Adventure Game Studio

Not sure where exactly reviews should go but I have the urge to vent my proverbial.

A nice lengthy (ish) review of Kings Quest VGA for you. So, grab a cup of warm, leaf-infused liquid and read. Then post back and complain or something.

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Let me set things straight first, before I warp things beyond recognition: I know a good thing when I see it. A game that is released to the general public for free, made by a team of dedicated artists, coders and writers is a good thing. So, in fact, was this girl I once loved. She was smart, she was funny, she was beautiful. She was an utter bastard.

Um, sorry? What was that?

She was a complete git. For all her good qualities, she managed to completely defy convention and still be a bad person. I almost feel terrible being able to label her as such. For months I tried to force myself to accept her at face value - as the intelligent, wonderful person she was - but there was just one facet of her personality that tainted the rest, poisoning her very being.

To cut a long allegory short, King's Quest VGA is Verity King.

The graphics are a sight to behold. The music is lovingly crafted. The dialogue is well voice acted. Yet - and a part of myself is still trying to force me not to say this - the gameplay is so bad I can only loathe, hate and despise it.

There. I said it. I hate this game. This game is so bad, were I to throw it into the abyss of my own despair, the abyss would throw it back.

At times, gameplay reaches such a level I doubled up, laughing at how glaringly bad it is. Within the first six seconds of play after the introductory sequence I was dead. I was utterly astonished. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. Established gaming theory states to go easy on the player early on and increment the difficulty as the game progresses. You're not supposed to just *die*. There at least has to be a good reason. Maybe even a warning, perhaps? Nope. The game then goes on to effectively ridicules your apparent stupidity.

It doesn't stop there either. Attempts at exploration are also rudely interrupted with the ever-present onset of death, be it at the hands of a gingerbread-loving witch, falling off overgrown plantlife or being flattened by a rock for absolutely no justifiable reason whatsoever. What can the player possibly gain from dying so often and so pointlessly?

It almost makes it hard to believe how much of a breath of fresh air games like Monkey Island were to this. I can't say I was around to play KQ in it's original incarnation, but perhaps that's a good thing. I am, to an extent, free of the shackles of nostalgia. Free to scrutinise the game for what it is, rather than what its status as a groundbreaking title has lead us to believe it to be. As a piece of nostalgia KQVGA succeeds. As a game it fails.
This is a valient attempt to fuse the gameplay of a prehistoric adventure with the graphical prowess of games made many years later, producing something that just doesn't work. Gaming as a form of entertainment and expression has long since outgrown the misconceptions of enjoyment this game shapes its foundations from.  Some people, however, just can't let go. And they should.

In closing, KQVGA is like wallpapering Chernobyl: it looks better, but its still Chernobyl.

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I know  EXACTLY what you mean. If I wanted to die so often, I'd play Counterstrike.

Uh oh, keep this thread away from Vel.


EDIT: Oh, and to be fair, the Tierra team DID steer away from that die-all-the-time attitude in their KQ2 remake.  I completely agree with you about KQ1 (I certainly didn't bother completing it) but to say "It's time to leave this behind!" hardly makes sense any more, since the very people you are criticizing DID leave it behind some time ago.  This isn't really your fault since I assume you haven't played the second game yet, but I'm just letting you know.

King's Quest is the first adventure game with graphics, animation and sound. It set a new era. I do not think that you should judge it like that. Tierra's remake is wonderfully made, keeping the original feeling and adding new graphics, sound and music.
EDIT: too late remixor

Obviously you haven't played a single Sierra game, it's not a flaw, it's a feature :) Actually, when I played all the old quests, I used to do obviously wrong things all the time, just to see the cool death animations and read the Restart/Restore/Quit messages.

But I do agree, the original KQ1 design was horrible, and Tierra didn't even try to fix it. Why anyone would want to remake KQ1 in the first place, without improvements, I don't know. Especially as it's a remake of a remake (though the old remake was EGA). I think other games, like Gold Rush, are much more deserving of a remake.

QuoteIn closing, KQVGA is like wallpapering Chernobyl: it looks better, but its still Chernobyl.

Or…

"You can put wings ona pig, but you don't make it an eagle."
Bill Clinton
;)

QuoteI think other games, like Gold Rush, are much more deserving of a remake.

Yeap, Gold rush is a masterpiece.. I can not believe people haven't discovered its beauty. The boat section must be one of my dearest adventuring memories. *sigh*

Oh well, I would love to be on the re-make team if anyone "ever" decides to make one.

I agree with Vel.

And since this debate has been running as long as I've been post puberty, I refuse to say more.

Quote from: GarageGothic on Wed 12/11/2003 12:54:18
Obviously you haven't played a single Sierra game, it's not a flaw, it's a feature :) Actually, when I played all the old quests, I used to do obviously wrong things all the time, just to see the cool death animations and read the Restart/Restore/Quit messages.

I can almost understand that. What I don't understand is why something so clearly irritating that many still grumble about it to this day was ever made into a feature. How do you mistake a feature for a flaw?

