Every Cloak Has a Silver Lining

November 15, 2005 7:27 PM

Save King's Quest IX.Ever since personal computers became powerful enough to run graphics-intensive action games, adventure games like the ones once produced by Sierra On-Line (King's Quest, Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, and countless other titles) and LucasArts (Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island, Sam & Max Hit The Road) have been in decline--most of the series have been abandoned, King's Quest was awkwardly morphed into an unsuccessful first-person fighting game, and Sam & Max 2 was famously cancelled (and, less famously, uncancelled). In the last couple of years, the genre's gotten a shot in the arm from an active emulation community, the ready availability of "abandonware," but mostly from unauthorized sequels and remakes created by fans and distributed for free. The flagship of these new games was to have been King's Quest IX, a three-part finale to the series that wrapped up all outstanding loose ends and properly said goodbye to the characters. The project team included forty people, some of whom worked on the game for more than four years. And, at the end of October, Vivendi Universal (which bought, then disbanded Sierra On-Line) pulled the plug.
posted by Epenthesis (40 comments total)

I can't wait for the Sam & Max "Interactive PC Game".

It's horrible when companies hold onto their intellectual property and then give up trying to use it, instead of just selling it on and allowing it to come to fruition. The nastiest example is of course Invader Zim.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 7:35 PM on November 15, 2005

I think that all of the great games by Origin Systems probably deserve a mention as well, and Privateer Famously Lives on in the hands of fans
posted by Dr. Twist at 7:38 PM on November 15, 2005

SAM & MAX!
hell ya

good memories, good memories
posted by edgeways at 7:43 PM on November 15, 2005

Space Quest was a great series... certainly my favorite of the Sierra collection. Just the other day I visited some fansites to see if a fan-made sequel had been made. It hadn't.

I hope that the Fallout franchise doesn't go the way of these games. I know that Bethesda is planning on making a sequel, but I worry that it won't pan out.
posted by Tullius at 7:44 PM on November 15, 2005

VU is a rotten company, even when you talk about game publishers. That said, they did allow Clancore to pursue making a Starsiege game.

Although who knows, maybe they'll just pull the rug out of that one too.
posted by selfnoise at 7:49 PM on November 15, 2005

I think that's my first meta cross reference.

either way, thanks for this. i hadn't heard about it. SAVE KING'S QUEST!!! the only game I can currently recall that could be beaten in literally 30 seconds (if you knew what to do) was king's quest 4. It was like the shaggy dog joke of gaming. you spent all that time wandering around figuring out how to achieve your goals, and then it turns out all you needed was to get an item from under a bush in the starting area, fire it into the sky and ride away happily ever after.
posted by shmegegge at 7:50 PM on November 15, 2005

Oh, nostalgia. One of the computers in my massively hippie Montessori grade school had KQ3 installed, but the manual had been lost in a flurry of construction paper and pink counting blocks. So the other geeks and myself would type in "Shark" on the manual verification page until we got to the game, and then drive ourselves mad trying to beat it.

KQ is, save Mario, is without a doubt my favorite game series of all time. Aww! Now I'm remember my dad and I installing KQ6 on my (gasp!) 486 with a (SHOCKER!) 256mb harddrive. Sigh.
posted by ford and the prefects at 8:02 PM on November 15, 2005

forty people, some of whom worked on the game for more than four years.

That might represent about a person-century of effort. If the game is intended to take 100 hours to play (and that's longer than most games seem to be designed for), that's 2000 hours of development effort for every hour I would spend playing the darned thing.

Is that really the amount of work a modern video game requires? If so, wow (and I begin to understand why games are so !**#$@ expensive these days).
posted by jepler at 8:03 PM on November 15, 2005

That's kind of a weird thing to do... all that work, knowing the company who own's the copyright will likely pull the rug out at any minute.

'Course, one assumes they could just change the name of the game/characters and be just fine.

... but would that be selling out?
posted by ph00dz at 8:07 PM on November 15, 2005

Is that really the amount of work a modern video game requires?

I think in the case of the new King's Quest, you're dealing with programmers/developers doing it as a labor of love, able to offer only a few hours here and there. I could be wrong, but that's the impression I always got from their site.

And I think video games are so...now, I won't do the symbols thing...fucking expensive because they've realized most of us will shell out the money.
posted by ford and the prefects at 8:07 PM on November 15, 2005

VU is a horrid organization. I would imagine that it was not necessarily anything personal with the developers or project itself, just a issue on some lawyer's desk to take care of before heading home for the day.

The company is about as personable as a huge boulder. It's upsetting that this had to happen. King's Quest was a great game.

It's too bad that I can't say that it is a great game.
posted by purephase at 8:10 PM on November 15, 2005

'Course, one assumes they could just change the name of the game/characters and be just fine.

They indicated long ago that they could, if necessary, change all the proper names and release it as an unrelated game with a nod and a wink. It turns out, though, that they adapted so much art from earlier games (for continuity) that the necessary changes would be enormous. Months of extra work.

