#king graham

[tooncooro]

[gerbiloftriumph]

a whole new world

[thewatercolours]

King's Quest Ficlet: "Hug"

Fingertips smarting, Graham at last gave up trying to sabotage the cell’s door hinges. He had learned lately that a lot more could be accomplished with bare hands than he had guessed, provided he was willing to break a fingernail here and there. However, it seemed unhinging a door didn’t fall in this category. Gritting frustrated teeth, he hefted the lever to lower his bed. Sleep could wait, but there was nowhere else in the cell to have a dry seat. He slumped on the fraying mattress, shifting so the taut ropes wouldn’t bit into his leg. No sooner did he settle than the salamanders dashed in. They clumped all over him. They nudged him with little glowing noses, and hid in the nooks and crannies of his limbs and clothes.

Graham heaved a sigh. The salamanders paused. They peered up at him with perpetually astonished eyes.

“Sorry, guys. Not having the best day ever,” Graham muttered, rubbing a conciliatory hand over their backs, as though they were one large salamander.

The biggest one (Graham decided it was Newton, though he hadn’t quite learned to tell any of them apart) trilled questioningly.

“Yeah. I know. What’s so bad about this day that wasn’t just as bad all the other days? I don’t know.” Graham leaned against the wall and tilted his head back to stare at the shadows in the crude ceiling, which shifted slightly every time a salamander moved. “Maybe nothing. It – it’s not even a bad day compared to some of them. Everyone’s still alive. I’ve started making breakthroughs more often. I even feel a bit stronger.”

He ran a weary hand over his features. “But I’m just so tired. I shouldn’t be. There’s nothing to do in here but sleep, once the door’s locked. And I don’t have a clock, but I think it’s locked most of the day. I don’t have any right to feel tired when I’m spending all my time sleeping while my friends all…” He couldn’t bring himself to voice it.

“Mip,” said Newton sympathetically. He shuffled up to Graham’s stomach and walked his front feet up the jerkin, then rested his little head there. The other salamanders did the same. They quietly swarmed the young king, breathing out together as they leaned against him and closed their eyes.

Graham couldn’t help exhaling too. His breath fell into a pattern with theirs. Considering he lived in Daventry, being comforted by a flock of salamanders wasn’t exactly the weirdest way he’d ever been comforted, but this did seem like one for the books.

But it was comforting somehow. It didn’t solve anything. But after all, a hug kind of presupposed the idea that solutions could wait, even for the few moments the hug took up. Which meant things were okay enough to stop, and breathe, and acknowledge it was all awful and he didn’t have it all in hand, but that there was hope enough to stop for a hug.

(He would never admit to a living soul that he counted a salamander huddle as a hug.)

“Mip?” asked Newton.

“Mip,” said Graham, and allowed himself a tiny smile.

[aquatark-art]

old shitpost from a while ago - putting too much effort into art for dead fandoms is addictive

[kelseymichikoart]

Huevember #15 🔮

A knight to remember

[artsyebonyrose]

inktober day 20: frost

(icebella from king's quest)

for the fellow king's quest enjoyers! pls tell me there is at least one of you out there on tumblr!

still playing catch up a little bit. spent extra time on this one tho because i was having so much fun with the rendering :3

[vancruejovi]

King Graham redesign (by me) 👑

[cryptoriawebb]

Zounds! Tis the King of Daventry, after all these years!

A portrait of King Graham for the 40th anniversary of the King’s Quest adventure game series❤️🩵 It is my favorite video game franchise and every so often, I return to it. I have such fond memories playing them as a child as well—I was fortunate enough to have an older cousin who introduced my brother and I to them. Some of you may remember the 2015 reimagining, but I grew up with the original 80s-90s games.

For those who don’t know, King’s Quest is a fantasy adventure series that follows the Royal Family in the Kingdom of Daventry. The first game sees the heroic Knight Graham inherit the throne, and in the last (which I actually haven’t finished playing) the mantle passed to another knight. Every member of the family takes the spotlight at least once - though Graham, being the one who started it all, puts on his adventurer’s cap most often.

