what saves are for.

Reloading, I went back into the crypt, dropped off the box and continued on my merry way. It was time to go back to Genesta at last.

Okay, talisman is got, fruit is got. All is well! Except, you know. Science. There are two endings-one without the fruit and one with the fruit. You can just not find the fruit at all, or...

Eat the fruit instead and feel great. Rosella gets a delicious fruit and the feeling of vigor and vitality. She's got boundless energy and the wonderful glow of good health. Nothing wrong here!

I gave the talisman back to Genesta and she felt immediately better. We're teleported outside and she finds out Rosella has her hen and thanks her for saving her. She also thanks Rosella for her heroic efforts for all of Tamir but... she forgot one thing..."You forgot the magic fruit for your father."

Oh no, don't worry Genesta. I didn't forget it at all. It was very yummy.

It's too late and Genesta immediately returns her to Daventry (after restoring her back to her princess dress.)

Rosella makes it back just in time.

The family stands around his bed and Rosella is crying. The text continues on to say, "Obviously, it would have been better if things had ended happily. If only you could have another chance..." Hint hint.

The End.

Or not.

Time for the good ending.

Reloading I went back to Genesta and gave her her talisman back.

Her smile here creeps me out a little I have to say.

Just like before Genesta teleports them both outside, takes her hen back and thanks Rosella for her efforts. But now we get one more thing. Genesta summons Edgar.

Two things. First: rude. Second: Why does she only do this if Rosella has the fruit? Sorry, Edgar, just gonna ignore you because Rosella failed to get a thing that had nothing to do with you anyway. That's just unfair.

Genesta turns him human or at least human looking. Is he still a fairy? I'm not quite sure on this point. Rosella is certainly impressed anyway.

His BODY, huh Rosella? Ahem (yeah I'm not over that bit of KQ III nonsense yet). Edgar confesses to loving her and proposes. Love at first sight is extremely prevalent in this family. Major victims of sugary fairy-tale rules here.

That said, after thinking about it, Rosella does refuse telling him he's very sweet, but she must immediately return home. Maybe they'll meet again one day. He's sad but understands and Genesta sends her home. No idea where Edgar goes now. I hope Genesta took care of his needs.

Everyone is happy. Except me because I thought I was doing so well but look! I missed two points!

I couldn't let that stand and they were thankfully an easy two points to go back and get.

So, hey, let this be a lesson: when you're returning a box full of evil to a crypt, close the door and lock up behind you. Yep, that's where I missed my points. Rosella slides the key back under the door into the crypt, which should theoretically stop anyone from getting Pandora's Box again.

I returned once more and went through whole ending again for the REAL and PROPER ending with maximum points.

That's better.

Alexander's head is so big and I couldn't stop staring at it. Just in general his proportions seem...not right in relation to everyone else.

The End at last.

With maximum points. That other ending didn't happen.

Final Points: 230/230

Deaths: 86 | Oof... 7 of those were marriages, so not exactly deaths per se, but still a game over.

Time: 5hrs

Final Thoughts:

There are things I quite like about this game, but man are there some low points as well. I'm going to talk about the bad stuff first then end with the good things to end on a positive note.

I don't know if I got luckier in the previous games or unlucky in this one, but the rng based stuff felt worse. I ran into the shark a ton. The troll in the cave was incessant. I had several ogre deaths around the ogre house before even getting into the house. That could get irritating.

Then of course there were the two big low points: the whale and the dark cave. Beyond the actual frustration of doing them, what really gets me is that there's nothing you're really solving. It's an adventure game; you expect puzzles to solve. These two instances come down to trial and error. Just keep bumbling around until you figure out your course. That's not satisfying. In the cave's case you're bumbling around probably getting unavoidably killed several times to boot. The cave has the placing a board over the chasm, but even that's something you're going to die to first because there's zero hint it's even there. It's cheap.

And finally the stairs--an issue through the games up to this point but they were the worst here. Twisting stairs with unintuitive controls to get up them. Not stairs, but the path down the mountain had a really tight finicky spot as well. The controls are not fine enough for this kind of thing.

However, there were things I liked too! It's the prettiest of these four with the new engine. It's nice to have a female main character back in the 80s when that was still rare in video games. It's fun there is more than one ending like yeah you can totally skip the fruit or even eat it.

I like that Lolotte is an actual regular presence unlike past villains which aren't really there much. Manannan gets more, but once he's a cat that's that. Sure, she's a basic shallow villain whose only motivation is EVIL, but it's still fun to have that.

And aside from the whale and cave, it was still fun exploring and playing with the text parser. There were cute moments with the minstrel and Pan. Just those low points are a drag on an otherwise still decent game.

