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

Graham continues exploring the land above the clouds:







Another object to cram into Graham's pockets?! Yes please!

North of the tree with the slingshot:



A hole in a mountain... I wonder if it leads to that other hole in the mountain? We'll find out later we still have one more screen to explore up here to the east:



Graham got somewhat careless and wondered off into the blue yonder. Or he dreamed about it... He's getting confused at this point what is real and what isn't. Eastward!





Mastering the art of the understatement there...



This guy endlessly stomps around the screen trying to get his hands on you, If he ever managed to we imagine it would like something like this:



Graham decides the best way to deal with the Giant is to hide behind that tree in the center... If the giant does manage to walk around the tree he just moves to the other side (this is one dumb giant)



He must have been really tired! He completely ignored Graham standing there and went right to sleep. As everyone know the best time to steal from Giants(or Ogres, or any other larger than usual monster) is to wait for them to sleep. That chest will surely be ours!

DEATH COUNT: 10

Okay, Graham can either go back down the benstalk or through that mysterious door in the Mountain and seeing as he's already climbed a beanstalk he decides on the latter. Into the mountain we go:



I hope we don't need any sort of key for this door:



Nope.



That's two of the treasures down, Graham is off to find the last one, that shield.

Sadly, while exploring the wilds of Daventry Sir Graham was devoured by a wolf:



THE END.

I wonder how bizarro Sir Graham is doing?

DEATH COUNT: 11

I'd say the "giant" looks kinda ridiculous, but Rip Van Winkle giant's still a big improvement over the ridiculously lanky hunching bad graphics giant from the original.

Also, that gnome puzzle's the biggest dick move ever. Really, who'd spell Rumplestiltskin correctly backwards? Or figure out that gibberish name? Sierra must've made a fortune off of those hintlines.

so yeah, what's with the gibberish name anyway? how do you figure that out at all? what does it even mean?

It means "KA-CHING! We're making money off of your kids calling us for help because GameFAQs doesn't exist yet!"

It's "Rumplestiltskin" fed through a cypher that switches the letters based on their positions of the alphabet. So A, being first, is switched with Z, being last. This is most obvious with the letters M and N.

Still dumb though.

Roberta Williams and moon logic have a bit of a history. Putting a name into a reverse alphabet cipher to solve a puzzle is only one of many of her dalliances into absolute batshit insanity. Other fine out-of-context examples that don't make sense IN context include: use bridle on snake, use moldy cheese on strange machine, and use moon on rubber chicken. Those last two may sound a bit familiar to anyone who's read/seen the KQ LPs I've done.

The beanstalk has nothing on the vine maze from Space Quest II.

So true...

The best(?) part about the cheese is that you get it from using a FISHING HOOK on a hard-to-see mouse hole in a dungeon cell that you can't get back to once you leave. Fuck you, King's Quest V.

"And then He shalt throweth the crémed pastry at the abominable simian's ugly face, and in its blindness, it shalt falleth into the frozen abyss. It serveth the wise guy right, eh?" Moe 3:16

Wow, that's...really not something you could reasonably expect someone to guess without a much more direct hint. That's as obscure as rot13-ing something. (Or rot13-ing it twice, for double the security!)

Most adventure games you can stumble through by brute force (VERB every NOUN against every other NOUN), but that's not a realistic option for a 15-letter target...

On the other hand, I love the horrible puns when Graham gets murdered.

King's Quest V was just terribly designed. It's one of the most IMPORTANT games ever due to its CD status, but it was a disappointment.

Did they have the cashgrab Sierra Hint Line at this point? I can hardly imagine they would have put in something this cruel without financial motives.

Unfortunately, there's just not much information out there on the subject. I'm pretty sure the hint line wasn't put into place until the latter half of the 80s, though. KQ1, meanwhile, came out during the middle of the console video game crash (in 1984).

I remember reading in the KQ walkthrough book that people would straight-out snail mail them asking for help on that question.

That doesn't surprise me at all. The puzzle's only a few levels below where.gif in sheer obtuseness.

WHAT

My favourite bit is when they added the dot. I still can't work out what that dot was supposed to signify.

It's the decimal place in pi, obviously. I think. Now, how people were supposed to get that, that's the question.

The real question is who plays games like that?

Jaded ex-adventure gamers who long for a return to the days of nonsense puzzle solutions? Actually, I'm pretty sure that was a mathematics forum. Insert joke about math being so boring that they make up moon logic games to play instead of discussing it here.