Though my favorite game is actually the AGD fan remake of King’s Quest 2 (and I HIGHLY recommend it to anyone, fan or otherwise,) my favorite official installment is King’s Quest 5. This is largely because Graham is my favorite character, but also I have the most memories of playing this game, along with KQ6 (which is arguably the best in the franchise, with Prince Alexander as the protagonist.)

TL;DR - I wanted to draw something to honor both this anniversary and a fond piece of my childhood, so here’s the good King Graham👑

Any other KQ fans out there? Let me know! Maybe I’ll do more art in the future…only time will tell!

[anthonyvaccarelli]

King’s Quest

HungryGoriya recently streamed the Master System (!!) version and it was a joy to watch!

[missjiru]

King's Quest V piece for the @ninjapetalzines Danny Avidan themed zine!~

Sierra point+click adventure games are so fun and punny and nostalgic. I love how this piece turned out. The magical music notes are from NSP's Dragon Slayer cause that seemed on brand.

@gamegrumps @ninjasexparty

[tooncooro]

[gerbiloftriumph]

An alternative possibility to @captmickey's current dopplearc at @threeadventurers, if [this page] had gone a little differently.

Graham tipped backward, as the man with his face gave him a hard shove, and he went crashing down the stairs. With his arms tied behind him, he could do absolutely nothing to arrest his decent, rolling to a halt in a dark cellar, surrounded by possibly barrels and other random detritus. Hard to tell in the dark. "Thanks for being my scapegoat!" fake!Graham called down the stairs. They'll find you down here eventually, and I'll be long gone with your pals by then. Enjoy being me! You'll probably only get five to ten years sentencing, but I bet you can get time off for good behavior if you get the Sheriff on your good side. Not that she has a good side. But you can try. Bye!" He slammed the door shut, and the darkness was complete. "Told you not to go running off after random cries for help, hero," Guybrush said, sitting on a barrel. "You're not helping." Guybrush flipped onto his stomach beside Graham, a finger raised. "I'm a figment of your imagination, it's your own guilt talking." "Why can't I get a good imaginary friend? Link would have been helpful." "Doubtful."

(more silly things under the cut, for i went quite silly with dopplethoughts)

I got real excited about fake!graham doppleganger ideas, what can I say.

[thewatercolours]

King's Quest Ficlet: "The Footman and the Princess"

The arches of Graham’s feet begged him to sit down. The white leather shoes all the staff had been ordered to wear with their formal livery were designed more for show and less for ease. As far as the palace steward was concerned, footmen were not so much employed to get things done as to make the place look smart. But soon they would have to call him off duty. Even if they ordered him to join in the cleanup, just leaving his post and stretching his legs would be a relief. And a grand court ball couldn’t go on past morning, surely. From the corner of his resolutely forward eyes, he caught a glimpse of dawn light through the lace-like window. Soon, soon.

But all thoughts of his aching feet evaporated when Princess Valanice power-walked up and sank into an empty chair, just shy of where he stood. She pulled him by the hand into the seat next to her, and whispered in his ear at double speed, “If I gave you a lot of gold, would you mind doing something that will probably get you in trouble in the servants’ hall?”

“Um, of course, Princess!” he mumbled, half processing what she said. His training, which insisted he ought to immediately rise and give a smart ¾ bow with a heel click and back off to leave plenty of space between himself and a member of the royal family, was trying to shout down his heart’s wild whooping. She was here. Valanice. She was talking to him. Her whispering lips had touched a strand of his hair. Had the light turned pink and gold? Oh, sunrise. Right. Oh, zards, his jaw has dropped, hadn’t it? Get it together, man!

“Oh, thank you!” she murmured, drawing back just a little, and flicking out a black fan covered in silver butterflies. “I just need you to ask me to dance with you, so I don’t have to dance with – well, with him.”

