King's Quest and the Reboot of an Entire Genre

[Shamus Young]

King's Quest and the Reboot of an Entire Genre

Two weeks ago we got our first King's Quest game in 17 years. revivals and reboots are all the rage these days, but those games were 90s properties.

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[Vanished]

I'm a total adventure game junkie so I'll have to leap on that when I get a chance. I just recently had to let go of the boxes to Willy Beamish and some others. I keep refusing to get rid of the disks themselves for some reason even though I don't have floppy disk readers on any of the computers anymore and I doubt half of them would play anyway. Telltale pulled me back in with the Sam&Max reboot (though the repetition of Bosco's wore thin quick) and I loved the monkey island series. I still wish those had been 2d though. Their latest offerings of stories driven by quick-time events just isn't my thing so I've been looking to Wadget Eye & Daedalic for my adventure fix.

 

[jabrwock]

Monkey Island poked fun at Sierra games insta-death when you could walk up to a cliff and it crumbles and you fall off. The game showed you a game over screen, said you had zero points because you were dead. No matter what you clicked on (quit/load), Guybrush flies back up to the top, because he landed on a "rubber tree".

 

[kimiyoribaka]

Here's a bit of trivia showing exactly why sierra's older style adventure games didn't survive: King's Quest spelled "Rumplestiltskin" the other way. ...And the player was expected to know that.

 

[veloper]

Here's a bit of trivia showing exactly why sierra's older style adventure games didn't survive: King's Quest spelled "Rumplestiltskin" the other way. ...And the player was expected to know that.

Not only that, but the true original version of KQ also reversed the alphabet (a=z) AND the reversal was based on the dwarf's name with a TYPO in it, making it truly impossible to figure out.

 

[Gizen]

The sad thing is that even if this game is successful, it'll still convey the wrong message. If the game fails, it can make people lose faith in the adventure game genre and puts a nail in the coffin of an old, venerable franchise. If it succeeds, it justifies using theft and fraud to fund your game. Screwed either way.

 

[Scrythe]

Monkey Island poked fun at Sierra games insta-death when you could walk up to a cliff and it crumbles and you fall off. The game showed you a game over screen, said you had zero points because you were dead. No matter what you clicked on (quit/load), Guybrush flies back up to the top, because he landed on a "rubber tree".

I do find it amusing that the OP mentions the first Monkey Island, which is the only one in the series that has a legitimate fail state.

My first was Curse, which has me rolling out of my chair with how many times I would let Guybrush fall off the cliff of Skull Island.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Holy cow, Kings Quest is Peasant Quest's [http://www.homestarrunner.com/pqtrailer.html] exactly! I had no idea that Kings Quest was where the inspiration came from. I might have to check it out.