From Monochrome to Monarchy: King's Quest History - final episode
Today's surprise in GOG.com's Holiday Celebrations is the last part of the series of articles by David Craddock "From Monochrome to Monarchy: King's Quest History". This time you'll get some insight about the development of the last two parts in the famous series by Roberta Williams, as well as some information about King's Quest 9 made by true fans of the series. You'll find the full story below.
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King's Quest is Dead. Long Live King's Quest.
by David Craddock
When Disney Meets Daventry
The runaway success of King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow on CD-ROM in 1993 illustrated the changing landscape of computer hardware and users: as personal computers became more affordable, their audience blossomed. The sudden boom of new users did not go unnoticed by Sierra On-Line designer and co-founder Roberta Williams.
"Back when I got started ... computers were more expensive, which made them more exclusive to people who were maybe at a certain income level, or education level," said Roberta. "So the people that played computer games ... were that type of person. ... I think in the last 5 or 6 years, the demographics have really changed, now this is my opinion, because computers are less expensive so more people can afford them."1
Eager to capitalize on the growing audience's demand for games that took advantage of CD-ROM drives, Roberta began envisioning a new King's Quest that would unfold with flowing animation hitherto unseen in computer games. Roberta had long been a devout fan of Disney movies such as Aladdin and Beauty & the Beast, films whose smooth animation and beautiful color palette had, until then, only been seen on the silver screen. The advent of CD-ROMs made a similar level of animation possible on the PC.
While the affordability of new hardware made for thousands of new King's Quest fans, it also meant that those new players would be unfamiliar with Daventry's history. Therefore, the seventh game would have to be crafted in such a way that six games' worth of previous exploits would not have to be understood to follow the tale. However, the real trick for Roberta lay not in making King's Quest VII accessible, but in undertaking two simultaneous projects.
In tandem to King's Quest VII, Roberta had the opportunity to put the multimedia revolution to work on Phantasmagoria, an adult-oriented adventure game. Intended to be an interactive movie using full-motion video (FMV) technology made possible by the storage capacity of CDs, Phantasmagoria would keep Roberta quite busy all on its own: hiring actors, months overseeing filming in front of a blue screen, and writing a script that weighed in at over 600 pages--all were duties in which Roberta insisted on being involved. To ensure that King's Quest VII received due resources, time, and love, Roberta decided to continue a tradition she started with King's Quest VI: working with a co-designer.
Roberta Williams and I came up with the story together, in long, entertaining brainstorming sessions. Roberta and I were actually sad when the plotting process for the game was over.
Like King's Quest VI co-designer Jane Jensen, Lorelei Shannon had played smaller roles in Sierra projects before she was called up to co-design an entry in the studio's flagship series. Having written the hint book for King's Quest I: Quest for the Crown, Lorelei came on board with a familiarity of and passion for the series. Roberta and Lorelei clicked instantly. "Roberta Williams and I came up with the story together, in long, entertaining brainstorming sessions," said Lorelei2. "Roberta and I were actually sad when the plotting process for the game was over. We were on a roll, and I think we could have dreamed things up for another two years."3
Since its debut in 1984, King's Quest had established something of a cyclical protagonist rotation. The first two adventures starred Graham; the third featured Prince Alexander, King Graham's son; Princess Rosella took the lead in the fourth KQ game, and Graham and Alex reprised their heroic roles in King's Quest V and VI, respectively. Lorelei and Roberta decided that Rosella's time to shine had come once again in King's Quest VII, but this time, she would be joined by Queen Valanice, her mother and a character that had never been playable in a King's Quest game4.
The Disney influence was apparent from the beginning of King's Quest VII. In the game's opening, Princess Rosella sings her displeasure at being compelled to marry. Over the course of her song and dance, Rosella arrives at a pond. When her mother approaches and begins lecturing her daughter on the practicalities of finding a husband and settling down, Rosella, more interested in adventure than cooking and childbearing, stares wistfully into the pond--and is shocked to see an otherworldly, seahorse-like creature burst through the surface.
After the creature plops back into the water, Rosella watches it swim back to a fantastical kingdom at the bottom of the pond. Enchanted, Rosella dives in. Panicked, Valanice plunges in after her daughter. As they sink, mother and daughter are caught within a colorful whirlpool. The two strain to touch hands, but moments before their fingers intertwine, a hairy, beastly arm bursts through the side of the vortex and snatches Rosella away.
