King's Quest

Oh, I forgot to rep for Colonel's Bequest and Conquests of Camelot, two more from that really fruitful period right before they went VGA/mouse-based. Ridiculously rich games, frustrating as hell sometimes, but shockingly developed, especially Colonel's Bequest, which has just tons of shit going on that you can completely miss if you're not in the right place at the right time (which is of course totally annoying but it was still really cool to me at the time). Amazing music too!

God, it's amazing how much work went into old games like this, that no one will probably ever really see or appreciate again. A gallery show of every screen of Conquest of Camelot would be so great. All those painstaking pixel backgrounds!

Sierra's Robin Hood game was amazing as well..

Am I gonna be the first to mention... Leisure Suit Larry?

This year I've been attempting to work through all the King's Quests this year, with Gamefaqs to hand, natch. Currently I've ground to a halt at KQIV, which is unfortunately ruined by the same annoyances as the previous three, except with slightly prettier graphics.

For the life of me I can't follow the kind of anti-logic that leads to you losing out on some useful item because you did the right thing but in the wrong order. This is one that really bugs me - after cleaning house for some dwarves, one of them leaves behind a bag of diamonds that you can give to a fisherman in exchange for his rod. However, what you're supposed to do is attempt to return the diamonds to the gnome before you make the trade for the rod, otherwise you won't be able to get the lamp which you need to get through a dark cave to get the magic fruit from the swamp, etc etc. If you've already swapped the diamonds you have no way of getting the lamp at all and are completely fucked, basically.

Now I've reached a point where, according to all available walkthroughs, I'm supposed to hang around in the sea waiting for a whale to appear so I can get swallowed. What happens in practice is no whale appears and I swim about the same few ocean screens until get tired and drown/a shark eats me. Then I think "Fuck this shit," and go and do something else.

The problem I have with this series is from a modern perspective they just aren't fun at all. King's Quest seems to be all about punishing the player and making them suffer through the most infuriating bullshit for meagre rewards. At least the early Space Quest and Leisure Suit Larry games attempted to give the player a rewarding experience, and you actually had a slim chance in hell of finishing them without help. I've got KQ V, VI and VII here, but I'm starting to think life's too short.

Did anyone ever play either of the Manhunter games? They had this fascinating dystopian setting where the earth has been colonised by a bunch of floating eyeballs, and you play a kind of blade runner-esque character who has to run around a decaying urban sprawl doing their dirty work, hunting down dissidents. They were fairly unique at the time, as they first person and even had a primitive point and click interface(this would be in the late eighties). Although they suffered from some poorly thought-out puzzles(first person mazes, argh), I think the plot and atmosphere still hold up, and it's surely crying out for a modern update. Or would be if anyone had cared about them at the time.

The problem I have with this series is from a modern perspective they just aren't fun at all. King's Quest seems to be all about punishing the player and making them suffer through the most infuriating bullshit for meagre rewards.

That's one of the many reasons when Lucasarts starting putting out stuff it was such a breath of fresh air- besides doing away with the countless ways to die, it also realized the inherent ridiculousness of putting a million widgets together to solve problems in completely illogical fashion, and just ran with the humor - that's probably why I liked those particular Sierra series, as well.

I remember that whale problem! I feel like there's some specific actual trigger for making the whale show up but god knows. Do you have a feather?

i love love loved these games and i thought they went downhill when the mouse got involved and you pointed at actions. it was all about typing that shit out.

― s1ocki, Tuesday, April 1, 2008 2:32 PM (8 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^^^^^^^^^^ t bomb of century

I remember that whale problem! I feel like there's some specific actual trigger for making the whale show up but god knows. Do you have a feather?

I don't remember if you need a feather to trigger the whale's appearance, but you definitely need a feather to get out of the whale once it swallows you: "tickle uvula."

Right, which is why I wonder if they won't let you encounter the whale until you have the feather - rare case of them NOT letting you box yourself in...

love these games. s1ocki i played these with inverted typing, though.

and good lord i remember all these puzzles. the hint books had yellow marker for the answers, remember?

what nostalgia. i'm going to go cry.

tickle uvula
tickle uvula
tickle uvula
tickle uvula
tickle uvula
tickle uvula
tickle uvula
tickle uvula

Some wonderful person has posted a video with all of the digitized-speech sections from classic bad game COUNTDOWN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVPqvOOqjKg

I am eternally grateful.