"Intuitive stealth-based gameplay!", "Stunning graphics!" "Die pointlessly, many times over!". Which of those - if you were a game developer - would you rather stick on the back of your game box?

And on the subject of it's gaming importance, I agree that it was revolutionary but it went about it the wrong way: graphics and sound are nice but without gameplay they gained nothing. It took many skilled, intelligent people years of work to take those basic ingriedients and bake something tasty with them. Doom was revolutionary, but it was also fun to play.

Oh, and KQ2VGA might be worth a shot, and its certainly nice to see that the first is not an indication of the second's quality.

QuoteDoom was revolutionary, but it was also fun to play.

If there were a "statement of the month" on these forums...that would be it.

I actually...oh, god...it's painful......AGREE with Vel.

You just can't judge Sierra games that way. King's Quest I WAS fun when it came out! Did you play it when it came out? I did.

Just remember hindsight is 20/20

You have the privelage of seeing constant death scenes as a bad thing. When us "old folks" played the Sierra games before LucasArts we thought it was just the only way.

I think you may find that most people that played Sierra games in the 80's are not as familiar with LucasArts games. At least I have.

Now, today, looking back and having played Monkey Island for the first time only a few months ago, I can agree...constant deaths suck. I do not enjoy playing Sierra games as much as LucasArts game now. But, that is now.

Tierra's attempt was to remake the game just the same, and they did a damn fine job. If there had been no death scenes some people would have said "yay", some would have said "boo". My guess is there would have been a lot of 80's-Sierra-playing people saying "boo". It has BECOME a feature, a "staple" of Sierra games, just like not dieing is a staple of LucasArts games.

EDIT: Oh yeah, one thing I forgot. The whole "let it go" "end nostalgia" thing doesn't really work with a community dedicated to bringing back games from ten and fifteen years ago... :P

I do think it was a good review though. I think this kind of review is good for Tierra to read. I also think it is that kind of review that led to a much better sequel.

later,
-junc

I like the review, Interference. I completely agree with you on the dying part. That's one of the reasons I enjoy Lucasarts' games a lot more. However, I don't really think it means the feature (or flaw for that matter) is bad. I think it means that it doesn't really entertain everybody. On the other hand, that kind of an issue should have been taken into account when making a game for a big audience. Then again, perhaps it didn't even need to be perfect because it was something NEW.

However, I must criticize the review on one thing: bulk of the review is about the gameplay even though it's the fault of the original game, not really the remake's. I think a bit different methods should be used when reviewing an original game, and a remake. Nonetheless, I suppose they could have changed the gameplay but I'm sure they would have got negative comments tenfold if they had. People often expect the same gameplay from remakes, even though the word 'remake' doesn't really imply that.

Vel, I think you slightly misunderstood Interference's point. I think he means that King's Quest 1 should be appreciated, as you said, as the first game with graphics, animations, etc. Nevertheless, it perhaps shouldn't be as appreciated as an adventure game among the others. It is logical after all, for it to have poor qualities because of the fact that it was the first in the genre.

Anyway, personally I really like what Tierra did with the game. If I was to play King's Quest 1, I would play the remake.

I'd like to point out one more, perhaps minor, thing.  I think it's a reasonable statement to say that Tierra was aiming this remake at people who were nostalgic of the Sierra days of old, or new players who had a desire to discover those days themselves.  Taking this into account, Tierra had something of a duty to preserving the spirit and methods of the original game.  Now, KQ2+ from the beginning was marketed as a total overhaul--not just in terms of gameplay, but in terms of everything, from story to characters to graphics to puzzles.  Criticizing KQ1 for following a particular school of game design is like criticizing a specific Real-Time Strategy game for dealing with resource management.

QuoteObviously you haven't played a single Sierra game, it's not a flaw, it's a feature  Actually, when I played all the old quests, I used to do obviously wrong things all the time, just to see the cool death animations and read the Restart/Restore/Quit messages.

I disagree. KQ didn't really handle it very well at all - not only were the deaths pretty random, but they also needed to be pre-empted if you didn't want a lot of frustration. Something like 'KGB', for example, let you die, but this was almost always for a purpose

Spoiler

except when you left the Leningrad hotel, which was just annoying, until you got it and thought 'of course' ^_^

[close]

. KQ does not couple this feature with great linearity, or even storytelling. Therefore, I am inclined to agree with Interference. You could remake a 'Brain Yo-Yo' to be better than this..

I agree that KQ1 is very lacking story-wise and also because of all the random deaths. I mean, deaths are ok when they are caused by doing something stupid - but in KQ1, if you are standing on the wrong side of the rock when you push it, it squashes you and kills you... what?

However, because it was the first ever graphical adventure game, it was probably more of an experiment than anything else, and the deaths were probably put in to extend the play time of the game.

Of course, since then lessons have been learnt and none of the later Sierra games had as many pointless deaths as KQ1.