I admit to being a little annoyed that they had such poor contingency plans, but then, the continuity was the whole reason they were doing a new game, and they couldn't very well have dropped all that stuff.
posted by Epenthesis at 8:18 PM on November 15, 2005

I played the original King's Quest on my black-and-white Mac Plus, and I loved it. I could have done without trying to balance on the damn beanstalk...but the neverending bowl of stew? Very cool.

King's Quest is one of those games, like Pac-Man or Tetris, that should be ported to every new platform -- untouched. No "enhanced graphics," no "improved controls," and no goddamn Easter eggs. Just King's Quest, old school, playable on my Mac OS X 10.4.3. Is that so much to ask?

/rhetorical
posted by cribcage at 8:30 PM on November 15, 2005

Just King's Quest, old school, playable on my Mac OS X 10.4.3. Is that so much to ask?

Voila.
posted by Popular Ethics at 8:37 PM on November 15, 2005

huh. Deep links on that site seem to be busted. Try here: FreeSCI
posted by Popular Ethics at 8:39 PM on November 15, 2005

Abandonia has less than Underdogs, but fewer broken links/esa issues.
posted by bardic at 8:57 PM on November 15, 2005

shmegegge: what are you talking about? I don't remember there being any such shortcut in KQ4 (the Perils of Rosella). And I even had the offical walkthrough for KQ1-4. I would be fascinated to learn of one, though. Spill it, man!
posted by jedicus at 9:00 PM on November 15, 2005

Did anyone else get emailed about this? Someone emailed me asking me to post about this KQ game on MeFi.
posted by xmutex at 9:38 PM on November 15, 2005

Popular Ethics: I appreciate the thought; but whatever is happening on that page, it ain't what I know as Mac OS X. Lots of acronyms, lots of downloading and different binary files. There's one screenshot that looks like KQ, but the rest of it...either it isn't what I'm looking for or it's clear over my head. Maybe both. Either way, I'm still hoping someone will make it easy for us dumb folks -- y'know, download to "disk image" and drag into "Applications" just like every other freeware/shareware game.
posted by cribcage at 9:55 PM on November 15, 2005

cribcage: download DOSBox and Radnor. DOSBox is an emulator that works really well with most Sierra games, and Radnor is a frontend for it that makes it practically seamless. It's not as easy as running a standalone application would be, but it's hardly rocket science.

xmutex: I got the e-mail. But I'd been thinking about posting the link anyway, because there's clearly a lot of interest in the subject.
posted by Epenthesis at 10:13 PM on November 15, 2005

Peasant's Quest.
posted by euphorb at 10:16 PM on November 15, 2005

Look behind you! A three-headed monkey!
posted by ori at 10:58 PM on November 15, 2005

This is really sad. It makes you wonder what Vivendi's motives are - do they really want to produce their own KQ game, or are they just doing it for the sake of it? Particularly when they have a ready-made product with a guaranteed fan base that they could pick up and publish themselves.

There is so much good work being done by fans on unofficial sequels, I have had my eye on a Fate of Atlantis sequel for a while now.
posted by greycap at 11:36 PM on November 15, 2005

This is the sort of thing that happens when we go from being citizens to consumers and allow our past to shift from culture to copywrite. Our pastimes become property and our past goes out of print when no longer profitable.

I don’t know that there’s much stopping it. Sending a letter to my senator telling them that this is the sad effect of the perpetual copywrite extensions and the criminalization of non-commercial infringement seems like nothing compared to the bags of money the entertainment industry dumps on the same people.
posted by dustsquid at 11:36 PM on November 15, 2005

Space Quest was a great series... Just the other day I visited some fansites to see if a fan-made sequel had been made. It hadn't.

Guess again!
posted by Robot Johnny at 12:37 AM on November 16, 2005

Selfnoise: Even letting that Starsiege game happen is more VU evil.

From their faq:

"Is anyone going to be making any money off this?

No. This project is completely a labor of love for it's creators, but once finished it will be turned over to VU Games to distribute as they wish. This includes charging for it if they so desire.

Is there any pay involved for working on this project?

Again, no. This project is strictly voluntary and not-for-profit."

So, they 'let' their fans make this game, and in the end take all the profit without paying jack for it. VU isn't even responsible for the original IP, they inherited it.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 3:36 AM on November 16, 2005

jedicus, I might be misremembering the number of the game. whichever one had you as the king's daughter.

I only remember because my friend who owned told me not to bother playing it and then showed me how quickly it could be beaten.

I didn't listen.
posted by shmegegge at 5:33 AM on November 16, 2005

Robot Johnny you have given me a surprise. I had actually been to that page, and hadn't noticed the scrollbar (and the top link was dead). Not one but two games! Fantastic.
posted by Tullius at 6:16 AM on November 16, 2005

Kings Quest IX should be put on a CD, which is subsequently stolen by a visiting Russian tourist, who subsequently puts it up on his ftp site for the world to download.
posted by solipse at 7:46 AM on November 16, 2005

Wait a minute - SnM2 is uncancelled? Original deveopers? Be still, my beating heart.

