King's Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder

King's Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder is an adventure game developed and published by Sierra On-Line in November 9, 1990, and it serves as the fifth game in the King's Quest series. Its graphics were groundbreaking and it became the best-selling computer game in history at that time. It was later re-released on CD-ROM that featured voice acting and other small changes.

The Amiga version is designed with 32 color and based on the updated CD-ROM version interface (lacking the extra walk icon). It also contains digital sound effects much like the cd-rom version such as water from the river, or the sound of doors opening, snake rattle, dog barking etc (but they are not necessarily the same exact sound effects used in the CD-Rom version).

An official King's Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder adaptation created for the Nintendo Entertainment System, and it was released in June 1992 (copyrighted to 1991). The game was licensed by Sierra On-Line, published by Konami, and developed by both Novotrade Software and Sierra Design.

An Atari ST version was announced via Sierra Online's magazine: Sierra News Magazine for a Spring 1991 release but was later canceled. Sierra's Srini Vasan and Sierra UK fought for continued Atari ST development but Sierra Online discontinued Atari ST support entirely shortly afterwards.

Sierra's publication, Sierra News Magazine, announced an Atari ST version for Spring 1991. However, the project was subsequently shelved, with Sierra's Srini Vasan and Sierra UK trying to lobby for its continuing development. Sierra soon dropped support for the Atari ST completely.

The Story
The evil wizard Mordack, brother of Manannan, shrinks Daventry's castle and its inhabitants and imprisons them in a bottle. Mordack threatens to feed the royal family to Manannan, transformed into a cat during the events of KQIII, unless Prince Alexander can restore him to his human form. King Graham, out for a walk when Mordack shrank the castle, is the only one unaffected by the spell. With the help of the wizard Crispin and his familiar, Cedric the owl, Graham travels to Mordack's castle to free his family.

The Game
The owl Cedric accompanies Graham through the entire game to provide commentary and advice. He has to be rescued from danger at several points, but the owl rarely says or does anything useful. He was designed to be a companion and story telling element, rather than a game mechanic.

The game KQV is infamous for, and designed to have a large amount of dead ends (which lead to special game over deaths) and difficult puzzles. Late in the game Graham must navigate a frustrating maze where each room is rotated according to the character's perspective rather than being shown with north always at the top of the screen. There are several actions the player can take that render the game impossible to finish if they are not careful. This makes KQV difficult to complete without resorting to hints if the gamer does not save often or uses items carelessly.

Interface and Content
The menu consists of two walk icons one for short distance and another that attempts to avoid obstacles (this was removed in some of the international releases such as the French/English release in Europe, and Amiga version).

The drop down menu also includes a 'stop' button for exiting the game, and a image of a floppy for saving and loading games. These options would be folded into separate config menu in future SCIICON based games.

The game has a copy protection measure involving using the magic wand to cast spells at various points throughout the games. This requires using a spell book that came with the game to cast specific spells listed in the game.

Notably the copy protection is randomized, and it is possible save in a screen just before you enter a screen with a copy protection, and then keep loading until you can enter the tent, witch's house, move the boat, etc. Restoring only if you mess up the spell.

Antony, Beetrice and the Rat have huge expressive closeup images in which their hands move, or antennae in the case of the insects. Antony is even shown presenting the golden needle in one of these closeups (largely cropped and removed in the Multimedia version released a year later).

Most conversations have big pop up subtitle boxes with the character portraits appearing in the subtitle box itself.

The game includes a beautiful MT-32 sound track. There are some digital sound effects, that do not work with Soundlaster setting (lightning, water drip, snake rattle, a low mooing from the ox, dog scratching/growling/barking, river water (on most screens), door opening/closing sounds for example). Adlib also has some of the sound effects but obviously not digital quality (such as a snake rattle). For some reason SoundBlaster setting lacks some of the sound effects (for example snake rattle of any type)

Version Differences
King's Quest V was the last in the series to feature EGA and Tandy graphics at 320×200: a separate EGA release contained 16-color 320×200 versions of the graphics, whereas the VGA release featured 320×200 256-color VGA graphics (and, unlike later SCI games, did not support rendering these into 16 colors at 640×200 resolution on EGA cards).