I'm glad I did play it still. I was originally thinking of only playing KQ V and VI. I thought maybe since IV came with those two I'd play it too, but wasn't sure. I'm glad I went right back to the start after all. And hey, I'm free of terrible stairs now. I can better appreciate that freedom.

Overall, I think I feel similarly to III with IV. A mixed bag, but one I'm still glad to have experienced.

[theadventurerslog]

King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella | Part 3

The Adventurer's Log

King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella Part 3

In which I get a gold-egg laying hen, die in a dark cave a lot, get a fruit and help some ghosts.

Now that I had the bone I could enter the ogre's home without being eaten by their dog. Naturally I died a few times before entering because the ogre kept showing up. However, once I got in I tossed the bone to the dog and started exploring.

Who's a happy puppy.

I explored around and went upstairs to find an axe and locked room from behind which could be heard clucking. Our hen! Unfortunately, I guess I took too long looking around because once I was back downstairs and looking around a bit more the ogre showed up.

Oops. Oh well, what's one more death-by-ogre for the pile?

I did have to deal with getting back into the house and distracting the dog again, but not too big of a deal. I walked into the kitchen and found the ogre's wife, or so my eyes tell me. The game said differently.

You sure about that, game?

Anyhoo, there was a closet, so what else was there to do but hide in it? A closet, as it turns out, with a handy dandy big keyhole to look through. I just had to wait a little for the ogre to come back and then peep through the hole.

Once the ogre eats he gets his hen and commands her to lay which results in a golden egg. Then he falls asleep.

I left the closet, grabbed the hen and skedaddled. Okay, first I goofed around and ended up waking him up and dying again, but ultimately it was a case of grab hen and run.

Then it was time for dread, time to face it, time to deal with that blasted dark cave.

What is this? Why? There are a few screens of this nonsense and I had the troll appear several times and kill me. It seems impossible to get away from the troll once it appears. I was saving a lot just to avoid having to redo any walking as much as possible in here.

And if that wasn't bad enough, right near the end where you can see the exit there's a chasm. You can't see the chasm because of course it's still pitch black and this is the most useless lantern ever, so basically the only way to discover it is by falling in and dying.

Really?

The only way to cross is to use a board picked up at the start of the area behind the waterfall--better hope you grabbed it or it's another fun walk back--and just kind of keep inching forward trying to put the board over the chasm until you're close enough or you die again. At least she automatically takes it back once you are across.

There was one more screen after this then it was sweet, sweet freedom. Into a swamp. Into a quagmire that sucks you down to your death if you go into it. But you can see! Once I crossed over little grassy platforms with much jumping I found the fruit! And a snake guarding it. Thank goodness I already had the flute or I would have had to make more trips through the cave.

Playing the flute the hypnotizes the snake and so we're free to grab the fruit! Graham will be saved if we can ever get back home or not accidentally step immediately off into the water and drown. Ahem.

Unfortunately there's no way back except through the cave so there were more chasm deaths and more deaths to the troll who was feeling particularly relentless this time but I made it. Ugh.

The pain never ends for Rosella. After all the hen still needs to be brought back to Lolotte and maybe then she'll trust us! Haha, no. After a couple deaths falling off the mountain path before Lolotte's goons grabbed me, I was brought before Lolotte again.

Surprise, surprise, she's not done with Rosella yet and still doesn't quite trust her. Just a tiny bit more is all that's needed. Now she wants Pandora's Box. With its power and evil she would be 'UNSTOPPABLE!'.

Rosella is shaken by this and Lolotte truly is evil! But there's nothing else for it.

The only areas left to deal with were the area past the evil trees, the manor and the crypt near the manor.

I went for the trees first and waved my new-found axe at them. Who's all bark and no bite now huh? Well, okay first I got killed a couple more times because puns! I needed the puns! Look at this

I also got one that said "You've been a real sap this time, Rosella."

That aside, once they were cowed by Rosella's axe swinging I was able to pass through and find a cave with three witches. The witches are blind and share a glass eye between them. Two pass it back and forth while the third tries to capture Rosella. Getting caught of course means another death and a nasty one in this case as they throw her in their cauldron and it's just oogh. Aside from the one death though I managed to snatch the eye pretty easily, especially felt so after all the previous struggles elsewhere.

They beg for their eye back but if you give it to them, they'll just come after you again. If you leave and come back they throw you a magic scarab that protects you from undead in hopes you'll give the eye back. You can just take the scarab and run but if you do toss the eye back you get some points. They'll still come after you, so gotta leave the cave quick after that, but points!