Tierra wanted to remake KQ1 as a 1:1 remake, and this they have achieved very well.

i'm confused, kq1 wasn't the first graphical adventure game, maybe the first to appear in the style of "3rd person player character on "3d" landscape"

with sierra games i always saw them as a different breed all together of adventure games, not games for smart people as roberta williams would suggest but games where you have to accept the fact that you WILL die and it will be MANY times. I agree this hinders exploration a great deal [i hate having to save before i leave a scene or try and complete a puzzle, afraid that the next room has a monster that just kills me or the puzzle is actually a trap or i'm standing on the wrong side of the boulder] but it's just something you either have to accept of the game or not and edit it with AGI Studio so you can't die... what. huh?!

To be honest, I never finished KQ1VGA either.  I just couldn't keep myself interested.  

And to say dying without warning in the original KQ1 was the "norm," one need only look further back to one of the very first adventure games: Zork I.  True, you could die in the game, but you usually got plenty of warning.  If an enemy was beating you badly, you could leave the room and come back later.  If you lit a match in a gas-filled room, you could only blame your own stupidity.  

Quotei'm confused, kq1 wasn't the first graphical adventure game

Absolutely true.

1975 "Adventure" - first text adventure
1980 "Mystery House" - first text adventure that featured graphics
1980 "The Wizard and the Princess" -  first text adventure that featured graphics in color
1984 "King's Quest I" first text adventure that featured on-screen walking characters
1987 "Maniac Mansion" first point 'n click graphic adventure

Well ok yes, first graphical "3d" animated adventure :P

It was the first, but The Jazz Singer was the first Talkie film.

And it sucked.


The Final Fantasy Film was the first CGI film to deal completely with human characters, thus bypassing actors.


And it sucked.


Lassi Quest was the first AGS game.

And it sucked.

The Origins Of The Second World War was the first major piece of revision challenging the comic book history of the intentionalist school.


And I won't say it sucked because it's so extraordinarily well written, but it was heavily flawed.


I'll recognise the importance of a game or other piece of work for it's historical significance, but the first will always be racked with mistakes and clashing elements. Later generations of games can learn from those mistakes, but we don't have to look at it through rose coloured glasses because of it's foundation status.

If were to turn the Jazz Singer into 3d colour cgi ultrasurround vision, all the flaws would still be there.


That's why KQ2VGA worked much better, since with the benefit of two decades Tierra could eliminate the errors that made the original unplayable these days beyong nostaligia value.

Quote from: Pumaman on Wed 12/11/2003 21:51:26
Well ok yes, first graphical "3d" animated adventure :P

Hehe according to magazines I read back in the 80's it was called a GRAPHICAL 3D ACTION ADVENTURE.

what?? LASSI QUEST DIDNT SUCK! LASSI QUEST POWNS J00! BLASPHAMY!11!!11oneone

Quote from: Vel on Wed 12/11/2003 12:41:52
King's Quest is the first adventure game with graphics, animation and sound. It set a new era. I do not think that you should judge it like that.

We had a similar discussion in the Indy DVD thread. We can't judge a creationg today by the standards of yesteryear. Once, when it came out, it could have been all that - a true groundbreaking masterpiece. But today it isn't. Today, it seems old, dated and, quite frankly, bad.

Alky, you mean oly KQ 1 and 2 originals, right?
All KQs from 3 to 7 had pretty good plot and storytelling. I exclude 8, for it is not a king's quest. It is a tomb quest of king raider.

Barcik: I just couldnt disagree more.
You judge a game, a movie, a piece of music or a book by the standards of the time it was released, if possible.

Quote from: Vel on Thu 13/11/2003 14:30:04
Barcik: I just couldnt disagree more.
You judge a game, a movie, a piece of music or a book by the standards of the time it was released, if possible.

I think that the 1909 film version of Les Miserables is by far the best, despite being black-and-white and silent.

Also, I think that the book "Ugh!!!" written in pictographs by anonymous caveman #56 on the wall of a cave in the south of France is by far the best book ever written.


btw, You know that there's an edit button, right, Vel?

Did I play it in 1984? Did I even live in 1984? Not according to my knowledge.

I can't play a game in 2003, and enjoy it because it was good in 1984. I didn't play it in 1984, so how can I judge? And besides, if a game is bad now, do I need to give it credit because it was good 20 years ago? Should I enjoy it, despite the fact that it is horribly flawed.

True classic creations never wither - they are timeless. Monkey Island managed to keep its charm, even after 20 years. 2001: A Space Odyssey didn't age a day since it was released back in 1968. Mozart's simphonies are all several level's above the current trash. But the first King's Quest, now, is old and dated. Is it really such a classic?

Barcik, KQ is timeless.

Then how come so many people today find it old and dated? How come so many people think that the current (well, almost current) games have much more to offer?

A timeless creating is one that always stays as good as it initially was. King's Quest does not fit that category.

So many people?
I GUARANTEE you that there are far many more people who think that kq1 is timeless. Post a thread on tierra's forums, for example. The members of their boards are, for good or for bad, far more than the AGSers. On the whole, I think that AGS is made for newer adventurers, who like adventure games hence the early 90s.

Vel, if you asked all PC owners today if they like KQ or prefer something more modern, I think we all know  the answer. Obviously, if you ask a bunch of self-selecting people who are obviously fan of Tierrra's work enough to register on their forums if they like KQVGA... well what does that prove?

