King's Quest I: Quest for the Crown (SCI)

King's Quest I: Quest For The Crown (aka King's Quest I SCI, and occasionally King's Quest I VGA  (it's VGA compatible but technically EGA color graphics)) is the remake of the original King's Quest developed and published by Sierra On-Line.

Background
The world of King's Quest is a world of high fantasy, perilous quests, and legendary adventure. It is a world where courage triumphs over adversity, and where bravery is royally rewarded.

Roberta Williams' King's Quest I: Quest for the Crown first appeared in 1984, and began a tradition of family computer entertainment...

Now this classic game, rich in delightful characters and puzzling plot twists, returns in a beautiful new version, completely re-drawn and re-animated, with added music and sound. The same entertaining and enchanting game as ever, with a whole new dimension of realism.

The remake includes hi-res EGA graphics similar in style to King's Quest IV. It has been described as more of a 1.5:1 remake (and thus it might be considered more of a retelling, or slight reimagining of the original, and an alternate universe (game realities) TKQC3E, pg In the autumn of 1990, Sierra On-Line released a new and graphically improved version of King's Quest I: the Quest for the Crown, for IBM-compatible computers. Called the SCI Version on the disks and Enhanced Graphics and Sound on the box, it has VGA and full sound-board support. Its main purpose was to upgrade the graphics and sound of the game to state-of-the-art levels by using the Sierra-developed "SCI Interpreter." Don't worry about the technical stuff, the result is sharper, more-detailed pictures on the screen-more like an animated movie than a clunky cartoon. Although the graphics and animation in King's Quest I were revolutionary when the game was first published in 1984, as is often the case in such matters, the revolutionary became old technology. It came time to upgrade the older, but still best-selling, adventure. It was a good idea; it still looks great today. While improving the look and sound of the game, however, Sierra decided to make a few changes in the game itself. Not many; just enough to make a few tough problems more logical and a little easier to solve. Thus, in the SCI Version only, the gnome's name problem can be answered in more than one way, the condor doesn't appear until late in the game, and the pebbles by the river find a more visible home by a lake. These, and the fine-tuning of other sequences, changed the game slightly. It1s called "creative license." Nonetheless, both IBM versions of King's Quest I: Quest for the Crown are still being sold today, and Sierra On-Line actively markets both. While the large majority of the games being purchased are the VGA/SCI version, many are not. Also, a significant number of King's Quest I games are purchased by owners of Macintosh, Amiga, and Atari computers. And we can't ignore the hundreds of thousands of people who have older copies of the game which run on Apple Us and Commodore C-64s. All of these folks have the original version of King's Quest I. This book covers both versions of the King's Quest I game. However, the changes in the game do not, and cannot, reflect what actually did happen to Graham as he quested to save Daventry and win its throne. Anyone with an older or non-IBMcompatible KQI can play the game along with the narrative in Chapter 2 and win through to the end. This is no longer completely true for folks with the newer version. It has been strongly suggested to me that 1 "rewrite" that particular court chronicle to reflect the game's changes. I have not. To do so would be to rewrite history, and thus reduce Graham's adventurings to a mere fiction. To do so would be to deny the reality of Daventry, something I am not prepared to do at this time. The other reason for my decision to leave the KQI narrative the same as it appeared in the first edition of this book is a more practical one. The vast majority of KQI players have the original version-King's Quest Classic, so to speak. To modify the words of that nameless court scribe would be a disservice to those hundreds of thousands of game players, as well as a misrepresentation of apparent facts. For the sake of verisimilitude, my editors and I have decided to leave the narrative the same as it was sent to me. Still, all of the problems' solutions remain accurate-they always have. The order is just a bit different. However, all of the changes to KQ1 have been included in Chapter 11, "The Easy Way Out." That chapter reflects both "game realities," the old and the new, and can be confidently used by all King's Quest players. No matter which version of KQ1 you have, we've got you covered." ): It expands on the story, changes a few details (including puzzles/locations), makes the story more linear, but stays largely true to the original). The story improvements were mainly in the cutscenes (the introduction and conclusion are heavily altered and expanded), character conversations, and narrations. Many of the character roles were expanded slightly to include more conversations (or improve on their personalities). Some of the puzzle solutions were altered (changing the points), some item locations changed, and some locations were completely changed and revamped (the stairs in the mountain were replaced with platforms). The soundtrack was also expanded and included better musical queues when different characters appeared or action ensued. Sound was enhanced through use a sound card and speakers.