Night fell after this, the perfect time to go back to the cemetery and manor of course. The crypt still needed to be unlocked. Now that it's night zombies are all over the cemetery and will kill you if you don't have the scarab.

Hey fellows.

I went to the manor and now that it's night I got a text box saying you can hear a baby crying from upstairs. This is the start of helping the five ghosts haunting the place by finding an item related to each. You get a hint about each that will relate in some way to one of the tombs outside. There's a shovel inside you can use to dig the graves, however it breaks after 5 uses, so you need to find the right grave first time each time by reading what the tombstones say.

There's a baby that wants his rattle back, a miser wanting gold, a woman who lost her love at sea and needs a locket back, an old lord and soldier wanting his medal back and a young boy who wants his toy back.

Once you've helped each of them you get a sheet of music. It's time to put that organ to use again... and face the dreaded stairs one last time.

I need to find Pandora's Box and go back to Lolotte for the final stages of the game. Next time should be the finale!

Points: 161/230

Deaths: 54

Time: 4hrs

[applesofdaventry]

Me, explaining the King's Quest games plots (very poorly) to my friend who:

Does not know what King's Quest is

Does not play point and click or adventure games

Didn't know what a text parser was

Me: In kings quest III you are some slave child named Gwydion who is about to die if Manannan (the asshole evil wizard who raised you) has anything to say about it. You turn him into a cat. And discover that Actually you are the lost prince of Daventry, huzzah. Manannan stole you for evil wizard porpoises. You also kill a dragon and save your hot sister but then king Graham (from the first two games) has a heart attack! Oh dear!

My Friend:

Me: In KQIV you play as Rosella (the hot sister) and you go to a different country through the magic mirror to help Genesta, a fairy, get her mojo back from Lolotte, an evil fairy. Along the way you also find a magic fruit that will cure your dad of oh god damn that heart disease. You kill Lolotte with the power of love after narrowly avoiding having to marry her son. You return home, forcefeed your dad the fruit. And all is well.

My Friend, beginning to type: ...

Me: KQV a different evil wizard jacks your castle and everyone in it

My Friend: Wow. That's a lot.

Me: There's eight of them.

My Friend: God.

[theadventurerslog]

King’s Quest: Quest for the Crown | Part 1

The Adventurer’s Log

King’s Quest I: Quest for the Crown Part 1

Release Date: 1984 (original version)

Introduction

Ahh, King’s Quest, the well-known series from Sierra, but while it’s a series I’ve known of for a long time, it’s a series I had never played nor even seen played until these past couple months.

I came across the Youtube channel, Such Minutiae, and started watching their Lets Plays of the series. Come King’s Quest V and VI I decided I was interested in at least giving those two a play. On GOG they come bundled with KQIV and I figured, why not? I could give IV a shot too. Then this idea to start blogging my efforts struck and I thought, you know what? Why not start right from the beginning and grab the first three games after all, too? Throw in them being on sale and here we are.

Now, as noted, I watched a Let’s Play, so this won’t be a blind play. However, this particular game is a different version from what I watched. They played the Sierra Creative Interpreter (SCI) version which was a sort of remake/remaster. I’m playing the older AGI game and aside from graphical differences there are other differences as well. I probably won’t be able to spot a lot of them, but there is one different puzzle solution I’m aware of and I’ll make note of it when I come to it along with anything else that sticks out to me.

Having already watched the games be played I expect this will go a lot smoother than it otherwise would, but that I will still have some hangups. There is some real bullshit in these games, so it’s nice to go in prepared, accept that and enjoy the ride. And die a lot. I intend to keep a death counter. That will be noted at the end of the posts.

Let’s get to it, shall we?

The first thing I noticed when I loaded it for a simple quick test, was that unlike the SCI version there is no intro scene. It dumps you right into the game and you gotta go into the castle yourself and talk to the King yourself to know what you’re doing.

So the first step is to go see the king and so the quest begins.

And so the quest ends

Come on now, I couldn’t not throw him in the moat. Also, the death music! It’s different in the SCI version. I know this music because it was also used in KQ II. It starts sombre with Chopin’s Death March and then… oh and then it transitions to I don’t actually know what it’s called, but it sure clowns on you. Please just go to this link https://youtu.be/AWvZNAv4_B8?t=527 I have it timestamped to the right place already and know my suffering. The most taunting thing ever. I love hate it.

Okay back to it for real. Go see the king and be told what your quest actually is:

If you want further backstory and more details, you better read that manual.

From the manual in summary:

The kingdom of Daventry was ruled over by King Edward and his nameless, but lovely! Queen. They held three magic treasures that served to help Daventry maintain its peace and prosperity:

A Magic Mirror that reads the future so they were able to use it to stave off disasters and avoid things like planting crops right before frosts.