SSH, that applies to all the lucas games too.

Which proves that asking on Tierra's forums would not help proving your point, right? So... What is it exactly you're trying to say?

I don't understand how you can claim King's Quest 1 to be timeless even though Barcik just gave very good reasons for the contrary. We understand you like the game a lot - but unfortunately it doesn't make the game timeless for everyone else. If someone can't enjoy a game without knowing its background - is it really a timeless game?

What really intrigues me though, is, what did you mean by the members of Tierra's forum being far more than AGSers? If you decide to give another short, self-confident answer, please pick this question because I wouldn't want to jump to any conclusions.

This isn't really a Sierra Vs. LEC.

Maniac Mansion survives mainly as a curiosity, as does Zak and the last crusade since they are also full of flaws. Pioneering flaws, but flaws nonetheless.

Whereas MI survives in it's own right because of it's strengths.

In the same way SQ3 and to a lesser extent LSL can survive from Sierra's early camp (although perhaps to a lesser extent than MI, they are older anyway).

And anyway, twere I to evaluate KQ1 on the values of 1983 I could still find most of the same flaws. The graphics and direct control (they must have been pandering to console makers like BS3 right?) were pioneering [and are the only things changed in the VGA remake ironically enough] , the rest of the construct of the game was present in text adventures. By that standards the plot was still dreadful, and the puzzles simplistic and unimaginative as compared with earlier games going all the way back to Colossal Caves. If I was to judge by 1983 standards, the only criticism I think I'd drop would be of those scenes where an ogre of the like would come on screen and you'd run away. That was part of the excitement of the new "3d action adventure" I guess.

I dont really understand the whole KQ1 being timless simply because it was revolutionary arguement. Games are classics based on their own merits. Yeah, it might have been kick arse in 1984, but it didnt stand the test of time. It was outdated really before even 1990. The king quest games as a whole are timeless, and certainly a few of them indivudually can be considered timeless, (in my view anyways. KQ5 and KQ6 spring to mind), but not so much the first.

KQ1 VGA was a remake like the movie Psycho that came out in 1998.  Very well crafted however, meant anyone who beat the first could beat the remake.  If you never played the game before, what's the point in playing it?  You won't understand it.

I read Hugos House of Horrors 1 was remade, but now banished due to copyright problems, but since I never played the original, it didn't matter much to me.  However I can understand the frenzy if Sierra suddenly cancelled Tierra's new Quest for Glory 2 remake... it would be pointless as playing a remake of a game you never heard of!

As I understand it, all the graphic adventures by the company 'Sierra On-line' before they went VGA are game.  I'm suprised there aren't more remakes!  I'll do my part, and thanks to you guys who keep makin' 'em.

Back to the thread, I liked the original KQ1, so I liked the remake... it basically replaced all my memories of the original graphics.  Tierra made no mistakes in their remake and thus score 100% for achieving their goal!  :o

The hugo's remake was sorta different because it was playable to those who never played, or tried to play the original but couldn't [like myself].

It improved on gameplay, not just graphics, whereas the reviwers point in the first post of this thread is that KQVGA is completely cosmetically an improvement in nature, and that the inherent flaws have not been dealt with.

The best AGI games are Gold Rush and KQ3 IMO. KQ1, though, started it all.

What the hell does Chernobyl have to do with it? Idiot! Bad analogy...

Also, the reason why some people would rather play the remake than original is because original won't even run properly on newer systems and it looks ugly as hell. 'Nuff said.

(yea yea, I don't care how this post sounds, I don't post here anyway, so don't lecture me)

Funny how we got all these once-off post newbies posting all of a sudden. Nearly suspicious.

Kings Quest was one of the most frustrating games ever, yet I loved it. I loved the atmosphere, I loved being chased, I loved the magic and the mystery. On the other hand, I hated dying because the main character sees fit to walk over the edge of a cliff like a lemming, or because of every other way you could die in a stupid and pointless manner. In the end, pure frustration won out and I stopped playing them, but I have to admit Kings Quest were excellent games, if you were patient and suicidal.

But being neither patient nor suicidal, I guess they never really appealed to me.

But since this was the style of the original game, it's kinda unfair to flame tierras remake because they stuck to the style and made it better. That's kinda like somebody releasing a bug-fix of Monkey Island 3, and then somebody complaining that their version has annoying voices.

But I know exactly what you mean :)

I have to agree after reading this thread that KQ is crap!

When I first played it, I wasn't wowed at all and what sort of person would want to walk about in a charming valley full of peace and beauty and flower while having to dice with certain death over stupid annoying things.

If Sierra insisted on making KQ games so bloody frustrating in this way, the least they should have done is give you lives rather than just dieing instantly or DON'T DIE AT ALL! Just return to before you died like at the end of Full Throttle. That worked wonders but nooooo,
Sierra insists on making our computer games which we may like to use to escape the frightening and annoying things in life like work, taxes and bitchy girlfriends and anything else that causes frustation, frustrating.

