King's Quest III Redux: To Heir is Human

[AGD2]

Hello, everyone!

We have just released our latest  project. King's Quest III Redux: To Heir is Human, AGDI's take on the 1986 classic by Sierra On-Line. The project was started on our "Game Making" forum by a fan, way back in January 2003, and adopted by AGDI (then Tierra). It has been developed undercover for the past 8 years and was only announced in January 2011. The game is not quite a 1:1 remake, as it features various enhancements, new elements and gameplay tweaks. But it's not a radical overhaul like our previous King's Quest II: Romancing the Stones remake was either. The game features story-book style hi-color art, a full digital soundtrack, and a complete voice acting including over 2,600 lines of narrator dialogue, and starring Hollywood-based actor Robert Adamson (from ABC Family's Lincoln Heights) in the role of Gwydion. Josh Mandel and Lori Cole also do some cameos.

Download it on PC or Mac at:

http://www.agdinteractive.com/games/kq3/


Here are a obligatory screenshots, showing the enhanced backgrounds in the remake (right side) to those of Sierra On-Line's AGI original (on the left).






And several larger screenshots with more detail, from the remake:















Hope you guys enjoy it!

[Dualnames]

AWESOME! Looks amazing to say the least!!

[Igor Hardy]

Looks great! I still to need play KQ 1 and 2 first though. And I really want to finish that original EGA KQ1 before any of these newer versions. Where is that damn time when you need it?

[Snarky]

Cool! Congratulations on finishing up your remake series (though it would be great if you could tackle KQ4 so the whole thing would be available in VGA or better). At some point I'll go back and play all three games in sequence.

Just for the sake of curiosity, it would be interesting to see a side-by-side of the Infamous Adventures remake and this. Their version of the first screen you posted can be seen here. (Edit: And the second here.)

[arj0n]

Both really beautiful:

[cianty]

Wow! Downloading the games (predecessors) right now. Absolutely stunning stuff

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Yay.  I bet you are glad this is finally done after all that work!  I wish I had such tenacity in producing a freeware title.

[Erpy]

Yeah, we were really ready to get this one out the door. Especially since we had to keep schtumm about it for 8 years.

[arj0n]

Does anyone know if there is any cd-rom cover art for Tierra's/AGDI's KQ1, 2 3 and QfG2?

[Vel]

Now you kind of have to remake KQ4, guys. Heh.

Seriously though, it's a small miracle that you've finished this (being your third KQ remake), most sincere congratulations on the release.

[Khris]

Played for a bit, saved in the house's first floor, died and when I tried to restore, got the famous ...005 error.
Here's a related issue: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=42959.0

I wasn't able to reproduce it, restoring other savegames worked fine afterwards.
Here's the CrashDump.

The game is really beautiful and polished; I like the crisp style much better than the IA version.

[Minno]

The visuals and voice work are absolutely fantastic, as usual. Great work! I really enjoyed the first two remakes of the original King's Quest games as well.

Now only if I could just find where the code is to open that trap door...

[Corby]

Just finished playing recently. Wow, what an experience!

Some thoughts:

-Background art: John Paul Selwood is my favorite background artist, and you can tell he's at his best. Just amazing. I also enjoyed his behind the scene stuff.

-Animations: I especially enjoyed the environmental effects (Fire, water, etc...) Well done with those.

-Voiceovers: Really great. The barmaid was quite memorable. The brigand ordering ale sounds exactly like this guy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsmGXvpKmFk

-You REALLY have to earn your freedom. Whenever I thought I had the means to escape, there was something missing. Made victory all that more enjoyable.

-Extras: All the little extras, and it felt like a considerable amount, really added to the game.

-Scripting: I didn't seem to encounter a single bug. Remarkable!

-Music: Excellent; especially the falling to your doom tune.

Great work!

[Zenger]

WOW  AGD2 :o, this is fantastic, great work  . King's Quest III was my personal favorite back then 

[Vel]

Finished it, here's some thoughts:

Spoiler

- Good job on making the clock fair on the player, guys! It gives just enough time to the player to come back to pump excitement up when it becomes yellow. Thumbs up!

- Practically impeccable graphics and animations, pure eye candy. It is especially moving to see the land of Llewdor and the burning Daventry for anyone who has played the original.

- Almost bug-free, the only small glitch I encountered was that I was able to open the trap door in Manannan's study while the cat was standing on it, thus making him sit onto a hole.

- Although it didn't have that much dialogue, the voice acting was quite good. I'm glad previous cast members (especially Josh Mandel and the narrator) re-did their roles.

- Great ending, with the cliffhanger, song and final scene. Surely you're not going to leave it just hanging there, like Twin Peaks! How's Annie?

- The puzzles felt just right, except for an awkward one: is the only way to peer into the bandits' tree to enter the hole... as a... fly? I figured that one out by complete accident, while trying to fly to the tree house in that form. Would it not be more logical (and safe) to insert your hand as a human, than to enter it as a fly? I hope there is an alternate solution to this puzzle, since this one does not make much sense.

[close]

On the scales, it was a great game and I really appreciate all the effort you've put, not only in this title, but in your other remakes as well. Good luck with your next projects!

[Erpy]

Thanks for the compliments. About that last part:

Spoiler

You'll be able to use the ladder when "exploring" the hole (as you did) or when hearing about it from the bandits in the tavern. Only the latter gives points. The gist of it is that you'll need the fly spell in order to reach the hideout.

[close]

[jong0]

Guys, I am a big fan of your work.  I'm still playing through Kings Quest 2, but I'll pick this up when I'm done!  I was wondering if you could confirm how you did the Mac port of this game?  Did you use a wrapper or use a port of the runtime, and what version of AGS was used?  In a thread on KQ2 I think you said a fan helped with the port - is he revealing himself?  It would be nice to know who to contact for help porting to that platform!  Thanks!

[AGD2]

The Mac port simply uses the CXZ wrapper, which is available here:

www.portingteam.com

Though, I understand it has recently been discontinued. Apparently WineSkin is another one that can be used. There are community forums and instructions at the above site on how to wrap PC games for Mac. The one drawback is that games that are wrapped with CXZ can't be sold commercially.  For that, you'd need to pay bigger bucks for Cider.  For free AGS games, though, it should be no problem. (But even so, a native AGS-compiled Mac run-time will always be the most elegant option. )

Also, be aware that if you want the Mac version to run as a stand-alone, you'll need to include the entire CXZ engine and files wrapper with the game. This will inflate the overall file-size quite a bit larger than the PC build.

And thanks for all the comments! Glad to hear people are liking the game. Yeah, the illegal exceptions are quite bothersome. Hopefully the cause of them can be tracked down.

[Takyon]

Amazing background art, good job!

[Cogliostro]

So far an amazing job.  Just found my first bug... of sorts.  If you try to open the trap door while the cat is on top, the game will lock up.

- Cogliostro