Floppy Disk
As a form of copy protection, the diskette version (EGA and VGA) requires the player to cast spells throughout the game while referring to the manual. This was omitted in the CD-ROM version, believing that the size of CD-ROMs would make piracy more difficult. Several of the animated characters including the rat, the ant, and the bee, have large closeup pictures of their upper torsos, that are fully animated, including arms and, for the insects, antennae. The ant, for example, even raises up the golden needle.

CD-ROM
The CD-ROM edition was released in December 1991, and it was mastered in the High Sierra Format (unrelated to Sierra On-Line). Voice acting was added to this version. The scripts vary significantly between the floppy and CD-ROM versions. Many of the narrative descriptions were changed, some characters are given more dialogue, and lines for those who didn't speak before were added. For example, the snake and a couple of the villagers are given a few quotes, but in the floppy version, they didn't talk at all and ignored Graham. Many of the characters have close-up portraits (taken from the disk) with various colored backdrops and frames surrounding them (though the frame cuts off some details). The snake is even given a close up picture for its new speaking parts.

The ants sing "March of the Ants" and Willow sings the "Weeping Willow's Song".

NES
King's Quest V was ported onto the Nintendo Entertainment System by both Novotrade Software and Sierra Design, and it was published by Konomi on June 1992. They had to follow Nintendo of America's Video Game Content Guidelines, which required it to tone down violence, nudity, language, and religious themes in the game in ordered for it to be released in stores everywhere. For example, the narrator says, "Ah, life-giving water. Nectar of the Gods. Graham can now feel strength and renewal flowing through him," when Graham drinks water in the PC version. In the NES rendition, it states, "Ah! The cool water felt wonderful on Graham's parched lips and his body now feels rejuvenated". In addition, Queen Icebella orders the wolves to take Graham and Cedric to the dungeons for the rest of their lives instead of killing them. Lastly, Mordack will turn Cedric into stone rather than zapping him to death.

Easter Egg
This version (along with the EGA version) contains an easter egg which doesn't appear in CD-Rom and later versions. If player places the cape on the broken sled a sea monster rises up of the snow and eats Graham.

Behind the scenes

 * The name of the wizard Manannan (named after a figure from Celtic mythology) is inconsistently spelled Manannan or Mannanan in this game (two times for each spelling).

Staff Roll

 * Game Designer / Producer: Roberta Williams
 * Executive Producer: Ken Williams
 * Creative Director: Bill Davis
 * Art Designer: Andy Hoyos
 * Artists: Deena Benz, Ernie Chan, Jeff Crowe, Richard D. Zeigler-Martin, Tamra Dayton, Dana Moody, Roger Hardy Jr., Douglas Herring, Eric Kasner, James Larsen, Cheryl Loyd, Hector Martinez, Harry McLaughlin, Gerald Moore, Maurice Morgan, Vasken Sayre, Jennifer Shontz, William D. Skirvin, Cheryl Sweeney, Barry T. Smith, Cindy Walker, Deanna Yhalkee
 * Lead Programmer: Chris Iden
 * Programmers: Chris Iden, Oliver Brelsford, Juan Carlos Escobar, Chris Hoyt, Doug Oldfield, Raoul Said, Robert W. Lindsley
 * Development System: Dan Foy, Pablo Ghenis, Eric Hart, John Hartin, Robert Eric Heitman, Corey Cole, J. Mark Hood, John Rettig, Larry Scott, Jeff Stephenson
 * Composers / Sound Effects: Ken Allen, Mark Seibert
 * Creative Consultant: William D. Skirvin
 * Documentation: Bridget McKenna
 * Cover Design: John Gamache