Divided into six chapters that alternate between Rosella and Valanice, KQ7 first puts players in control of Daventry's queen. Popping up from the ground and caught in the thrones of a tornado, Valanice is spit from the twister onto the parched desert ground, one of multiple regions in the world of Eldritch. As Rosella climbs to her feet and takes a look around, players familiar with the royal family's past adventures also needed a few moments to gather their bearings: gone were the familiar walk, talk, take, and other icons commonly used to interact with KQ game screens. Instead, KQ7 utilized Sierra's new SCI32 engine (also known as SCI2 and SCI3), one specifically written for games that favored interactivity and cinematic storytelling.
The most extreme and evident gameplay change brought about by SCI-32 was the smart pointer, a magic wand-shaped cursor that sparkled when the player hovered it over an interactive item. With a simple click, the character approached the object and interacted with it appropriately. Inventory items were rendered in full 3D and could be rotated, a function used to search items for clues. The interface was simple and intuitive enough that even children could pick up the game quickly.
With the story, characters, and new interface in place, Lorelei and Roberta turned their attention to animation. The co-designers knew that KQ7's graphics would be one of the game's critical selling points and allocated significant resources to its animation. Four animation houses, each assigned to handle specific chapters and other segments of the game such as general animations and the introduction and conclusion cinematics, worked with Sierra's in-house animation team to bring the game to life.
Each animation team's process began with sketches that were fed into computers and digitally touched up. Sierra's in-house team handled composition of the backgrounds, which were hand drawn, painted, and, for the first time, larger than single-screen images: now when players walked left or right, the screen would scroll, revealing more to explore. The teams' combined efforts resulted in the most visually stunning--if occasionally choppy due to innate limitations of the era's hardware--King's Quest game to date. Eldritch spread out before players in beautiful 640x480 Super VGA graphics courtesy of the 32-bit SCI engine. Movie-quality animations and cinematics came at a small cost: KQ7 would be the first installment not released on floppy disks, whose storage capacity was deemed too trifling to contain the game.
In November 1994, King's Quest VII was released to uneven reviews. While the game's aesthetics were praised, the characters, who spoke and acted as if they had been pulled from Saturday morning cartoons, were largely panned. Expert adventurers also bemoaned the smart cursor and oversimplified interface, complaining that puzzle-solving had been reduced to waving the cursor around the screen and clicking when it indicated an item of interest. This paradigm, designed to attract novice players, was in sharp contrast to those used in older KQ games, where players were expected to thoroughly explore all areas lest they overlook items needed to advance past later areas5.
"Some people actually think it [KQ7] was the best in the King's Quest series," said Roberta. "Some veteran game players perhaps didn't like it as well as many of the older-style adventure games, but many of the newer game players loved it.
"Some people actually think it [KQ7] was the best in the King's Quest series," said Roberta. "Some veteran game players perhaps didn't like it as well as many of the older-style adventure games, but many of the newer game players loved it. ... Once it's all said and done, however, and it comes to the next game, even though I always keep in mind everybody's opinions, it ultimately comes down to my opinion and what I find enjoyable. I must enjoy the game I'm working on and to ultimately trust my own judgment."6
For Roberta, KQ7's varied reviews were not as difficult to weather as the game's development process itself. "I didn't enjoy working on two major games at once. Even though I feel that both received my undivided attention at all of the most crucial times in their development, it was hard on me personally! I didn't have much free time and my personal life suffered somewhat. Plus, I had some difficulty keeping both games in my head. I also felt intense pressure in their delivery dates and that both needed to be best-sellers."7
But not even the laborious process of heading two games at once was preparation for what Roberta and Sierra would deal with next.
Festering Wounds
Following the release of King's Quest VII in 1994, Sierra On-Line reached even greater levels of success. The studio broadened its market in June when it signed an agreement with Pioneer Corporation, a Japanese provider of digital entertainment, to develop and publish interactive software in Japan. Roberta Williams' pet project, Phantasmagoria, quickly became Sierra's best-selling game yet when it debuted in July 19958. Christmas saw the release of Jane Jensen's second Gabriel Knight game, The Beast Within, to rave critical and commercial success. Going into 1996, Sierra had accrued over $83 million in sales, resulting in a 19 percent increase in earnings and a net income of $11.9 million.
As the company flourished, so did expectations for its continued success. In February 1996, shopping conglomerate CUC International approached Sierra and Davidson & Associates, an edutainment software company that had acquired Blizzard Entertainment in 1994 in an effort to strengthen its entertainment presence, with an offer to purchase both companies.
