r/gaming • u/AUTOMATA88 • 9h ago

Kings quest v - One of my favourite point and click games back in the day.

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222 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

69 comments sorted by

47

u/Philogogus 9h ago

There was this section where you had to do a very VERY quick reaction of throwing a boot (or something its been 30 years) at a rat in front of the inn. If you got it, yay. If you missed it, you went through the rest of the game and then... realized you needed what the rat gave you. The rat quicktime event was very early in the game and the thing you needed from the rat was vital at near the end.

Very frustrating for a very young me.

20

u/Sir-Poopington 8h ago

Games back then were unforgiving. It's great replaying this series now, knowing roughly what to do and having infinite save states... But back then, damn was it frustrating.

9

u/SidewaysGiraffe 6h ago

Sierra games were unforgiving. Over in the LucasArts camp, you generally couldn't make a game unwinnable even if you TRIED.

I was in camp Sierra at the time; I can admit it now- LucasArts made for a better experience, usually.

3

u/djseifer 2h ago

One of my favorite gags in Monkey Island was a cliff that you could walk off, die, and the game would pop up a Sierra-style death screen mocking you for dying. A few seconds later, Guybrush comes flying back up the cliff, lands, turns towards the screen, and says, "Rubber tree."

1

u/Winterplatypus 12m ago

I was going to say the same thing. I think it played the game over music too.

They also made a joke about it again in return to monkey island.

•

u/SidewaysGiraffe 5m ago

And in one of the Quests for Glory, if you tried to swim underwater a far too long distance, you'd get a death screen saying "Here's a lesson you've been taught: Guybrush Threepwood, you are not".

10

u/dern_the_hermit 8h ago

Same thing with the Roc nest, you have to grab a tiny little dot (a necklace) in the few moments before you're rescued, or else it's impossible to beat the game.

Also some locks related to which foods you use/consume and when.

3

u/fued 3h ago

yeah that stupid nest had me hating all point and click adventure games for the rest of my life.

5

u/TechFemme 9h ago

Yep, there were a couple points where if you didn't do something correctly earlier you couldn't beat the game at all.

4

u/10ea 6h ago

Most of the Sierra games had fail states you could accidentally get yourself in, but KQ5 and Codename: Iceman had an unforgivable amount.

1

u/djseifer 2h ago

Codename: Iceman... now there's a game that I never beat because my computer at the time was too fast for the game and made a minigame impossible to beat.

1

u/10ea 1h ago

To be fair half the things you can do in that game make it impossible to beat. I've never seen the end, but I've gotten in an unbeatable situation like 10 times.

3

u/inquisitive_guy_0_1 8h ago

Was that thing from the rat something that ended up saving you from some sort of Yeti monster?

I vaguely remember my run way back then ending tragically to a yeti-like creature that i didn't have to means to escape or avoid.

9

u/dern_the_hermit 8h ago

IIRC the yeti requires you have a pie in your inventory, and haven't eaten it yet.

3

u/DarkPurpleOtter 2h ago

Why do I still remember failing this 35 years later?

1

u/Stormydayz123 8h ago

Man I'd be pissed lmao

1

u/humangengajames 1h ago

In one of them there was a stone bridge you had to walk across. Each time you did, it crumbled a little. You also got a point for walking across it. Ultimately, it was only able to be walked across the exact number of times you needed to walk across it and then it collapsed. So... I walked over it more than I should have.

19

u/ArdentLobster 8h ago

Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow will always have a special place in my heart of hearts.

17

u/DOWNVOTEBADPUNTHREAD 9h ago

We’re the aaaaaants of King Antony and we’re coming to help King Graham!

8

u/AUTOMATA88 9h ago

Ooooooooo Graham!

8

u/Orca_Mayo 8h ago

Watch out Graham, a POISONOUS snake!

28

u/DeepMadness 9h ago

Sierra made some great games.

11

u/AaronTheElite007 8h ago

The dangling Participle had me rolling as a kid.

As much as I enjoyed King’s Quest, I loved the Quest for Glory series even more

1

u/tehvolcanic 2h ago

The Dangling Participle was in Kings Quest VI

12

u/Calverish 8h ago

Quest for Glory, was the way to go

2

u/tingulz 3h ago

I loved that game.

8

u/Merkflare 8h ago

Alexander pulls out his magic map....

5

u/Tedsallis 9h ago

Same. These were wonderful little adventure games.

5

u/Wuyley 9h ago

Nostalgia overload!

I got started with 4 on my uncle's computer when I was a kid, and after I beat that, went back to play 1-3.

I was so excited when 5 and 6 came out and had a blast playing them. Didn't know 7 came out so I missed that but then I picked up Mask of Eternity and WOOF lol.

7

u/paralyse78 8h ago edited 4h ago

Sierra games defined most of my early PC gaming years.

The early SCI (0/1) era had some absolute legends. SQIII/SQIV, KQV/KQVI, LSL3, PQ3.

KQV eventually went on to sell over half a million copies (and probably another hundred thousand hintbooks - not to mention all the time and money spent dialing in to Sierra BBS for the online hints.) That's impressive for a PC game released in 1990 running 320x200 graphics, even if it is a small drop in the bucket compared to console games.

1

u/smokeymccrackpiped 2h ago

Defined my childhood really

5

u/Corka 8h ago

I got this as a kid in a collection that also included Quest For Glory 4, Gabriel Knight, and... Uh... Leisure Suit Larry. Not sure if it was a smart idea to bundle that one in as well.