KQ sucks! It might have been great at the time and amazing at the time which is why Sierra didn't bother to make the actual plot and game specticular. (It takes more to create an everlasting game like MI)
It has a boring basic plot ripped off mystery rhymes and bad gameplay and the walking speed is TOO SLOW! (The only thing KQ1VGA DID FIX)
The plot could have been written by a five year old and maybe Roberta DID write at that age.

Tierra can't be blamed for this mistakes though because there are some foundations you can't break in this case. If the remake didn't have that annoying moat at the castle, it wouldn't be much of a KQVGA remake. Sierra laid the foundations for the game and all Tierra could do was build it up according to their nasty rules to keep it a KQVGA.

Come to think of it. I think Tierra SHOULD have removed all the annoying death situations and have that as Royal Quest.

Taoiseach Quest. Scaoil amach do bhoibili´n.

Póg mo thón, déanaim neamhshuim!!!

The Model T ford is a classic car.

If you put it next to a 2003 model car, it would suck.

I think the problem with the debate going on is the use of the word "timeless". Barcik is right, it is not "timeless". However, it IS a classic. Otherwise we wouldn't be talking about it.

Problem is, there are many things that are "Classic" that I don't like. That doesn't mean it's still not a classic. There are plenty of classic movies that I think are crap and should have never been made. However, I would be an idiot if I assumed it still wasn't a classic. It just isn't a classic "for me".

I think this is the seperation regarding Sierra games. Some think they are not classics for "them", some do. But, I'm sorry to say, no matter how much "you" hate it, it is still a classic game, and a true pioneer in Adventure gaming.

King's Quest is our ugly, beaten, stinky father.

Foo.

later,
-junc

I, unlike many (possibly most), never liked LucasArts games.  Indy was ok, as was DoTT, but they weren't great.  You couldn't die.  In places where you would expect to get killed, like beating up a nazi, you would just keep getting thrown in a cell.  DUMB

I agree that King's Quest was frustrating.  I agree that the eternal pixel-hunt is annoying.  The cliff diving is downright irritating.  BUT the best part was that they were HARD!  I spent long (and enjoyable) hours clicking away with my dad, trying this and that.  So what if you fall off a cliff here and there.  Some people learned that there was a "Save Game" option for a reason!

I am not the first (or the last) to flame a flame, but I truly wish that I could get a team together that is as great at what they do for their hobby as Tierra!   :D  They took a classic and resurrected it.  Twice.  I haven't seen anyone succeed in making a "Maniac Mansion" remake, although there have been enough MI respoofs.

King's Quest was a long standing innovator (first color game, first exclusivey CD game.)  It is truly sad that Sierra has failed to continue the series, but Tierra has honored their legacy with a great tribute.

Quote from: Hollister_Man on Sat 15/11/2003 03:59:43
I, unlike many (possibly most), never liked LucasArts games.  Indy was ok, as was DoTT, but they weren't great.  You couldn't die.  In places where you would expect to get killed, like beating up a nazi, you would just keep getting thrown in a cell.  DUMB

That is indeed not a common opinion.  Obviously, there is no one "right" opinion, but I think many people appreciated the LucasArts system of handling death (or not handling death, really) because it allows the player to take a more relaxed attitude towards the game.  Rather than worrying about tripping over a rock, you are just free to explore.  This may not be realistic, but I hardly think it's less realistic than Sierra's somewhat absurd attitude--step into a stream (or practically ANY body of water in a Sierra game, unless you're specifically supposed to go there), you drown and die.  Walk into a rock--you trip over it and die.  Accidently click the walk icon past the edge of a cliff--you fall over the edge and die.  Walk into a street--a car hits you and you die, despite the fact that will never be a single car on the street until you decide to cross it.  There are a million more examples.  We expect computer games to give us reasonable boundries--I mean, we don't expect the game to let us walk through walls; it doesn't let us.  By the same token, no reasonable person would just accidently fall off an obvious cliff.  There's no reason the games should even LET us do that, since in all likelihood it was just the result of a misplaced click.  And honestly, some of the stuff that kills these "heros" certainly wouldn't kill me, which seems rather suspect.

But anyway, I still love many Sierra games; King's Quest VI, for example, is one of my all-time favorite adventures.  Adventure games have too many aspects to judge without letting a death system influence me enough to call an entire category of games dumb (but do remember that just about all AGS games take the LEC route almost all of the time).  I don't blame Sierra for the insane death system in KQ1, since the genre was so young at the time and still in development.  I don't blame Tierra either because in the case of KQ1VGA their goal was to make a literal 1:1 remake, and in that they succeeded.  They obviously realized how frustrating the death system could be when they make KQ2+, but that was from the beginning labeled as a total revamp.


I do agree that a MM remake could be a great thing.  That game is just begging for updated graphics.  It could be quite cool.

king's quest wasn't the first colour game, where do people get these facts from?

and wasn't 7th guest the first CD exculsive game?

and you could die in indy. i don't remember being thrown into a cell in the first indy game, i remember hitler winning and the game ending when i got beat up

otherwise i agree with remixor completely

Quote from: Yufster the Psychadet on Sat 15/11/2003 00:37:55
Taoiseach Quest. Scaoil amach do bhoibili´n.