She bobbed her head in the direction of a greying man with a smile twice too broad for his face. He was speeding toward them across the dancefloor, a stemmed glass in each hand. “I don’t have the gold now,” the princess stammered. “No pockets. But I can have it sent down to your - ”

Graham bounced from his chair and offered his elbow. “Don’t say another word. I’ve got you, Princess. Better hurry. He’s nearly here.”

She sprang up to take his arm, tucking the fan into her sash. Graham swept her into the stance his sisters had insisted he practised before he set out for the ill-fated tournament in Daventry. “If you wind up a knight,” they’d told him, “you’ll have to go to all kinds of fancy events, and you’ll be sorry you didn’t let us teach you to dance.” He placed his beneath under her shoulder blade, feeling so presumptuous. But she’d asked him to, and her eyes were shining with thanks, and oh, move your feet and don’t think too hard about this or you might just turn a literal head-over heels!

“I say!” cried an indignant voice, but Graham didn’t flatter him with so much as a look. He whirled the princess into the thick of the dance floor.

His feet tripped a little on themselves, but she followed his trips perfectly. And surely no one could see his missteps in the flurry of those enormous skirts of hers. He could barely hear the beat of the music. His heartbeat drowned it out. But he kept moving, and pulled her close as they navigated the narrow, shifting way between the other couples on the floor.

“I’m so sorry about this,” she said as they reached a quieter end of the ballroom, near the blue velvet curtains. “There’s nothing wrong with him, but he just won’t leave me alone. He filled up most of my dance card, and every time I say I’m too tired for this dance and need to rest, he gets me water and rests with me. And I just couldn’t anymore. Oh dear. They’re going to yell at you for dancing with me, aren’t they?”

“Oh don’t worry.” He sent her for a spin. “I won’t even hear it.”

“Sorry, what?” she said as she rejoined him.

“Nothing!”

She squeezed his shoulder as he pulled her back into the dance hold, and smiled. “You’re not bad at this, you know!”

Don’t make the pun about putting the footwork in footman work. Don’t. Just spin her in the opposite direction, and let all of this sink in. Because you’re going to dream of this every night for a year. You know you will. She’ll never speak with you again, so you have to hold on to every moment of it. Oh, if you work here at the palace till you’re a hundred years old and she never even looks in your direction again, it will have been worth it for tonight.

“What?”

“I said I really put the footwork in footman work!”

Zards.

Actions

[thechosenpumbloom]

Happy 40th birthday to Kings Quest! All credit to cover images to people at MobyGames.

Notes and observations:

Original Kings Quest indeed does have 4 different covers, one being a release for the Sega's Master System. The other Kings Quest 1 after the 4th game is a remake made in SCI engine.

Kings Quest 5 also had a NES version, which I've excluded from this as the cover is the same as the second computer release.

King Graham's Board Games is part of a Crazy Nicks Software Picks, which is a series of minigames taken from various Sierra titles. Here the titular board games aren't actually from any Kings Quest game, but rather they're taken from Sierra's Hoyle Official Book of Games Volume 3. This also appears in some of the collections.

The first two collection releases are the same, they just have different covers.

I was originally gonna write how the second collection doesn't include the original Kings Quest in favor of the remake, but it does! Its just not specifically mentioned on the box. It also includes 3 other Roberta Williams games and 4 pre-KQ games running on Apple 2 emulator.

I've excluded the Roberta Williams Anthology from this as its not directly Kings Quest related. Its mostly the same as the second collection, with few other extras and the Apple 2 version of Dark Crystal.

The Windows XP collection curiously lacks the original Kings Quest game, sticking with just the remake; This for some reason was common with all the Sierra collections at the time. It also lacks Mask of Eternity, which was hard to get run properly at the time (and still might be, haven't checked in a while.)

The last game was released in 5 separate episodes along with an epilogue. Here I'll just go with the complete release.

[kelseymichikoart]

Red 🌹

[doom-nerdo-666]

A Christmas animation featuring DOS gaming related characters.