I'm surprised no-one's mentioned SCUMMVM yet: out of all my gadgets and kit the one I love most is an old PocketPC loaded up with Sam & Max, DotT and a bunch of Monkeys on it. Plane and train journeys go by in a nostalgic blur.
posted by blag at 8:27 AM on November 16, 2005

I miss, "So You Want to Be a Hero," aka, "Hero's Quest."

I bought the 3.5 floppys off of Ebay, but I haven't yet put in the time in setting it up to run on my modern computer. It's quite labor intensive, from what I gather from online help sites.
posted by agregoli at 8:27 AM on November 16, 2005

Oh, man, I loved Hero's Quest. I remember being pissed off at Mattel when Sierra had to change the series title in later installments to "Quest for Glory" because of a copyright issue with their HeroQuest crap. For my money, the best installment in the QfG series was part 3, though part 4 was pretty cool, too.

My most avidly anticipated bit of abandonware to be resurrected is Master of Magic.
posted by gurple at 9:54 AM on November 16, 2005

Man oh man. I remember writing a letter (a honest-to-FSM handwritten snailmail letter) to the creators of Hero's Quest.

And getting a letter back from them!

I remember them saying how they couldn't include a lot of the things that they wanted to in the game due to the limitation of 5&1/4" and 3&1/4" floppies and that when computers could read CDs that then games would rock.

When QfG2 came out, I re-played Hero's Quest so I could have a thief character who could buy chainmail (and compulsively practice magic) so I could have a majic user with thief skills and chainmail in QfG2. Ended up replaying QfG2 with each of the three classes.
posted by PurplePorpoise at 10:49 AM on November 16, 2005

3&1/2"
posted by PurplePorpoise at 10:51 AM on November 16, 2005

King's Quest 3: The Heir is Human was the first game I bought when I got my PC XT. Fond memories of punching my keyboard because I couldn't figure out the right word for the parser interface. Fantastic game, lost a summer to it.
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 11:44 AM on November 16, 2005

I was a member of the KQIX development team for about 3 months last winter and I have some observations and opinions to share.

Although generally the team was dedicated, inspired, talented, tireless, and friendly, I knew when I left the project that it was ultimately doomed, not because of copyrights and big bad media companies, but because of failed leadership. One must pick one's battles, and if the direction of the development of the 4 or so years preceding my involvement was anything like this last year's, I'm afraid KQIX might not be worth fighting for.

The game's script was mostly written by the head of the project (at the time at least), César Bittar. It is well written, well thought out, and as promised, ties together all of the loose ends and scattered ideas from the previous games. That being said, it was far too ambitious and lengthy for an independent project, even if they were going to release it in thirds as they eventually had planned.

Generally speaking, independent projects succeed when a team is focused like high power lasers on certain goals. Otherwise, progress slows quickly after the whole novelty of the development experience wears off. KQIX was an exception to this due to the abnormally high dedication team members had to the KQ series, so the project was allowed to remain brain dead and on life support, drifting aimlessly along for far too long.

After four or so years of development, I didn't see a single working (or non-working) build of the game's engine. I'd say for just the first third of the game there were hundreds of characters, about 30 unique environments, and a few cinematic cutscenes that needed to be rendered. Although there were plenty of ideas and sketches floating around, at most, the main characters, a few rough environments, and no cutscenes were completed.

The one thing that the KQIX team was exceptional at was generating hype. One of the top priorities at the time was to complete yet another flash animation to shock and amaze the legions of adoring fans on the KQIX forums. Sadly, many people on those forums, who wanted so desperately for this game to be realized, frankly, were duped into believing that more was happening behind the scenes than what really was.

I wish the very best for the team and fans. Although it was a complete train wreck, your passion for the game was genuine, and I hope you can find ways to channel that passion into something more concrete in the future.
posted by guywithnoear at 11:47 AM on November 16, 2005

Thanks for the insight, Guy.
posted by Simon! at 12:28 PM on November 16, 2005

Pretty_Generic (or whoever), what happened with Invader Zim? I don't know this story.
posted by InnocentBystander at 2:30 PM on November 16, 2005

I just flagged guywithnoear's post as fantastic. I heartily recommend everyone else do the same. hell, I may even MeTa it, if I think it's safe to do so.
posted by shmegegge at 10:36 PM on November 16, 2005

Did anyone else get emailed about this? Someone emailed me asking me to post about this KQ game on MeFi.

Yes, but after it was posted - apparently (and it must have been years ago) I posted at some time on metafilter saying that I'd played King's quest. I got an email from someone (apparently not the poster) pointing out this thread, supposedly for that reason. I mean, I did play KQ, and I was kind of interested in this post, but all I can imagine was that someone was trying to drive traffic to one of the linked sites?
posted by advil at 12:33 PM on November 17, 2005