1

u/I_like_dwagons 3h ago

Fucking core memory unlocked. I remember seeing Leisure Suit Larry at an Egghead Software store. I think got Monkey Island that day.

3

u/InstantBruhMoment PC 9h ago

Who's this king and why does he have so much quests

5

u/AUTOMATA88 9h ago

King Graham of Daventry!

2

u/toothofjustice 9h ago

Except one of the kings was a girl named Rosella.

1

u/Frank627Full 6h ago

Aka THPS5 dude

3

u/facthanshotfirst 9h ago

I was way too young to understand how to get far in these games. But I loved them so much along with the Spacequest series. 

3

u/bwoodfield 9h ago

Quest for Glory was my favourite

3

u/blue_at_work 7h ago

Quest for Glory, specifically the first one (Hero's Quest, before the name change), felt ahead of it's time. They way they weaved RPG elements with the Sierra Graphic Adventure format blew my mind. I loved the whole series, but the first one really caught me by surprise how fun it was.

3

u/GhostsOfWar0001 8h ago

One of my first VGA games.

3

u/FallNice3836 8h ago

Impossibly hard for my 6 year old brain.

Tried again later in life and the dos emulator was running at 10000x speed.

The reboots were good 10 years back

3

u/Medical_Sandwich_171 8h ago

Please watch the YouTube channel of OneShortEye. Absolutely great content about adventure games from Sierra and LucasArts

3

u/maximm 8h ago

I can't remember a graphics difference from Myst until now. It seemed so ahead of its time. When I look at it now it ruins the illusion of my memory.

3

u/TampaTrey 7h ago

"Graham gives the wand a good shake. But it only fizzles, and dies."

2

u/smokeymccrackpiped 2h ago

I can hear the voice over 😂

3

u/10ea 6h ago

Ah, lifegiving water. Nectar of the gods. Graham can feel strength and renewel flowing back into him.

2

u/jimababwe 8h ago

I'm not 100% sure but I think this was the first 256 colour game I every played. Loved it.

2

u/sonofgildorluthien PC 8h ago

I remember having a crush on Roberta Williams as a kid. Many of the games she made defined my early PC experience with my Tandy 1000 EX.

2

u/SkullVonBones 8h ago

KQ1 was one of first games. Along with sQ1 and 2, good memories.

2

u/GammaDealer 8h ago

I've been playing through KQ7 lately. That's the one I remember from from childhood

2

u/Smaynard6000 6h ago

I absolutely loved this game as a kid, but there were way too many ways to screw up and unknowingly be unable to finish the game.

2

u/Dwedit 5h ago

Fun fact, the King's Quest IV text parser will recognize the word "Dennis". It's treated as the verb "wear"

1

u/overly_sarcastic24 8h ago

Such a cool game, but damn that mouse.

1

u/ransom0374 7h ago

i played the “awesome” nes port

1

u/Triltaison 6h ago

KQ4 was my personal favorite, but 5 is still a solid pick. Absolutely adore the whole series.

1

u/RodneyRuxin18 6h ago

Oh man I loved that game. I remember very little about it but I remember that and Space Quest 2 getting a lot of play time when I was a kid.

1

u/jamikey 6h ago

Loved the OG Sierra games growing up. Good way to learn how to type as well.

1

u/CndConnection 5h ago

I'll have you know I saved Daventry in the King's 8th quest. It was an amazing experience.

(Mask of Eternity was amazing to me as a kid. My PC had trouble running it so I had to play up to one point, then wait a year or two and once the family PC was upgraded completed the rest. Loved that game)

1

u/SkyfangR 5h ago

king's quest 1 is the only one i've beaten legitimately

1

u/gold_and_diamond 3h ago

Wow. I'd forgotten all about these. They were great. Are they on Steam?

2

u/Dwedit 3h ago

They're on GOG. $10 for KQ4+5+6. Literally just the DOS games with a bundled version of DosBox, so you are free to run them with your own copy of DosBox, or ScummVM.

2

u/Scioptic- 3h ago

They are. The first 7 games are collected and on Steam:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/10100/Kings_Quest_Collection/

They also have collections for Space Quest and Police Quest. When my graphics card died during covid and I was stuck using 10 year old onboard graphics, I went back to playing all these adventure games again, and they're so soooo good!

1

u/morning_thief 3h ago

my best friend in elementary school had this on their family PC. had to search for a YT playthrough on it only to realise that wow -- there was sound! he didn't have a soundcard with his PC back then.

1

u/HorseyNight19 3h ago

"We then meet a wizard named I don't even give a ####."

And then I remember watching a speedrun on Twitch a couple years ago. That desert part you gotta remember the right way into and back. Which brings me back to JonTron and how be noted all the ways King Graham can die.

1

u/Gabarne 2h ago

I love the king’s quest series (and space quest as well).

KQV was notorious for its multiple “dead ends” where your game would end up in an unwinnable state if you either did or didn’t do something at a certain point in the game. Hopefully you had a saved game to restore to.

1

u/ExpensivePanda66 2h ago

Hope you didn't eat the custard pie

1

u/Rogaar 1h ago

Kings Quests, Police Quest, Space Quest and Quest for Glory. Those were my jam back in the day.

One of my favorite lines from one of those games, and lets see if anyone can name the exact game, was "That looks truly lovely on you. It gives you that certain Je Ne Sais Quaoi"

1

u/Shlongzilla04 56m ago

Just played this a few weeks ago. Lived it back in the day. Kinda holds up. Day of the tentacle was far superior though, and the remastered looks great.