Voice Cast

 * Narrator: Art Lewicki
 * King Graham, Innkeeper's Pal, Harpy: Josh Mandel
 * Cedric the Owl: Richard Aronson
 * Crispin, Toymaker, Innkeeper: Leonard Bergeron (Ray)
 * Mordack: Andy Hoyos
 * Alexander, Eagle, Toymaker's Son: Barry T. Smith
 * Cassima: Dianah Pressley
 * Rosella, Alicia, Queen Beetrice, Willow: Diana Wilson
 * Tailor: D. J. Williams
 * Elf, Harpy: Nancy Zdenek
 * Queen Isabella: Lori Ann Cole
 * The Genie, The Snake, Man in Town, Singing Ants: Mark Seibert
 * The Rat, Amanda, Woman in Town, Harpy: Roberta Williams
 * Gypsy Man: Kenny Long
 * Baker, Baker's Brother: Dick Roberts
 * Herbert, Gnome: Gregory James Thomas
 * Shoemaker, King Antony: Dan Long
 * Shoemaker's Wife, Gypsy Fortuneteller, Witch: Sarah Long
 * Sir Greywolf: Frederick D. Gott
 * Toymaker's Granddaughter: Kristen Hoyos
 * Hermit: Bill Davis
 * The Cat, Irate Customer in Taylor's Shop: Guruka Singh Khalsa
 * Harpy: Barbara Eicker
 * Singing Willow Tree: Debbie Seibert

PC-98 Staff

 * Japanese PC-9801 Version Staffs: Gary Kamigawachi, Akiko Skjellerup (as Akiko Maeda Skjellerup)
 * Documentation: Tomoyuki Shimada, Akiko Skjellerup (as Akiko Maeda Skjellerup)

FM Towns Staff

 * Character Voices - Japanese: Hideaki Sugai, Atsushi Kubota, Urara Suzuki, Tomoyuki Shimada, Tomoko Asano, Hiroko Yamaguchi, Akiko Skjellerup (as Akiko Maeda Skjellerup), Sayako Amano, Aiko Kamine, Kanzo Takemori, Tetsuo Shimamura, Tomoya Okada, Masaki Kato
 * Japanese Translation: Akiko Skjellerup (as Akiko Maeda Skjellerup)
 * Special Thanks to: J. Mark Hood, Tomoyuki Shimada, Robin Bradley, and the rest of the QA staff

NES Staff

 * Design: Roberta Williams
 * Associate Producer: Mark Flitman
 * Lead Programmer: József Szentesi
 * Artists: Rudolf Komjádi, Borbala Kovats, Nándor Orbán, Barbara Paris, Radan Pribadi Hannawati, Ildiko Somos, and Reka Vereb
 * Programming: Pal Baji, Zoltán Bartos, István Fey, Andras Foldes, Peter Gosztola, and Phan Cuong
 * Composers: Ken Allen and Mark Seibert

Patches

 * King's Quest V Patch (KQ5FIX): This patch fixes the extremely rare restore problem in King's Quest V.
 * King's Quest V CD XP Files (KQ5_BAT): Batch file to help run the Windows version of King's Quest V in Windows 2000/XP. Please see the King's Quest V XP Help Page for instructions.
 * King's Quest V Save Game (KQ5SG): This Save Game is a work around for the "Out of heap" error. It will restore the game to just after the short movie that occurs when the cheese is placed in the machine. Mordack turns into a giant Dragonfly, and is hovering directly in front of Graham. You will have about two seconds to go into the inventory and click on the wand.
 * King's Quest Collection DOSBox Update (KQCollectionDBUpdate): This patch will allow the use of greatly improved latest DOSBox over the version 0.63 that shipped with the Collection. It will upgrade King's Quest 7 to version 2.00b DOS. Also includes the NewRisingSun patch for King's Quest 1 SCI. The patch also restores the missing install files to configure the games' settings. After running the update, you will find new shortcuts in the "Sierra\King's Quest Collection" folder in the Start Menu. The launcher will no longer be needed. NOTE: If you do not have the latest DOSBox installed in "Program Files\DOSBox" for 32-bit Windows or "Program Files (x86)\DOSBox" for 64-bit Windows allow this updater to download and install the DOSBox for you.