A Magic Shield that is supposed to make the bearer invincible and his army always victorious.

A Magic Chest that always remained full of gold.

Then disasters start striking. They want an heir but haven’t been able to have a child. A sorcerer comes and offers a solution but wants the mirror in return. They consult the mirror and see what they think will be their future prince (spoiler alert: It’ll be Sir Graham). They agree. No child is ever born. The Sorcerer ran off with mirror and placed it under guard by a beast.

Later the Queen falls ill. A dwarf offers a remedy that looks like it’ll work but wants the shield in return. The King agrees. The dwarf runs off with the shield. The Queen dies.

The King grows lonely as more years pass, but eventually Edward comes across a beautiful lady, the Princess Dahlia (she gets a name) in need of help. He saves her. They plan to wed and now it’s the night before the wedding except whoops. She was actually a witch and planned to steal the chest all along which she successfully does and off she goes too.

More years pass with the King and Daventry falling into despair and disrepair. King Edward realizes he may die soon and summons his knight, Sir Graham, realizing it was him he saw in the mirror. If Graham can gather back Daventry’s three treasures he’ll prove himself worthy of the crown and become the King foreseen in the mirror. Time to go Questing.

--

Once you see the king it’s time to set out and start exploring. I set out, I pushed a rock and died because I pushed it from the wrong side and got crushed. And I forgot to save, so I basically had to start again, although ScummVM autosaved me in the hallway in the castle, so I got to skip entering the castle.

Then I set out again and remembered to save this time. Save regularly and keep multiple saves. Now something cool that King’s Quest does is having some puzzles with multiple solutions. There is a points system and to get the highest points you need to do the optimal solutions. If you don’t care about points you’ve potentially got other options.

After finding a dagger and a pouch of diamonds I quickly encountered a flying condor. This condor is mandatory but unfortunately it’s random as to when and where it will show up. I managed to jump and catch the ride while I could, except I ended up in a dead end because I didn’t have what was needed to get past a big mean ol’ rat. I did try offering it the diamonds, which worked, except I think it actually lost me points and I would have ended up stuck again anyway. I reloaded a previous save.

Thanks for the dead-end, condor, but fly on majestically.

My other activities included more exploration and finding more items, getting mauled by an ogre at least once or twice and managing to run away another time, some sorcerer encounters one of which left me frozen in place and essentially dead, got flown off by a witch and eaten, stolen from by a dwarf a couple times and got some temporary protection from a fairy.

I found a four-leaf clover and a walnut. I climbed a huge tree and found a golden egg. Surprisingly for how easy it is to die in other ways, falling off the tree doesn’t kill you. The egg doesn’t break either. Shockingly nice of them.

Moving on, I helped a starving woodcutter husband and his wife and got a fiddle in return. I got lucky in doing those two activities, and along with finding one other item, I earned everything I needed to deal with the rat and the rest of that area and shortly after getting those needed goods the condor showed up again. So, this time I was able to handle everything there and got my first treasure: the Magic Shield.

I was able to find the witch’s house, a gingerbread house naturally, and deal with her accordingly. Actually, I had to do it twice, because fumble fingers for me killed me again oops. This place was another big difference from the SCI version. In the SCI version there are gingerbread figures outside the house and of course the house just looks better. If she catches you Graham gets turned into gingerbread and she puts you outside with a punny Graham cracker death message. In this version you just get put in a cell and know you’re about to get eaten and that’s that. I did miss that in this version.

Not exactly gingerbread-y on the inside. In the SCI version that oven is a cauldron.

I still have a bridge troll to deal with, but I have the means to do so and that’ll open up more areas to explore. I also found a well I haven’t checked out yet as well. I’ll probably try for the well first then go for the troll.

I’m coming for you, troll.

I’ve been mapping as I go and I’m very glad I’m doing so. I’m sure I’d be getting lost if I hadn’t. There are many screens and quite a few are pretty nondescript.

With the huge caveat that I’ve watched this played before, I’m having a pretty good time. Sure, it’s primitive. It’s easy to die, ridiculously so at times. It can be easy to screw yourself over into an unwinnable state in these games, but if you go in with that knowledge and stay on top of your saves, it’s entertaining.

With deaths by: moat alligators, falling into unswimmable water, ogre, sorcerer, witch, rock crushing I am currently sitting a death counter of 15. I’m a little worried I may have forgotten to update it a couple times so it may be a death or two higher than 15. Three of those were deliberate.

I probably only have one, maaaybe two sessions left.

Death Counter: 15

Time Played: 1hr 35min

Current Points Score: 86/158