Póg mo thón, déanaim neamhshuim!!!

you are SUCH a liar! telling us you don't speak the Celtic lingo and then letting rip like a female Cuchulain ...  ;D

IMO the best way to handle death is to use try again messages as in KQ7 or GK3

Which brings us to the point that the reviewer was making vel. Since the original death system was so flawed Sierra learnt and improved it into a superior system in those two titles.

Yet when remaking KQ only visual maladies were improved, so the death flaws like the tohers were still present and irritating. The reviewer questions why you would make a remake and not attempt to cure those maladies (which they are more than capable of, since they did and excellent job of granting KQ2 2 decades of gaming wisdom).

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the only "unexpected death" in KQ1 was pushing the rock from the wrong direction. Ironically, we were gonna leave that one out at first, but the fans asked us to keep it in for authenticy's sake. All the other deaths involve drowning, getting squashed by a giant or falling into a raging river (the difference between a peaceful lake and a fast-flowing river is fairly easy to spot) and can't really be qualified as unexpected.

The death vs. no death is an age-old debate and the odds seem to be fairly evened. Lots of people don't like to die, lots of others think it's a cool feature. (yes, dying in itself is a feature, it can make certain situations more realistic and add tension to situations where needed)  The person who made this (http://tmd.alienharmony.com) site is a typical example of someone who doesn't mind getting your character killed ever so often. The whole death vs. no death isn't really relevant to KQ in particular.

And yes, KQ1VGA was a litteral remake. We thought it was an interesting way to train ourselves before starting with something bigger like KQ2VGA. Yes, we COULD have tried to take out some of the flaws, but in the end, we'd just have to deal with other people complaining.

(http://httpd.chello.nl/c.vanempel/Nashswt.jpg)

Woops, I'm actually surprised this thread's hit three pages. Looks like I inadvertently sparked off something.

To elaborate, KQVGA in a chronological sense is a "1984 classic," ie. back then it was.  But back then that was the best there was. Gamers knew no better.

To pick up on what a few of you said, its similar to black 'n' white movies. They're not so good today as they were in their prime, although that's not to say that some aren't - to some degree - timeless. Citizen Kane is supposed to be the finest film ever made and its black and white.

But film as a medium by then was quite developed. Gaming by the time KQ1 was released was only just into its infancy. Just like the first films, early games were looked upon with wonder but by now we have a greater understanding of what we're working with and those early games become nothing more than a curiosity.

Good games, timeless games, are more than the sum of their parts. Games like KQ1 were created in a time when people weren't even sure how to USE those parts correctly. I felt KQVGA didn't work for me because its update of the graphics and sound felt as if they were inviting you to treat the game as you would something of a similar graphical quality, without realising that its gameplay was what most needed an overhaul.

Monkey Island was originally EGA and got an update to VGA and CD music. The gameplay didn't need an update because it was developed enough to begin with. Lucasarts had enough of an understanding of the technology and of the genre as a whole to develop a game that covered new ground in an interesting and fun way (hence the Doom reference earlier, which did the same balancing act for FPSs, although I enjoyed MI more).

And Erpy, the rock isn't *quite* the only unexpected death. Falling into the moat is fairly easy to do ("They couldn't possibly have made a game that makes it easy to fall into that could they? ... Oh.") and of course, falling off stuff that initially appears fairly innocuous. Even worse though, is seeing death coming and being able to do nothing about it (*cough* witch's cottage *cough*).

Death as a feature is a cop out: an excuse for poor design. Look at Hitman: Codename 47 for an example of where this trait has slipped into a recent game. You had to go through the same level several times, dying frequently, before you gathered enough information to pull off a hit. IO Interactive chose this highly unrealistic and highly irritating approach rather than developing gameplay to the point where you could gather information discreetly rather than blindly rushing in and adapting your strategy to the consequences.

QuoteAnd Erpy, the rock isn't *quite* the only unexpected death. Falling into the moat is fairly easy to do ("They couldn't possibly have made a game that makes it easy to fall into that could they? ... Oh.") and of course, falling off stuff that initially appears fairly innocuous. Even worse though, is seeing death coming and being able to do nothing about it (*cough* witch's cottage *cough*).

I see it depends on what you see as "unexpected". The rock death was the only death where you could get killed by doing something that didn't seem fatal at first. (pushing a rock) All the other things are "watch your step"-cases. Depending on how you see it, "unexpected" may or may not be out of place here. If I fall into a serpent filled moat, I expect to get killed. The mentioning of the witch' cottage made me frown. I take it you're aware of the fact that you can get rid of the witch, right?

QuoteDeath as a feature is a cop out: an excuse for poor design. Look at Hitman: Codename 47 for an example of where this trait has slipped into a recent game. You had to go through the same level several times, dying frequently, before you gathered enough information to pull off a hit. IO Interactive chose this highly unrealistic and highly irritating approach rather than developing gameplay to the point where you could gather information discreetly rather than blindly rushing in and adapting your strategy to the consequences.

