King's Quest I

King's Quest is an adventure game where you play Sir Graham, a brave knight who is sent on a quest to retrieve three treasures that were stolen by deception and stealth: a shield that protects its bearer from invaders, a mirror that foretells the future, and a treasure chest that is forever filled with gold. If Graham takes these treasures back to the royal castle, then the ailing King Edward the Benevolent will hand over the crown. During his travels, Graham will meet characters that will either help or hinder him.



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This is one of the most important games in terms of impact on the adventure game genre. It was the first adventure game where you directly controlled the main character and defined the adventure genre for the next decade. You could walk behind stuff! The story and the general design of the game was developed by Roberta Williams and was a "take off" of a previous game titled The Wizard and the Princess. In King's Quest, you play Sir Graham, a brave knight who is sent on a quest to retrieve three treasures that were stolen by deception and stealth: a shield that protects its bearer from invaders, a mirror that foretells the future, and a treasure chest that is forever filled with gold. If Graham takes these treasures back to the royal castle, then the ailing King Edward the Benevolent will hand over the crown. During his travels, Graham will meet characters that will either help or hinder him. You perform actions by entering commands into the game, usually a verb/noun sequence. Some of the puzzles in the game rely on fairy tales, and a good knowledge of them is needed to complete them. Originally developed for IBM's PC Jr, the new machine (pronounced "PC Junior") was going to be the ultimate home computer - it had 16-color graphics, three channels of sound, a joystick port, and was allegedly compatible with the "real" IBM PC which was a business machine and too expensive for home use. IBM wanted a next-generation game to go with it. Though the computer flopped, the game was able to use this new technology and revolutionize adventure games and its descendants would completely replace text adventures in a few years' time. It was also the first Sierra Entertainment game to use the Adventure Game Interpreter (AGI) engine. Initially a booter game, in 1987 a full re-release was done adding support for the Enhanced Graphics Adaptor (EGA) and ran on DOS. The game sold over 500,000 copies on all platforms, a huge amount considering how small the computer market was compared to today.