"Sierra was a public company," said Sierra CEO and co-founder Ken Williams. "As its CEO I had an obligation to Sierra's shareholders to maximize the value of their investment. We received an offer that was nearly double the current price the stock was trading at. The decision was really out of my hands."9
Acquisition talks proceeded until July when CUC purchased Sierra and Davidson & Associates for a combined $3.1 billion in stock options. Williams stepped down as Sierra's CEO and became vice president of CUC's software division, where, in addition to working on other projects, he could watch over the development of Sierra's games. Shortly after acquiring Sierra, CUC courted Williams and proposed a plan for how the growing company would operate. Deeming the proposal untenable, Williams rejected it.
"Ultimately, a structure was created that I believed in, and believed could make Sierra an even stronger company," said Williams. "Unfortunately, once the deal was done, I discovered I had no power to control things, and they got out of hand. I transferred out of the game division, primarily because I couldn't stomach watching my company ripped apart. No one can imagine how it felt to get calls from employees complaining about how things were running, and have to reassure them that all was well, and that they should get back to work. These were very painful times, and things weren't well... That said, the new management needed support to have any chance of succeeding. They didn't need me undermining them to their staff."10
That November, Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh, helmed by KQ7 writer and co-designer Lorelei Shannon, was released to mixed reviews11. Critics cited clunky gameplay, the same unchallenging elements that plagued KQ7 and the original Phantasmagoria, and a short length bogged down by excessive FMV sequences, as the primary reasons for its low scores. It was obvious to Williams that something needed to be done to reinvigorate Sierra as the leading provider of adventure games. Though he no longer wielded control, Williams was still considered an authority in the company. Speaking to CUC's executives, Williams made a bold suggestion.
"I thought we were caught in a rut with our adventure games, and that we needed a major change in direction. I shut down all adventure game projects and asked everyone to come up with something completely different. ... The only way to make a major leap forward was to completely start with a blank sheet of paper and be willing to not ship any adventure games until we had a breakthrough."12
Even as Sierra crumbled from within, Roberta Williams rose to the challenge of reinvigorating adventure games once again.
Same Kingdom, Different Face
From the moment Sierra On-Line began operations, Ken Williams had been a firm believer that, although games were made by larger teams as the industry ripened, each project should adhere to the vision of a single designer. Multiple visions inevitably stretch a game in too many different directions, often resulting in a title unsure of its identity and purpose. Differentiating himself from most CEOs, Ken had always made a point of protecting the vision of Sierra's lead designers, especially that of his wife, Roberta, whose ideas formed the bedrock of Sierra's success. But with Ken no longer in charge, Roberta Williams quickly discovered that her opinion concerning King's Quest VIII was merely one of many.
While other KQ8 designers prioritized political maneuvering to increase their status within Sierra and CUC, Roberta fought to keep the game on track. Consequently, the game that would eventually be known as King's Quest: Mask of Eternity went through multiple design iterations, many of which never went further than sketches and scribbled notes. After much internal conflict, the team finally settled on a direction that, for the most part, consisted of what Roberta wanted to do with King's Quest.
Perhaps more than any other entry in the series, King's Quest VIII was a game of firsts. It was the first 3D entry in the series, the first to shun bright, Disney-like environments in favor of a darker setting and theme; and it was the first KQ that did not star King Graham or his progeny. As the story goes, the Realm of the Sun is a world that exists high above Daventry and is inhabited by mythical creatures known as Archons. The Archons are charged with guarding the Mask of Eternity, but their chief, Lucreto, succumbs to darkness and shatters the Mask, raining its magical fragments down on Daventry. In the kingdom below, everyone is turned to stone--everyone except a peasant named Connor, who was protected by a shard of the Mask that fell at his feet.
Assuming control of Connor, players found themselves in a fully rendered 3D world. Having put the SCI32 engine to rest following Shivers II: Harvest of Souls, Sierra designed a custom 3D engine specifically for Mask of Eternity. Players were given the ability to rotate the camera by holding down the right mouse button and sliding the mouse, and first- and third-person views could be swapped on a whim, making it easy to search every nook and cranny of the game's half-dozen other lands. Puzzles that actually required thought made their long-awaited return and were made even more complex with the usage of physics and the necessity of thorough, 3D exploration as opposed to clicking around static backgrounds.
Marking another KQ first, Mask of Eternity featured significant amounts of player-controlled combat. Anticipating that the mechanic would not go over well with adventure purists, Roberta made sure combat was kept simple so as not to detract from adventuring, and by integrating combat in such a way that certain battles affected the story.
In connection with Roberta's story, I started recommending lets add things like combat, and health items, and things like that, to give us more things to fill out the world, and to keep the player involved in between the puzzles.
