Let's Play the First Quest: King's Quest

A long time ago in a land not very far from where I am right now (Northern California) a husband and wife team started a video game company. The wife half of the team cribbed the stories for her games for mythology and folklore. They called it King's Quest and it sold like hotcakes. (in a world where hotcakes are in demand, I've never seen such a world...) It was the birth of visual graphic adventure games (I don't count Mystery House because it looks terrible, more terrible than what you are about to see...

This is Let's Play: King's Quest I: Quest for the Crown

which version?

I'm very interested in seeing what kinda trials and tribulations King Graham will go through in his initial adventure.

.....Will there be any poisonous snakes?

I vote a for funny stories with the death scenes XD
Dick moves pulled are optional...

This story does to! It starts with a young yellow man standing out side of a castle. Wait, no it starts with an ugly title screen and a poorly rendered version of Greensleaves and a scrolling credits list. One of the things Sierra On-line did well was crediting the game designers in game and on the boxes.



Now we get to the ugly yellow man:



That's Sir Graham, the hero of this story and the guy we'll be controlling throughout... Man these graphics are terrible to look at...

According the manual, the kingdom of Daventry was once prosperous and peaceful and blessed with three magic items that helped out a lot too... But, the King was incredibly stupid and managed to give them all away and now he's called on his best (only) knight to save the day. If he manages to do that then the kingdom is his. I guess that's why we're next to this giant ass castle? let's go inside and find out.



Aw, crap... we just started this game! In all seriousness crossing this bridge has always been difficult because that curve doesn't really exist. If you are approaching from the north you don't have to go to the start of the bridge to cross you you can walk down directly on to it. As a wee lad I often died just crossing and re-crossing the damned things... Also where did the King in what appears to be a fictional northern European medieval kingdom get crocodiles? and how do they survive the cold? Okay, I'll just rewind a bit and try this again:



Nice thing about the AGI engine, which early Sierra games where made in, was that the parser was always up and so you could type in commands before you needed them. Later on when Sierra moved to the SCI engine the parser popped up once you started typing and paused the game.



This castle sure is sparse... I suppose they sold all the finery too... As well as any doors that might have connected this hall to the rest of the castle.



Oh shit! Daventry must be more progressive than it looks! The king is black!? I wonder if the kingdom is failing because a large portion of the ignorant population refuses to believe he is a real citizen? Some Daventrians claim ol' King Edward is really from the kingdom of Shapeir and demands for a birth certificate have been made for years... Well let's ask him what he wants:



After King Edward gives he's spiel.. We're dumped back into this hideous world... I don't know if I can play as a yellow man who's nose is the same size as his feet. There's got to be something I can do about this.. As Sir Graham leaves the castle both he and I are praying for a miracle:



Now, that's better! Not by a lot but definitely an improvement. Now my eyes won't be bleeding for the rest of this LP.

What's this?



The game now comes with an introduction?! Good, because I did a pretty crappy job of telling the story:



Benevolent? Incompetent seems more like it... Dude had a magic map that told the future and gave it away in a scam deal? Why didn't he ask the mirror if giving it away was a good deal?! Oh, sorry I'll try to keep the commentary to a minimum:



We get it, your weak mentally and physically...



Will he ever shut-up? I'd like to be King before the suns goes down...

King Edward prattles on:



Maybe the king doesn't know what the word "volunteer" means?



And with that we're back at the gates. Those two guys in the funny outfits won't let us back in without the goods. This is what the world of Daventry looks like right now:



We can East or West, so where to Tyrants?

(I wish I still had all the maps I'd drawn for these KQ games back when I was a kid)

True Kai-Lords head East

The West side is the best side, so I say we head East to spite it.

Might as well see what was in the direction we came from. Go 10,000 paces Weast. I mean, EAST.

Open mailbox, then head east.

Skye from Shantae told us to go West. So we go East.

Up.

I am a contrarian.