I'm afraid I must disagree. With a couple of exceptions, all Sierra games (most of them better designed than KQ1) allowed the player to die. This has nothing to do with poor or well-done design. It's done to either add a humoristic situation at certain points (Space Quest) or to make the danger more real. (if someone is pointing a gun at you, he won't have the patience to keep saying "don't move" until you're done with those 30 different attempts at escape. After one or two warnings, he'll probably shoot you.)

(http://httpd.chello.nl/c.vanempel/Nashum.jpg)

I think there are more exceptions then you think. KQ7 was horrible at this, (dying for no friggin reason at all), and so was robin hood, (lalala, oops, programmers missed a spot. I died.) KQ6's walking deads, "crap! stuck in the maze without a brick! now Im screwed) and in KQ5 (locked in the celler?) The list goes on and on

Quote from: Erpy on Sat 15/11/2003 17:20:44
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the only "unexpected death" in KQ1 was pushing the rock from the wrong direction.

What about the randomly appearing ogres, witches, wizards and other nasty things that just pop out of nowhere? I think those were fairly unexpected! The stupid frickin' dwarf wasn't a death as such, but he was still pretty dang annoying.

I did however enjoy KQ1VGA. I never got to play the original, because I never found it on it's own and it was rather silly to buy a King's Quest Collectors pack just for one game when I already have all the others.  (Actually ended up having four copies of Kings Quest 2, though. Weird, that.)  It was nice to finally go through that quest.  As long as I avoided that dang dwarf... stupid dwarf...

Quote
I see it depends on what you see as "unexpected". The rock death was the only death where you could get killed by doing something that didn't seem fatal at first. (pushing a rock) All the other things are "watch your step"-cases. Depending on how you see it, "unexpected" may or may not be out of place here. If I fall into a serpent filled moat, I expect to get killed. The mentioning of the witch' cottage made me frown. I take it you're aware of the fact that you can get rid of the witch, right?

Yes, I know you can get rid of the witch. The fact is, you have to die first to realise that or get very lucky. As for the serpent-filled moat, sure I'd expect to die from falling in but I didn't expect to fall. Saying that sticking a deathtrap right in front of the player the moment they can move is not a design issue is missing the point. It's not the fault of the remake, of course, but its still wildly stupid to experience.

Quote
With a couple of exceptions, all Sierra games (most of them better designed than KQ1) allowed the player to die. This has nothing to do with poor or well-done design. It's done to either add a humoristic situation at certain points (Space Quest) or to make the danger more real. (if someone is pointing a gun at you, he won't have the patience to keep saying "don't move" until you're done with those 30 different attempts at escape. After one or two warnings, he'll probably shoot you.)

Certainly, pointing a gun at the player is something that should be time limited. Broken Sword did that and I can't complain (love that game). However, it wasn't a FEATURE of Broken Sword: it just happened as part of the story. It brought the danger home but the frequency of death (tm) wasn't to the extent that it became irritating and it was certainly possible to avoid it the first time round rather than repeat it again and again until you gathered enough knowledge to stop it.

And on one last note, death can be funny. Unless its your own. Then its irritating.

Wow, what an interesting thread! I can actually appreciate some of Interference's points. Here’s the story: Originally, we didn't even plan to release the KQ1VGA remake publicly. We were only going to create Royal Quest... a game that made fun of KQ1's "trite" elements and frequent death situations. However, before we tackled that complex task, (not knowing how to script in AGS at this point) I wanted to "mimic" the scripting of the original King's Quest game so that I had a guide, something to learn from and compare my progress against. To that end, KQ1 proved quite a useful candidate for remaking. An original game, such as Royal Quest, would have been unchartered territory and also would have taken much longer to complete with my limited AGS knowledge at the time.

So I scripted KQ1VGA with the intention of gaining more experience with AGS and making a 1:1 remake of the EGA version -- just to see if I could recreate every situation from the original. To tell the truth, I wasn't looking at the dead-ends/frequent deaths from a casual player's point of view, I was looking at it as a scripting challenge... to recreate the game in AGS exactly as it appeared in its original form.

Mind you, at this point we still had not plans of a public release.  Towards the end of the scripting process, I began to think, "Hell, maybe we should release this thing to the masses! A lot of work's gone into it...  someone out there might want to download it." And that’s exactly what we decided to do.  It was then that we removed a few of the original game's 'flaws/features' (depending on your personal preference) in order to make it more bearable for new players. We also wrote up several solutions to dead-end problems. For example, in the original game if that Troll takes the Magic Mirror from you, then that's it... game over, man. So we added a part, where IF the troll took any important items from you (and you used the goat to make him fall in the water), then you could simply walk down stream a bit and find your possessions washed up on the shore and take them again. We were also gonna add a part where the giant would chase you down the beanstalk and you could use the woodcutter's axe to chop it down to kill that big bastard (jack and the beanstalk style).  When we announced these intended improvements on our forums, though, the general consensus was that most people would have preferred not for these changes to be added to the game for fear of making it too different from the original. KQ1VGA 1.0 was, however, released without the "pushing rock" death. We actually received more than a few complaints about that one's absence (surprisingly)... so back in it went for v2.0!

I guess the original KQ that was released in 1984 was a pretty big technological leap from other games available at the time.

