King's Quest - The First Adventure

Fun fact, this video has technically been in production since April, just been on the back burner whilst I did other projects. This also means I did not time this to coincide with any news related to any particular monarchy whatsoever. I hope to do more adventure games in the future. This more LP format is fun to do and there's some adventure games worth looking into. Good, Bad, and... weird. Next video likely won't be a review, but an announcement and update. Stay tuned. Edit: Slightly adjusted the title.

Worst part of the gnome puzzle is that, on top of having to figure out that its a backward alphabet cipher, you also have to misspell Rumpelstiltskin, because they used a misspelling when setting it up

Many years ago, I was basically penpals with some people at Sierra, sending them letters about being stuck on a riddle or whatever, and they'd send me very nice, upbeat, hinting replies, all through snail-mail, mind you. I loved the games, and the employees were so friendly, I still have a nostalgic fondness for these old games of my childhood.

The PgUp, PgDn, Home, and End diagonal directions thing can probably be attributed to the Num Pad on some keyboards having those also bound to 9, 3, 7, and 1 when Num Lock is turned off

The funny thing is, as rough as KQ1 is today, it was by far the most player-friendly adventure game at the time. A big open world, non-linear quest, detailed faux-3D graphics (lol really), and alternate solutions to pretty much every puzzle? That was peak UX in 1984. BTW, if you're still looking for Sierra games to try, I highly recommend the "Quest For Glory" series. It's a genuinely unique mashup of Sierra adventuring and an ARPG, with multiple classes and alternate paths for every class. Age aside, I honestly think they're among the very best-designed games that Sierra ever released, and are still reasonably playable today.

I was a kid in the mid 80s. These games were beyond magical to a young brain like mine. I'd look at those screens and my imagination would run wild, wondering was was just around the bend. Now middle aged, divorced, and dealing with accumulating health issues as everyone does, I find myself jaded with photorealistic, high poly games. Pixel art seems to touch something deep inside me. It suggests an interactive, living world, without spoon feeding your brain all the details. You still have to fill in the gaps, as if you're reading a book.

In case anyone might be interested in more obscure mythical references: I believe the entire leprechaun scene takes inspiration from the 1959 Disney title "Darby O'Gill and the Little People. There's a scene where the old man plays a rousing hunting tune in the lair of leprechauns, causing them to dance til they mount horses and magically open an exit for him to sneak out.

Did you just deadass casually drop that you "don't have" Steam?

I played this game after my dad downloaded the final game for us to play a few years ago. Spoilers but the last game delves into themes of dementia and death and to this day it has been one of the most impactful narrative experiences of my life. Afterwards I played the 1st and 2nd game and was so happy to see Graham alive and well ;-;

It's a real shame this video isn't getting even half the views of your Iron Lung video. You have a very earnest yet calm way of discussing games, and I really enjoy your work!

The diagonal controls were designed for the keypad. PgUp/PgDn and Home/End are the corner buttons there.

“You don’t want to get caught by the dwarf. It’s worse than a game over.” I played a game called “Fear and Hunger” recently. My mind went to the WORST place. 😂

TBH I find Space quest 4 and 5 to be some of the best of Sierras work. The art, comedy, story just has so much love and heart. Theres some moon logic to some of the puzzles but goodness if I dont play them every few years for a good laugh.

This was an awesome video. I've never played any of the King's Quest games. They're classics but I imagine I would lose patience with them really quick. This was a great way to showcase the game and have it be entertaining.

19:40 when numpads arent toggled to type numbers, they are instead arrow keys, home, end, and page up/down. it was pretty standardized at the time to the point most keyboards today still follow that same layout if they have a numpad.

This video is so entertaining and well-made I keep coming back to it. Would love to see you cover other Sierra games in the same style :)

@20:00 to be fair the IBM XT class PC the game was designed for had the arrow keys as part of the number cluster like when you turn off numlock, so page up and down and home and end would have corresponded to diagonal directions.

Criminally underrated channel. I was drawn in by your Iron Lung video, but I’m staying for content like this: simple, funny, well written - and with good voice quality to boot. This is the kind of stuff I can put on while painting or doing work. And it honestly earned an audible chuckle from me a few times.

I definitely would love to see Kings Quest 7 particularly. Sierra definitely set a trend here, but they were also the ones that really refined it. I played a few of these as a kid and the one that really sticks out to me (in child memory) is #7

One things to mention as one who has the original release: the manual is printed on what you might call 'old-style' book paper. quite thick and coarse. The front and back manual envelopes are printed with a relief effect, very noticable on the titile.