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Btw, the first one isnt on an island, and only the latter part of 2 is on an island.

Also, KQ2 is in no way a copy of KQ1 except that they have the same main character and incorporate fairy tales, and neither is set on an island.

From a technical point of view, KQ2 is set on an island, two islands if you include the second island. The main land is indeed an island because the backgrounds loop and just in one direction. Just imagine a circle, on the outer rim of this circle are located all beach screens, and in the middle of the circle is the mountain. That's how it should look realistically speaking, unless if it's some sort of ring world. Since KQ1 loop in all direction, that pretty much means KQ1's Daventry is a very tiny planet, or something like that.

Huh? Wasn't that post much more longer initially? Or did I daydream?
You had a valid opinion, so why did you change it???
Whatever...

Oh. Some posts I totally overlooked.

Hey, its alright. It happens to the best series. Just do what us LucasArts fans do and say Escape from Monkey Island is really just a fan game. A really well-funded and decent-if-it-was-a-stand-alone game written and developed by top developers. 

I totally agree with you about MI4.
But QfG5 was also designed by Lori Ann Cole. So, it's not the same I think. I'm not sure if you meant that, though.

Let's count the first one for historical relevance. The second is mostly a copy of the first one, set on a different island and has a different goal.

The same could be said for all AGI adventure games. Btw, the first one isnt on an island, and only the latter part of 2 is on an island.

I see that I implied that the first one was set on an island. But I didn't mean that. And I always thought of Kolyma as an island....whatever.

The fifth is plain bad. Great graphics, yes, but terribly boring gameplay. And the story is very linear, even for a King's Quest.

hardly. Kings Quest V at the time was heralded as one of the greatest adventures ever made.

Are you sure?

Of course, there were also positive ones (here for example, when you scroll down), but the response to this game was divided at best. To be honest, I think many critics were just wowed by the graphics. Like it was also the case with Unreal 2, for example.

Part seven is probably the second-most controversial of the series.

Why?

Because it was cartoony, like a Disney movie. Not much of the romantic fantasy atmosphere was left.

@Radiant:

About "design errors":Stupid event triggers which make the gameplay in such an wide open world very linear. Pick up this totally unrelated item before something happens elsewhere.

That doesn't happen in either KQ1 or KQ2, and the former is highly non-linear.

Well, then this (german) review must be wrong.
There is an example that you have to collect some items before Red Riding Hood appears. There doesn't seem to be a connection.

True, but that's because adventure games sell poorly as compared to games in general, since 1995 or so. That's why most companies stopped making adventure games. Of course, it is debatable whether or not KQ8 qualifies as an adventure game.

MI3 was the last adventure that got gold status in Germany (I think that means 100.000 sold copies).
Since it was compared to Tomb Raider at its release I wouldn't called it an adventure game. It has more puzzles than that, but the emphasis is on action.

My point is: if we would only count the King's Quest games which are good then there would only be a few leftover.
Let's count the first one for historical relevance.

It was actually a breakthrough in gaming history, so it's more than a little relevant.

I don't care that much for historical relevance, to be honest. Maybe because I don't feel nostalgic? I wasn't even born when that game was released so it's not such a big argument for me.
There are games, like the old Infocom text adventures, most of the Lucas Arts titles which are old, but still playable to this day. "Another World" with its polygon graphics was also a big breakthrough, and is still very playable.
KQ1 was a technical breakthrough, but, at least in my opinion, not in terms of game design.

The second is mostly a copy of the first one, set on a different island and has a different goal. It still contains the same design errors, so I wouldn't consider it a good game.

What design errors are these? I haven't seen any, and they're notably bug-free. Also, KQ2 is in no way a copy of KQ1 except that they have the same main character and incorporate fairy tales, and neither is set on an island.

Well, Kolyma seemed like an island to me. Maybe because you could visit the ocean? It's not clear how big Kolyma is, so it could be the one or the other, I guess.
About "design errors":Stupid event triggers which make the gameplay in such an wide open world very linear. Pick up this totally unrelated item before something happens elsewhere. I could also say that the parser wasn't that good in the game, but I don't know about that. If it is so bad like in SQIII or even worse, then, yes. I guess these are cases of "read the designer's mind"...
It also has a few dead ends afaik. The bridge could fall apart if you walk too often over it. If you don't throw the fish back into the ocean then it will die and you won't be able to catch another one.