...it's an ARG puzzle. They do tend to be a little obscure, because the idea is that they're worked on as a group. I remember a bunch of puzzles from Perplex City that were insane. Take this one:



The answer is 'rigor mortis'.

People worked it out.

That ... that was beautiful.

Bizarro Sir Graham wakes up from a terrible dream wherein he ate far too much food that is good for him and had to spend numerous days with a mother-in-law having awkward conversations and such... Having slaughtered a goat and dragon and using that bag of diamonds he found to pay off the troll he makes his way to the island in the middle of Daventry. On said island an annoying gnome wanted to play a stupid game and despite his best efforts Bizarro Graham was unable to kill the fellow. He was also unable to guess the guy's name:



As the gnome retreats into his home Bizarro Graham follows, hoping to murder him!



GODDAMMIT! BG's blood rage is near boiling if he doesn't kill something soon...

So we got a key, and while BG isn't smart enough to guess a stupid gnome's name (he was also lacking a telephone line or Sierra On-line's snail mail address so he was unable to request help) he knows there is only one big door in Daventry with a lock on it:



On his way up BG slipped on his shoe lace...



Ah... poor BG so ends his life..? Wait in Bizarro world you can't die (that's what makes it Bizarro right?) After taking an eternity to climb back up the bottomless pit BG continues up the mountain:

BG continues on up the mountain:



WTF?! Here is where adventure gamers were forced to learn the art of save scumming... Hopefully they saved early, often and in different slots too! Why is that? Because coming up the mountain that damned dwarf is unavoidable. If you see the text that he is approaching you're going to lose an item. And what item did BG lose, let's see.

BEFORE:


AFTER:


Thanks a lot! The fucker took the Magic Mirror. Unwinnable state. I don't know they didn't reprogram the guy to take one of the numerous bits of treasure that aren't necessary to win the game... But they didn't. So restore and restart in the mountain. This time going back and forth between this screen and the next and then approaching the mid point hoping not to get the message of his approach. After repeated attempts BG finally makes his way through and up into the clouds.



BG heads south and picks up the slingshot. "Yes!" he screams murderously, as he looks around for a victim. It doesn't take long for him to find one either...

(this only works if you picked the rock up from the shore of the little lack, by the way.)

"DIE MONSTER YOU DON'T BELONG IN THIS WORLD!"



BG makes his way back down the way he came once more savescumming to get past the dwarf who will now be only too happy to steal either the chest or the mirror from him...

There is one more way to get the chest from the Giant and it involves:



Just as with hiding behind one of the trees (as Sir Graham did) the giant get's tired of looking for an invisible person and goes to sleep.

NEXT TIME: Graham goes hunting for little people, and a shield

Bizarro Graham killed a dragon by throwing a little knife at its neck, and now a giant via the Bart Simpson method. Murdering treasure-guarding monsters may get less points, but it's amusing just how ridiculous this stuff is. =D

You know what's worse?

The fanmade KQ3 remake put that damned staircase into THAT game, as well!

Graham wakes up with his clothes ruffled and a bit of hair in his teeth... He vaguely remembers being physically assaulted by a wolf but the specifics are vague. Anyway, as far as he can tell he is still alive and still looking for the last treasure of Daventry, a magical shield.

Thing is Graham has been everywhere and seen everything and is somewhat at a loss as to what to do... Nothing solves puzzle blues though like wandering around aimlessly...



A condor! Yup, a condor sometimes appears at this screen (and only this screen) but only after you you have collected the previous two treasures. How is the player supposed to know this? No clue, just call the hint-line I suppose. In the original game the condor would sometimes appear in this screen at anytime. Of course, if you did hitch a ride without the right objects you were screwed, but at least you had an idea that it was there... After exploring the entire gameworld and collecting two of the treasures how is a player supposed to know that he has to return to this one screen over and over until this condor appears? She isn't, which is why this is kind of a suckie puzzle. Anyway back to the game:

As long as you stand in the right place and at the right time this is what should happen:



Sir Graham gets unceremoniously dropped off:



But where is he? Before heading into the hole he does a little exploration. South of the hole:



and west of it:



Oh, now Graham knows where he is! He picks up the mushroom and heads down the hole:



Hmmm... Graham doesn't know if he trusts that rat.

Knife it- if its a rat in a game its evil, if its a mouse and doesnt have red glowing eyes its fine...
Alternatively, throws the torch on the wall at it!

The real answer's blatantly obvious in this case, but I'm gonna ignore that and suggest seeing if the New York City vermin can crack open your golden walnut with those sharp fangs.