Ken: ”Can you trip over a tree stump in real life?”
Roberta: “Sure, let's throw that in our game! That'll impress people.”
Ken: “Can you swim and drown in real life?”
Roberta: “Uh huh...”
Ken: “Great, let's throw that in too. What would happen if you pushed a large boulder on top of yourself in real life?”
Roberta: “ It’d crush you!”
Ken: “I'm glad we had this brainstorming session. Throw that into the mix as well.  People will be so amazed at how lifelike this game is!”

…and people, no doubt, WERE impressed at these things in 1984. No other game at the time allowed the much more than static monocrome graphics. KQ1 was like the Mario64 of it’s time.

Ironically, this same WYSIWYG approach is adopted by most, if not all, modern FPS shooters as well. If you see a pool of water, you can swim in it, and drown if you stay under for too long. If you see a high cliff, you can walk off and fall to your death. If you see a guy pointing a gun at you... then you know damn well that he's gonna shoot you, so you better shoot him back first! Not being able to walk off the cliff or drown would feel unrealistic and illogical in accordance with real life. Granted, this is a little more noticeable in first person perspective games. However, most games do try to portray a certain element of realism and in the case of KQ1, we get the same "if you do a stupid thing, you receive a fatal consequence" type of game play. Doom had these 'don't fall of the ledge or you'll die' puzzles too, just like KQ1 does. Furthermore, in Doom you're often forced to bypass these puzzles to end the level (The end of tricks and traps in Doom2 always drove me crazy!), whereas in KQ, sometimes the player is forced to walk the annoying path (KQ3) and sometimes it's obvious that they must use common sense to avoid it (serpent infested moat).

While Sierra's early approach (letting players do anything that would result in death in reality) was probably seen as impressive in the early 80's, I think they may have slightly overlooked the fact that people play games to escape from reality. Not that they really cared back then because it impressed people and made them rich. But still,  I do think there should be some borders between games and reality. Therefore, I don't disagree with death situations in games. Personally, I prefer the Sierra approach (i.e. being able to die), over the Lucasarts one of not usually being able to die until the end scene (i.e. Full Throttle), although I must admit that the Lucasarts approach was also used in GK1 and it did not reduce my enjoyment (nor the suspense level) of the game one bit.

What I think it all boils down to is just being fair to the player. Obviously, pushing a rock from the wrong side (which, let's face it, could be ANY side to the unsuspecting player) isn't cool by today’s standards. But as long as adequate warning is given to players, then, IMO,deaths shouldn’t be considered a flaw. (I always had more of an issue with dead-end situations in Sierra games rather than anything else).  

As CJ said, KQ1, being the first of it's kind, was more of an experiment than anything else.  You can see where these errors have been amended in later KQ/Sierra Adventure games. Nothing ever gets better without learning from mistakes or trial and error. KQ1 was a good game for its time. By today's standards it probably only holds sentimental value for those who played the original. But we must also remember that if it weren't for KQ1, then no other adventure games (Lucasarts ones included) would have eventuated the way they did. It's all cause and effect, you have to take the good with the bad and see the greater long-term advantage of the situation. Refinement is what makes things better. Instead of criticising the early adventures, as adventure game fans we should at least respect them (even if they frustrate us); for the path that they’ve forged, and for the influence they’ve had to make adventure gaming as a whole, a much more enjoyable experience!

I liked the game.. I thought it was cool. It is an awesome remake.

The first adventure game I played was Monkey Island I, and I enjoyed it. The second was Quest for glory I, and I enjoyed it even more. This was in '91, maybe '92. I like the amusing death scenes and the way you could type stuff and get amusing responses to things you probably otherwise wouldn't see.

My problem with this game is that I've solved all of the puzzles I can find, and it seems like I'm supposed to grab this hawk outside of the dragon cave, but the guy can't catch it. Jumps right under it, with arms in air, and it flies away without me. I hate having to waste an hour on an interface problem.

EDIT:

Ah.. thanks erpy! I hope you'll pardon my ignorance.

That's why we put a little cross on the floor that marks the right spot. It's easy to miss though.

(http://httpd.chello.nl/c.vanempel/Nashheh.jpg)

An interesting read, AGD2, that at the very least gives me some semblance of respect for KQ1.

King's Quest was undoubtably a launch platform for a plethora of games to develop ideas and control systems from and the father of the modern adventure game as we see it today.

My only grudge remains in the fact that no-one at Sierra saw fit to analyse their games, rooting out irritations, for quite some time. Even by "Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers" it was still possible to seriously mess up your game to the point of not being able to complete it, meaning all that work was for nothing. Nice to see enough people got the right idea to make adventure games a worthwhile genre to play.

And try not to poke too hard at my common sense, that serpent-infested moat was ridiculous. Like having a doormat fashioned out of nitroglycerine: one step wrong and you'll never tie your shoe laces again. It wasn't really that obvious.

An example of a well executed, you-know-you'll-die death would be the reactor in Beneath A Steel Sky: activate the door and you're fried. You know that's what'll happen though, so you can avoid it. The moat is a case of "Is that dangerous? Woops.."