The third one has its moments, so I'm not sure about that. Being trapped in Mordacks castle and having to find a way to free yourself was certainly a nice part.

KQ3 contains neither Mordack nor a castle, that would be KQ5. Assuming you mean Manannan's HOUSE, let me point out that design-wise, KQ3 was very innovative at the time; however, puzzle-wise it suffers from too many mountain paths, and the fact that 2/3rds of the game are basically the "spellbook" copy protection.

Okay, I haven't played KQ3 that much. A friend showed it to me. I meant house with "castle", yes. I guess it just was bit bigger than a usual house.
To be honest, I don't know that much about the game except for the beginning. I couldn't be bothered to play it after many other of the KQ games looked pretty bad. Not only in terms of graphics, but gameplay, story...

Every new King's Quest game was a vehicle for the newest technology. But by the time it was released, far behind schedule, it looked a bit dated...

That's false. KQ8 sold exceptionally well for an adventure game. And none of the earlier games were released "far behind schedule".

I'm not sure if you read what I wrote. Maybe I wasn't clear enough? KQ8 was behind schedule, I didn't say that any of the other KQ games were.
Afaik the release date was planned for mid 97 initially. I remember reading a preview about it. It had a screenhot with an underwater scenery. I guess some ideas got scrapped.
And I didn't say anything about the sales. But I would say that KQ8 sold bad for a general game. In Germany at least. Don't know for the rest of the world.

Methinks you need to get your facts straight. And play the KQ games again

NOOO!!! Have mercy! I don't want to play them.   
Okay, you proved me wrong on KQ3. I guess I take facts sometimes not seriously enough. Sorry.
But I don't enjoy most of the King's Quest games. The stories are so linear, the gameplay at best bearable.
Except KQ6 of course. That's why it is also one of my favorite games.

And, I still have to play KQ4. Oh, and maybe KQ7 in the english version. When I have time.

Just like there's only seven King's Quest games, there's only four Quest for Glory games.

I haven't played the QfG series, but I always think it's funny how the eighth King's Quest gets bashed overall.
I don't think it was great. The controls were clumsy, the graphics not so impressive even at its release and some levels were plain boring.
But it also had some fun levels, like Daventry, the Swamp and the Ice Realm. The ending was a huge anti-climax, though.
The ambitions were just too high for that time. Would it have been planned more small scale it could have been much better...

My point is: if we would only count the King's Quest games which are good then there would only be a few leftover.
Let's count the first one for historical relevance. The second is mostly a copy of the first one, set on a different island and has a different goal. It still contains the same design errors, so I wouldn't consider it a good game.
The third one has its moments, so I'm not sure about that. Being trapped in Mordacks castle and having to find a way to free yourself was certainly a nice part. But it also had the usual unwarned, poorly integrated dead ends. Oh, and didn't you have to wait some minutes for a ship to arrive?
I haven't played the fourth one, but I think it's generally regarded as a good title.
The fifth is plain bad. Great graphics, yes, but terribly boring gameplay. And the story is very linear, even for a King's Quest.
The sixth one is the definite highpoint, no arguing.
Part seven is probably the second-most controversial of the series.
I think some didn't even consider that a King's Quest anymore initially. It's very cartoony and family orientated.
I'm not sure if it's bad or not. My memory says me that it was average.
I couldn't get it to run in fullscreen recently, so I didn't bother to play it for a longer time.
Oh, and it has some of the most dreadful voice acting of all time. The german version at least.
And number eight...still bad voice acting. But at least there wasn't much talking. In my opinion, it's probably the best King's Quest game Roberta did without a co-writer.
It's just very different. But that was planned from the beginning. Every new King's Quest game was a vehicle for the newest technology. But by the time it was released, far behind schedule, it looked a bit dated...

My first post was about a game called Moose Rage. I thought it was a cute, unpolished gem that didn't get too much recognition.
Nothing special about it, though. But my command of the english language was still nearly non-existant.


