King’s Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella Retold(VGA + Talkie) Experimental Project

[Jorge Pecador]

https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/play/game/2888-king-s-quest-iv-the-perils-of-rosella-retold-vga-talkie-experimental-project/


Dear lovers of King's Quest Universe,

We thus we give you King's Quest IV Retold patched with 256 colored graphics and voices.

Now, you can plunge back into this newly refurbished fantasy world and again accompany our intrepid heroine, Princess Rosella of Daventry on her quest through the enchanted land of Tamir to aid a good fairy Genesta, slay evil Lolotte, find a magic fruit and in the end hopefully save her ailing father's life.

We are ,,Magic Quest Entertainment" and this non-profit, fan made experiment has been made by courtesy of Dr Slash, the author of King's Quest IV Retold (and with his blessing) and is basically the extension of his project. The game has the same code and the structure as KQ4Retold (with point and click controller and slightly altered details storywise in comparison to the original King's Quest IV - The Perils of Rosella). The only, yet vital difference between King's Quest IV Retold by Dr Slash and this version can be found in the audiovisual area. It is important to note that this is a standalone project, so you do not need to install King's Quest IV Retold by Dr Slash to run and play it (and you shouldn't turn to him in case of any questions about this project either).

When it comes to the graphics, they have been reworked and touched up with assets gathered from the web and taken from other, unfinished remakes of the original King's Quest IV. So basically this project would not have been possible without the work of numerous, deeply involved individuals in the span of the last 30 years. It is thus a tribute to them, their devotion and engagement to bring back this wonderful story of Rosella back to us. The screens from their projects have all been recycled, reworked and adapted by ,,Magic Quest Entertainment" to look and feel consistent with one another and with the Legacy of King's Quest universe. Those, which were missing, were created on the basis of Dr Slash'es version of the game. The speech, on the other hand has been recorded from scratch. Almost all the sprites have been recolored. Additionally some portrait related graphics have either been reused/redesigned from old fan resources or originally recreated and in the end integrated into this patch as a bonus material.

It's also worth highlighting that we treat this project as an experiment, rather than a serious and complete game - it was born out of passion, love for adventure games and desire to bring about something unique, using the bits and pieces left out in the depths of the internet after all the fanprojects attempting to make a fully fledged remake of the original KQ4 had closed down. 30 years have passed from the time most of the graphics have been made and it is not even possible to track down the majority of the original artists. The general aim is to honour the authors of all those abandoned remakes and at the same time to make a treat for the fans desiring to finally see this episode of King's Quest Saga in a completely new light.

We must also emphasize, that despite the huge amount of work done by us to wrap up this experiment, we are not and will never be taking credit for those remade graphics that have been compiled by us, processed and integrated into the game. We express our utmost respect to the original creators and hope they will like and support our initiative, but in case of any doubts on their part, we will of course act accordingly.

The initiative of starting ,,Magic Quest Entertainment" and tackling this project (from the idea to collaborate with me, Jorge Pecador, up to the task of swapping the original assets of King's Quest IV Retold for the new ones and adding some special features to the final version of the game) has been taken by an Anonymous KQ fan. 

Due to the limitations of the code and to satisfy different needs of the players (and at the same time not to make the download exorbitantly big), the game has been split into 2 versions (each build upon a slightly different design of the game engine).

1. Legacy version (without textboxes - the definite version and my personal favourite, mostly in line with the feel of the original saga as well as with the AGD remakes). NOTE - it's important to choose the option "texts_off" in the settings while launching the game, otherwise the wrongly displayed subtitles will appear onscreen.

2. Basic version (very similar to the Legacy version, but with textboxes which cannot be turned off). NOTE - it's important to choose the option "English" in the settings while launching the game. Otherwise the speech won't be heard.

If you decide to install both versions on your PC, you must remember to change the subtitle settings each time you switch from one version to the other. Othewise the wrong, ,,default" settings will apply automatically and you won't be able to fully enjoy the experience of King's Quest 4 Retold (VGA + Talkie).

There are 3 issues in the game that the player should be aware of. They are not glitches, but consequences of the structure of the code, which could not be modified in any way.

*The portraits issue: The portraits are available only once for each speaking character. They appear just after one of the character's statements and sometimes move with him/her. They serve as an ,,icing of a cake" to reveal a closeup of a character and thus immerse the player even more into the fantasy world of King's Quest. These portraits could not have been integrated into the game in any other way and cannot be turned off.

*The introduction issue: In the 1st (Legacy) version, the intro must be "clicked through" for the video to keep up with the audio. Otherwise the voice and music will keep playing and the scenes will freeze. That's why we've added a button with a link to the appropriate, non-interactive "running intro" in the start menu under windows. In fact all the other videos in the game are also interactive (the player needs to click after the character or the narrator has said something-but unlike in the intro, the audio stops, if you don't click in time, so there's no hurry;). Due to the design of the engine, you can first hear the voices and then see the animations of characters, so it takes a bit longer to get through all the cutscenes (the animations can be skipped to the following spoken line by pressing the esc button, though).
In the 2nd (Basic) version, both intro and outro are automatic from start to end and do not need to be clicked through.

*The ScummVM issue: under the current versions of ScummVM engine (2.9.0 and 2.9.1) - the game freezes at one point (while delivering the Unicorn to Lolotte). The issue has been reported to the ScummVM developers, so it should be eliminated in the next release (the current daily build is already free from this error). This issue also concerns the original King's Quest IV Retold by DrSlash. Under the earlier versions of the ScummVM engine however, the game works fine.

We would like to express our utmost gratitude to the following authors of the unfinished remakes, whose assets have been used in this game. They have not participated in the creation of this patch, and may not even be aware of its existence: Nightfable and Westend Games (Audrey Ryan), Magic Mirror Games (with late Karen's artwork), Sponge Factory (Notid1 on imgur), Infamous Adventures, Lorenz_fk on reddit, Unicorn Tales and Andrep99. As I've already mentioned, this game is a tribute to their hard work.

This game is also a love letter to the original authors of King's Quest Saga - Roberta and Ken Williams.

We surely hope, you will enjoy the experience and wish you all a wonderful journey through Tamir.

Magic Quest Entertainment