"When we started working on the project, we first started by designing Daventry, and ended up with this huge map, and Connor wandering around this big area, with pretty much nothing to do in between the puzzles," said Mask of Eternity producer and co-designer Mark Seibert. "In connection with Roberta's story, I started recommending lets add things like combat, and health items, and things like that, to give us more things to fill out the world, and to keep the player involved in between the puzzles. ...and so we came up with this very simplistic combat system that I don't think gets in the way of the story, it's a very easy to grasp, click on the guys, until he is dead, Diablo-like combat. I felt it really added to the system."13
With the steepest system requirements yet for a King's Quest game, Mask of Eternity was released just in time for Christmas '98. The game did well, receiving mostly positive reviews and, according to Roberta, outselling long-time adventure game competitor LucasArts' newest adventure, Grim Fandango, two to one14. But sales numbers and critiques of Mask of Eternity's game mechanics were not as interesting as what was happening behind closed doors at Sierra.
Down the Drain
In March 1998, an audit of Cendant Corporation, an entity born of a 1997 merger between CUC and HFS Incorporated, revealed that the conglomerate had suffered a net loss of $217.2 million in 1997. The company had reported a net income of $55.4 million. A thorough investigation uncovered years of business statement tampering at the hands of top CUC executives.
In November, one month before Mask of Eternity shipped, Cendant attempted to bail water out of a sinking ship riddled with holes by selling its game division. Havas S.A., an advertising company located in Paris, bought the division and rechristened it Havas Interactive. Almost immediately after the acquisition was finalized, Havas was acquired by French media conglomerate Vivendi Universal, who dubbed its newfound entertainment division Vivendi Universal Games, or VU Games.
In 1999, layoffs hit Sierra, which had been split into six unique sub-divisions in one of CUC's many failed efforts to take the company in a new direction. Shortly thereafter, Roberta Williams, long fed up with the frustration she had endured since CUC purchased the studio in 1996, left Sierra.
"Roberta refused to let the project [Mask of Eternity] ship for months, as she tried to make the game into a true KQ game," Ken Williams explained in an email years after Mask of Eternity shipped. "Unfortunately, Sierra wanted the revenue, and chose to ignore her opinions. After threatened litigation, a settlement was reached and the game shipped. One side effect of the negotiation is that Roberta has said she would never deal with Sierra again, and is still angry over what occurred."15
"Sierra has been cut back to bare bones," Roberta said in an interview conducted in early 1999. "Of course, I'm not happy as to what has happened to Sierra. ... It was in extremely strong shape and was doing very well when we sold it in 1996. Look at it now. It's a travesty what has happened to Sierra."16
In a matter of months, CUC destroyed what Ken and Roberta had worked nearly 20 years to build.
The Silver Lining
In 2002, Sierra On-Line was renamed Sierra Entertainment, Inc. Under the VU Games umbrella, a new chapter was about to begin in Sierra's history, and with it, a new King's Quest. The ninth episode in the series had been in development for over a year. Screenshots were leaked onto the Internet17, inciting buzz among fans who had waited four years for a new adventure. Unfortunately, their hopes were dashed: the game was canceled just before entering production.
Focused more on publishing than developing, Sierra Entertainment saw the release of a few hits such as Homeworld 2 in the early 2000s; but any optimism within Sierra that the company might return to its glory days died along with the prospect of King's Quest IX. In 2008, Activision merged with VU Games, forming the juggernaut Activision Blizzard, Inc. That same year, Sierra was closed to prepare the company for future sale.
Any series that is financially successful and critically acclaimed cannot exist without a steadfast following. King's Quest was no different. One such group of Daventry devotees did more than just play KQ games; they aspired to create them, especially when it became obvious that the series would not continue after Mask of Eternity. Banding together, the fans founded Phoenix Online Studios with a common goal: to create King's Quest IX according to their own vision, while keeping in mind the type of adventure that Roberta Williams would have created. Cognizant that Vivendi--then-owner of Sierra during the time when Phoenix formed--might object to their efforts, Phoenix publically pledged to halt all development of the game should Vivendi legally force them to do so.