I don't think I ever did a truly terrible post.
But there are two which I think are interesting.
My answer to the april joke game "Hero of Infamous Kingdoms":

The game is kinda funny.
I like the voice of the old man, oh and just the simplicity and pure sillyness, still, I don't know exactly what to think of it. I expected more seeing that you put all the projects together, doesn't look like you did much in that time before, it's a bit disappointing, I mean, how eager were we for the release of that games, looked at this pretty screenshots, thought of the times back than when the real Sierra, before Chainsaw Whateverday, was still alive and hoped for some pretty good adventures.
So it's kind of a letdown, you have to understand, it's not that what we expected, and I think it was a terrible mistake to stop the projects! I mean, all give up just to put it together to an above-average game? Is this really how it was meant to be? Is this really all?
Was really everyone for this idea? I can't imagine that all members of the teams liked that plan? Did just the project leaders voices count or what? It's a bit unfair when you think of it that the work you spended your many countless hours on in your spare time after work is wasted on something different you wanted it for....
It's hard to understand what you did all the time when I see this...
Especially the Hero6 project, I mean, all the years?     :
I think you will get many whining mails because of this decision from disappointed adventure fans... 


Oh, by the way, I found a bug! Would you fix it? 

I'm amazed that this post was pretty amusing for my proportions!
I got a PM from someone who misunderstood this answer, though.

Oh, and then there is this "what was I thinking?"-post:

Man, she just kissed him.
I think that's not so hard to read out, he loved the kiss, because that's all what it was about, right?
He never kissed a girl before so assume they didn't fuck directly.
It may be false but I don't think so.

Of course, I know how it is, even if you know that, you're pretty sure, there is a small chance it can be still different otherwise.


I think I start to talk about total different things....

It's not that bad, but it doesn't feel like me. The last sentence was certainly a heavy-handed way for saying "I digress..."

Oh, and a noobish question here and there is quite natural, of course.

The description reminded of that song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AAhc4auA7A

Piano, puppets, rap...
I'm still not sure if the song is great or terrible. You can listen to it a few times, but it can get annoying...

[Edit:]

okay, here's the new recording: http://www.yourfilelink.com/get.php?fid=372622

The audio quality is much better in this one. Then there's a new bridge/refrain.
Oh, and I varied the arpeggios a bit more.

Edit: I plan to use this tune in a game, probably as a leitmotif. It seems very dramatic and calm, and like it has to hide something. I have a very rough story idea in mind that fits it.

[still]

HEY!

This is very nice!

The chord progression is somewhat (over)used, but there is nothing to forbid you from using it, and it is one of the progressions that I really love very much!

It is as you say, very sad, and very beautiful! And the recording quality is not really that bad, I have to admit. I don't hear any pops, or clicks, or anything really. Can't see why you say it's crappy.

Your playing is quite nice, and sentimental (but you should be more careful to play all chords at the same time (all fingers touching the keys at the same time I mean)).

One other thing I would suggest is to have something like a middle section, or a bridge, or a chorus or something. You repeat the same progression 4 times, and then finish. It's not really that imaginative. It needs some kind of "holding up", or a "rest point", or something "different". I don't want to tell you what you could do exactly, as it would serve little purpose. It's best to sit down and try to find something that would work well.

But as I said in the begining, it is very nice and very well done to you mate

Thanks for the compliment!!
I agree that it doesn't seem very imaginative...
...but in the last few weeks I have a hard time coming up with new ideas.
But at the moment I can't think of a bridge....
...that's funny. I listened to it again and now I came up with a small one.
I guess I post a new version later.

I still think that the recording quality is crappy. There's some weird background noise, especially if I play louder. Mayber it's because the microphone was somewhat on?
I will look into it.

Edit: It may take some time until I post the new version. The new part is a bit tricky for me.

I wrote a little piece on the e-piano and I want to hear your opinion about it: http://www.yourfilelink.com/get.php?fid=370014

I guess this is the result of listening to the score of Trilby's Notes, 6DaS and Gabriel Knight 3 while trying to play a Mozart tune.....in my opinion it sounds very much like "Day Is Done" from Nick Drake.
I don't know why it sounds so "distorted". The recording quality is crappy, I know.

I only played it for a short time, but this game is great fun!!

Great work at lowering the quality bar for future AGS games!

Seems like an original spin twist MM/DOTT.
It's nice to see how you develop Hoagie further, for example.

Whoa! I'm so awaiting this.
That is a clever way to promote your game. Very funny! Oh, and the trailer looks great, too!

Right.
Graphics aren't that important.
When the wizard looks like a table you could call it surreal, but that the basilisk is mainly a square makes the impression that you don't care that much about your creation.
I played it awhile, liked some puzzles and the dialog.
But I didn't finish it. I felt that I wasted my time searching for the solution for the basilisk puzzle. The irratating 2-color, minimalist, "square-y" graphics, which don't even have the style of a Davy Jones C'est Mort, turned me off additionally. They didn't help you to imagine the surrounding yourself.
If you don't like to draw graphics you maybe should make a textadventure instead. I would have enjoyed it much more then.

