King's Quest: Quest for the Crown

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King's Quest: Quest for the Crown


King's Quest: Quest for the Crown

King's Quest 1 Cover


Intro;

 Release Date: 1984-05-10[1]
 Project Status: N/A
 Latest Version: 2.0F
 Developer(s): Sierra On-Line
 Publisher: IBM, Sierra On-Line, Parker Brothers
 Designer(s): Roberta Williams
 Source Available:  Yes
 Category: Game
 Type: Full Game
 Genre: Adventure
 Theme(s): Exploration, Fairytale, Fantasy, High Adventure, Mythology
 Engine: GAL, AGI1, AGI2
 CP Scheme: CPC
 ESRB Rating: Unrated
 Platform: MS-DOS, TandyCC3, PC Booter, Apple II, Apple IIGS, Macintosh, Amiga, Atari ST, SEGA Master System
 Localization: English
 Website: www.sierra.com



A.K.A.

  • King's Quest I
  • King's Quest 1
  • KQ1


Description

Roberta Williams's King's Quest: Quest for the Crown (aka King's Quest) is a 1983 GAL/AGI1/ AGI2 adventure game, originally published for the IBM PCjr simply as King's Quest. The story and the general design of the game was designed by Roberta Williams.

The game was originally released simply as King's Quest; the subtitle "Quest for the Crown" was added to the game box in the 5th re-release (1987), but did not appear in the game itself. The 1990 remake was renamed King's Quest 1: Quest for the Crown (King's Quest I on the box).


Synopsis

1988 Sierra Catalog[2] wrote:

Become Sir Graham, brave and noble knight. Search the kingdom for the lost treasures of Daventry, and return them to King Edward. The journey will be long and treacherous, and you will meet many creatures from fable and folklore. Confront a wicked witch, a greedy troll, and a ferocious giant, among others.

Many paths await you, and only your wit and resourcefulness can guide you to success. The more clever you prove yourself, the greater the reward that awaits.


About

King's Quest was developed to showcase the advanced abilities of IBM's new computer, the PCjr. It featured higher graphics (160px x 200px by 16 colors) and a three voice audio with noise channel. IBM commissioned Sierra to produce a game that could showcase the PCjr's capabilities. [3] Though considered to be the first AGI game, it was originally developed in Game Adaptation Language, or GAL, a precursor to AGI. AGI was designed to be portable Citation Required[4]. This meant that it could easily be ported to other platforms, which is why the game was available for so many different platforms.

King's Quest was first publicly demoed at the 1984 Winter Consumer Electronics (CES) show held in Las Vegas, at the Hilton, Riviera and Sahara Hotels, from Saturday the 7th to Tuesday the 10th January 1984. This was still an unreleased version, and in fact the IBM PC JR that it was written for was not yet widely available at that time. Although the game was published in May 1984, the trademark for the name “King’s Quest” was filed on the 23rd January 1984, claiming that the first use of the name was on the 13th January 1984, probably related to the Winter CES demonstration and subsequent media reports of it. In a 24th January 1984 "PC Magazine" article, Roberta Williams states that the game had just been finished. We know though that it was still unreleased in April 1984 when a newspaper advert appeared in the "Fresno Bee" stating that Greg Rowland would be giving a "sneak preview of Sierra's yet to be released 3-D adventure game THE KING'S QUEST" on Friday April 20, at 12.00pm & 5.00pm, at the Fresno branch of the "Softwaire Centre International" store, 488 E. Shaw Avenue. The game was finally released on the 10th May 1984, which is the date that IBM state as the publication date in their official copyright registration.

The interest in the PC JR had reached a fever pitch back in November 1983 when it was officially announced, but then there were production issues, with retailers receiving only unsellable demonstration models in January 1984, and only small quantities of around 25 for each dealer in February 1984. Things didn’t properly ramp up with production until mid-March 1984, but already it wasn’t looking good for IBM. Despite retailers having limited numbers in February, many still had unsold machines on the shelves. IBM claimed at the time that sales during the first quarter of 1984 had met their expectations, but it is easy to say that when the production volumes had been lower than dealers expected. By April 1984, however, IBM started admitting that sales were not growing quite as rapidly as they had hoped. By that time, there were many articles in newspapers and magazines that were reporting the lackluster reception to the machine, reports that no doubt Ken and Roberta Williams had been keeping an eye on. In the April 1984 edition of the "PCjr Magazine", Ken Williams is quoted as saying that Sierra On-Line had taken a "tremendous gamble on the company's part" with regards to the PC JR, "the gamble", says Ken Williams, was that Sierra had to spend about $1 million of its own money to develop the IBM PCjr software. According to Ken, Sierra's contract with IBM included little up-front money, so they had to use a "big chunk of the company's resources." Williams says, "We went so far in the hole for development, it's incredible".

By the time of the May 1984 release of King's Quest for the PC JR, it was already clear to Ken and Roberta that the IBM PCjr wasn’t going to deliver the high sales of King's Quest that Sierra On-Line hoped for. Although King’s Quest received many favorable reviews after its demonstration at the Winter CES, and again after its release in May 1984, it was the perfect game but on the wrong platform. The gamble hadn't paid off and Sierra On-Line had to quickly pivot to the IBM PC, which is why an IBM PC version was released towards the end of May 1984. They also began converting the game to the Apple IIc/IIe, but that version wasn't released until October 1984. The end result was that sales of King's Quest didn't start to take off until the end of 1984, when in December it finally entered the Softsel Top 20, and stayed in the Top 20 for 30 weeks after that. This got a big boost when the Tandy 1000 was released in November 1984 and Radio Shack placed big orders for Tandy versions of Sierra's games, including King's Quest.

Though developed by Sierra with assistance from IBM, the game was originally published by by IBM and was released simply as King's Quest; the subtitle "Quest for the Crown" was added to the game box in the 5th re-release (1987), but did not appear in the game itself. The 1990 remake was renamed King's Quest I: Quest for the Crown.

The game was a huge success Citation Required[4] and helped Sierra back to solvency Citation Required[4].


Where to Get It

GOG

Amazon

Humble Bundle

eBay

Internet Archive

  • Not available at this time.


References

  1. ↑ Copyright record: https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/detailed-record/13820161
  2. ↑ Media:SierraCatalog-1988.pdf#page=4 — Sierra 88 Catalog 2015-11-06 (PDF). Sierra On-Line. 1988. pg. 6
  3. ↑ Trivette, Donald B. (February 1985). "Inside King's Quest". Compute! magazine.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 This entry requires a citation or source.


Related Links

 

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