Much like Sierra, Phoenix was not without its troubles. The group, led by fan-turned-studio-director Cesar Bittar, was stricken with organizational and leadership woes, as well as an inability to agree on a vision of and direction for the game. "There have been a lot of people that joined the team and lasted about a week or two, because everybody wants to make computer games but nobody realizes how much work is involved," said Richard Flores, art director on the project.18
By 2002, Phoenix had its wrinkles ironed out, and work on King's Quest IX: Every Cloak Has Its Silver Lining continued in earnest--until September 2005 when the indie studio received an official cease and desist order from Vivendi. Keeping their promise, Phoenix immediately halted development, but did not fade away without a fight. After entering into negotiations with Vivendi, word of the studio's plight reached the Internet. Other fans like Bittar and Flores who were eagerly anticipating another KQ, official or otherwise, rose up and wrote thousands of emails and letters to Vivendi, pleading Phoenix's case.
The campaign paid off. Vivendi granted Phoenix an official fan license in November 2005, which allowed them to continue work on KQ9. Buoyed by the KQ community's support, Phoenix went back to work. But their battles weren't over. In 2008, Activision-Blizzard, the new owners of the King's Quest franchise, revoked the fan license and issued a cease and desist of their own. Still true to their word, Phoenix, frustrated and dismayed, ceased work on the game.
Two years and another wave of fan support later, Activision changed their minds: Phoenix was given permission to resume their project under the condition that "King's Quest" be removed from the game's title. Renamed The Silver Lining, the unofficial KQ sequel charged toward completion.
Once again casting players in the role of King Graham, Silver Lining was built with a 3D engine that returned the series to the vibrant, colorful aesthetics of King's Quest VI and VII. Due to the immense undertaking of the personal and not-for-profit project, Phoenix made the decision to split the game into five episodes. The first, "What Is Decreed Must Be", was released in July 2010, followed two months later by Two Households in September. Both episodes are free downloads, as will be the remaining three episodes upon their respective releases.
For Bittar, Flores, and the rest of Phoenix Online Studios, the release of the game is a testament to the longevity of the King's Quest name. "The fans got us out of the same situation twice, so I think that should resonate with a lot of people -- how important King's Quest still is, and how passionate the fans are out there," said Flores. "They want a new game, they want Sierra things back into their lives. We're very thankful to the fans because of what they've done and because of the way they supported us."19
"Ever since I was a kid, I've played all the Sierra games," said Bittar. "I always had a dream to be able to work for Sierra as I was growing up -- what better series could I be working on? It's a dream come true."20
Be sure to read the previous articles about the King's Quest History: The Days Before Daventry, Quest for a Crown, The Next Generation of Daventry and A Decade of Daventry.
From Monochrome to Monarchy: The History of King's Quest - Part IV
"King's Quest is Dead. Long Live King's Quest."
Source Notes
1.http://www.gamersdepot.com/interview_roberta_a.htm
2. http://la-aventura.net/entrevistas/lorelei-en
3. http://kingsquest.wikia.com/wiki/The_Princeless_Bride_Development
4. Queen Valanice was seen from the waist down in King's Quest VI's intro cinematic.
5. The sometimes loose design of KQ games was as frustrating as it was beloved by its fans. There were dead-ends in the first six games where the player would not be able to progress because he had failed to find an item earlier in the game, nor could he backtrack to retrieve the item. With nowhere to go, the player was forced to restart the game.
6. http://anthonylarme.tripod.com/phantas/phintrw.html
7. http://www.adventureclassicgaming.com/index.php/site/interviews/127/
8. Despite its commercial success, Phantasmagoria received mixed reviews upon release. Its lukewarm reception stemmed hardened adventure gamers lamenting the lack of thought required to solve puzzles, a complaint echoed by King's Quest VII's detractors. Nevertheless, its million-selling status is evidence that Roberta Williams' belief that newer, casual computer users would enjoy the game.
9. http://www.adventureclassicgaming.com/index.php/site/interviews/197/
10. Ibid.
11. http://www.mobygames.com/game/phantasmagoria-a-puzzle-of-flesh/mobyrank
12. http://www.justadventure.com/Interviews/Ken_Williams/Ken_Williams_Interview.shtm
13. http://kingsquest.wikia.com/wiki/Mask_of_Eternity_Development#Late_.27Connor_of_Daventry.27_phase_and_release_4
14. http://www.justadventure.com/Interviews/Roberta_Williams/Roberta_Williams_Interview_3.shtm
15. http://www.sierragamers.com/aspx/m/634063/bbs/Topic.3825.530202
16. http://www.justadventure.com/Interviews/Roberta_Williams/Roberta_Williams_Interview_3.shtm
17. http://www.adventuregamers.com/blogitem.php?id=26
18. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/29291/Interview_Phoenix_Online_Studios_Talks_Kings_Quest_Sequel_Whats_Next.php
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid.
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