Not bad overall. It didn't hold my interest, though.

Great! I'm sold already!!

A new RON game!
Always good, and this time, it looks great, too.
Only, the question is, will you finish it?
I sure hope so! 
Oh, and it reminds me that I should also work on mine...
...I just wish I had your talent in drawing backgrounds...

Where is this wiki you speak of? I saw no changes in the site other than that it's no longer offline.

Anyway, figuring that "how do we solve it" is by making more games, I've got a plot sketched out. However, I have no spare time at the moment to do any actual coding. Working title is "Root of all Evil". Coming some time later this year, cross fingers.

[/quote

For the wiki, look here.
I think like Radiant said, it's the best idea first to start making games again.
After that I would approach a redesign, personally.

[The Soviet Union Strikes Again!]

Thakbor, his mum and Mr. Namyah are quite negligible characters IMHO (even though Thakbor was among the very first dozen characters to be created) and they alone don't provide a compelling reason to include The Soviet Union Strikes Again! especially if we also consider Purity of the Surf (which features Thakbor much more prominently) for inclusion. Purity of the Surf was also a hard game not to include and I guess you could replace III Spy with it, but ultimately, it didn't provide many plot hooks and all the character development (especially Josh, Thakbor and Knoffel) wasn't picked up much either, so ultimately, because I wanted the list to be as short as possible I decided against it.

While Hooky McPegleg, Pirate Postman also takes places during the period of Davy's death and the mayoral election, I felt it didn't deal with Davy's death that nicely, because Hooky, didn't really know Davy and because the game features another character dressing up as Davy. Also, the game is strongly linked to Lost Treasure of RON, so including one, would almost inevitably mean including the other, which was one more argument (to minimize the number of games) of opting for a single game rather than those two, because, if taken together, they are almost stand-alone, not unlike Purity of the Surf.

Okay, it's some while since I last played through all RON games, so I have no ideal qualification for choosing the essential games.
Still, when you don't want to include Soviet, why then IIISpy. It actually is also a very standalone game and you can't say where it even belongs in the timeline. It fleshes out characters, something Soviet does do too. And features many new characters, like Soviet.
In my eyes Soviet has tons of story development. Oh, and you see Davy's room for the first time. And you get to know that he needs a magic ring for...magic.
Okay, I get silly.

About pirate postman: I played it again yesterday and it wasn't really a problem that you didn't knew the first part since its happenings were summarized at the beginning. I'm not sure about its inclusion, though. For the timeline, it would be the most relevant of Grundislav games, though.
I haven't played through IISpy for now, but it seems like a nice game.

Edit: Sorry for my fucked up post, I was in time struggle.
I like the idea of choose-your-own-reality though.

[not]

It's definately a good game, especially the scenes where Mika questions the town people are hilarous.
I agree that we should make AGS pages for all the essentials games.
It's not wrong to promote RON here, especially since it originated from the AGS forum, but we should also consider to promote it in other game making communities. And that's why the sprites should also be available in normal picture files.

Also, I agree that RON 2.0 is a stupid name. And RON Reloaded is not better!
But when we reach that new stage we should also promote it as such. RON, now even better than before!

Oh, btw, thanks Bumblearse for your efforts!!

There's also one other thing I wanted to clear up: How can a game work in the timeline when it has more than one ending?
Toxically Earth has 8 different ones! It's not possible to build on this one because they can't be all considered!!

I personally think that multiple endings should be allowed, and not just that there's one happy end and the rest are failures.
But I think the game designer should make clear which ending is the right one for the continuity!
Or there should be the rule that a following RON author who builds on such a game should decide which ending was the right one...

Well, great to hear that someone else is also working on a RON game.
I have the feeling that a few RON games get silently developed.
Maybe a new release may also push others.
Overall, I think that all those worked on and unfinished projects got unusually ambitious.

Well, if such a game gets finished then it's even better.

About beta-testing:
You can release a RON game without quality control, yes, with grammar as poor as possible, with graphics to let your eyes bleed and a story that makes no sense or, even worse, bores you to death.

But, in my opinion, it shouldn't be added to the RON catalogue then and not be considered an official RON game at all.
So, if you want it to be official you should try your best and invest some time.
Anf if you're poor at something then you can probably ask for help.
Nobody has to do everything alone, I think.