(I am not going to defend some of the puzzles in this game, particularly the infamous Rumpelstiltskin puzzle.)

Doesn't the world loop back on itself? East is west. Go Weast.

He's playing the updated version, so it's a non-issue this time.

East. Don't have this one memorised like I do II-IV, so I am willing to be surprised and / or kill Graham several times.

Looks like modernizing to Sierra meant white-washing the king.

As nunix said it's been rectified in this game. Though you can still use the complicated name if you want...

It does! Unless of course a mountain or river gets in the way

Just like Europeans did with Jesus! We know the truth though! Black King Edward forever!

Oh man, the old Sierra SCI engine font. That takes me back! Not to this game, of course, since I only played it in its original form, but I saw a ton of that font in Hero's Quest and Quest for Glory II. I think I'm misting up, here.

It does have a certain... readability... to it.

Sir Graham feels strange compelled to go east. But first!



It appears the moat monster aren't any friendlier than their AGI predecessors, the alligators... Ok, eastbound, past the moat bridge Graham finds:



A boring lake (he's going to be seeing a lot of these (lazy background artists) Further east:



That's quite a stump Graham goes in to investigate:



Sir Graham believes in only one thing: Finders, Keepers - YOINK



What's in there anyway?



Onward:



You never know when pebbles will come in handy. Back to going east:



"Wa-huh?!" It seems the "kingdom" of Daventry is a very small planetoid that can be transversed in only nine screens... Or its under some sort of evil spell!

Evil spell is good! It's the same trope Roberta Williams fell back on again and again and again...

Next time: More Exploring!

DEATH COUNT: 1

Well, having exhausted east and without feeling compelled to do anything, Graham begins to wander around aimlessly...

Something about that rock to the east... Graham must move it:



Well, that wasn't what he had in mind, let's try something else:



"Ah! You push the rock away from you not pull it on top of you!"



Sweet, Graham can't wait to stab someone with it, Roberto style! Graham continues wandering about, first heading north:



Then, east:



Graham nor I know how to feel about the King having a carrot garden... But he does know how he feels about stealing:



He heads east again and finds the carrot patch continued (I didn't capture an image of it for some reason) further east he comes to a clearing, wait what's this?:



Thanks, I guess... While Sir Graham sparkles the Sorcerer, Ogre, and Witch (We'll meet them later) can't touch him, which is a good thing. East again:



Again, I somehow missed taking a pic of the other half of the goat pen (the one east of the image above has a gate on it. Also the goat walks between the two screens... East of the goat pen is:



Which means of course at some point Graham will be going down it... I mean the bucket is larger than he is! No mere human could use the damned thing if it was full of water...

DEATH COUNT: 2

East of the Well, Graham finds himself...



back where he started. Sir Graham, frustrated with being stuck with only two axes decides to mix things 'up'



Graham slipped, or decided the quest his king gave him was pointless and fell out of the tree:



He'll have to find more creative ways to kill himself.



King Graham begins to wonder how far north or south he can go before ending up back where he started. He pulls out his map (sadly not magic) to review his progress (Graham isn't much of an artist):



Which way next Talking Time? North, South, East, West? Do you care?

I'm surprised that didn't kill him.

I bet the goat can kill you somehow!

Make a pretty picture out of visited areas!

Give the Egg to the goat, as a peace offering so it will be less enthused to kill you

Yes! Give it the Egg, but to TAUNT it! And then steadfastly refuse to give it the carrot it so deeply desires! I wonder how many solutions I can phrase so it seems like Graham hates everyone. OH WAIT THATS WHAT THE LP IS FOR

USE DAGGER on GOAT Yes, I'm hoping the goat kills you somehow in the near future. =P

Then go south of the goat pen area.

This, or better yet:
USE DAGGER on KING
USE DAGGER on SELF
USE LIGHTER on TREE
Wait... we don't have a lighter... dang

You can't reach the king at this point, either, as I understand it.