Behind the scenes
King's Quest Collections have called this game King's Quest I: VGA, and described it as having an "incorporated icon-based interface" (despite the game actually being enhanced EGA with a parser system similar to KQ4). It does have a few mouse driven pull down menus, but nothing that should be called 'icons'.

According to The Royal Scribe, Lorelei Shannon apparently wrote a hint book for this version of the game (although she may have meant King's Quest VI).

This game is not necessarily part of the original canon, but it more of a retelling, or reimagining, or alternate dimension. However, elements of this version were adapted into other sources of the canon (or secondary official sources). In particular, The Official Book of King's Quest VI, and other spinoff material such as the novel trilogy.

The Amiga version has its own soundtrack but also compatibility with the MT32. One interesting aspect of the Amiga version is the use of a few digital sounds not found in the standard DOS version of the game, such as portcullis rising sound effect in the introduction, or the closing sound effect when the game starts. Other digital sounds included in the Amiga version include the water swimming/splashing (by the moat monsters), or when graham falls into the water, and splashes about, waterfall, river sound, door opening sound (witch's house), and bubbling cauldron, among other things.

Some of these sound effects or similar digital ones also appear in MT32 soundtrack, but sometimes slightly different sounds, or quieter.

SoundBlaster version still seems to have a few digital sound effects such as general splashing sound when falling into the water.

Seasonal placement
There are a few references which imply the season in KQ1 SCI, a squirrel is collecting nuts, "...before next winter..." (so it takes place before winter), and if you look at the leaves on the trees growing out of the old gnomes house, it says "...broad leaves provide shade for the gnome during the hot summer months..." (which could imply that the game takes place during or just before the summer), and in one meadow it states, '...beautiful spring flowers ring the meadow..." (implying that it is still spring). There is also a death scene involving falling off the Magic Beanstalk, where it says "have a nice fall this spring." Which would also imply the game is set during the spring. There are several descriptions that describe the weather, one description states that the weather is "partly cloudy, with a high in the mid-seventies". Other descriptions state that "...the hot Daventry sun is taking its toll on you", "...the hot Daventry sun is getting to you".

Reception
The 1990 project to revamp the original King's Quest was widely viewed as a critical failure because many reviewers and gamers took offense at what they perceived as an attempt to "destroy the classics." In fact, the project was compared to the controversial practice of "colorizing" classic black-and-white movies. Valid or not, these reactions essentially stopped work on future attempts to modernize later King's Quest installments.

Credits

 * Executive Producer: Ken Williams
 * Game Designer: Roberta Williams
 * Producer / Writer: Josh Mandel
 * Art Designer: William D. Skirvin
 * Lead Programmer: Jerry Shaw
 * Composer / Sound Effects: Ken Allen
 * Animators: Jeff Crowe and Cheryl Loyd
 * Background Artists: Jeff Crowe, Jennifer Shontz, and Cindy Walker
 * Programmers: Oliver Brelsford, Chad Bye, Gary Kamigawachi, Randy MacNeill, Raoul Said, and Mark Wilden
 * Development System: Corinna Abdul, Corey Cole, Dan Foy, Pablo Ghenis, Eric Hart, John Hartin, Robert Eric Heitman, J. Mark Hood, John Rettig, Larry Scott, and Jeff Stephenson
 * Quality Assurance: Chris Carr
 * Special Thanks: Ellen Guon Beeman

Patches

 * King's Quest I Patch (KQ1_NRS): For the remake (SCI) of King's Quest I: Quest for the Crown. This non-Sierra update is one of NewRisingSun's script level timer bugs patches. Fixes Opening/Closing Credits sequence.
 * 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.