King's Quest 1: Quest fo the Crown

Once again I got to play the first king's quest game, from AGD Interactive and you can download it for free there and it's still rather fun game, although pretty hard at times. The AGD version is by far the better version to play, not only due to grahic upgrade or voices (with Josh Mandel reprising his roll from King's Quest V and VI), but how it's played. I have played the original game and the 1990 remake, they play like a slog. The original had typing commands as it's gameplay, sucks if you ain't a english major, and english wasn't my first languish, wouldn't solved it in Swedish either. The thing is that it still had it's charm as a real adventure exploring this world. Somehow I was able to find the dagger below the rock and get the soup bowl and figure it out without cheating, but more than that was pretty much impossible. Maybe caused by not exploating "look" at every area, but again, I don't think I would understand everything again.

Now, lets discuss some of the reason why the original was hard as hell. Remember, this is before the internet. Lots of dead ends where a mistake makes it impossible to progress, eat the carot or give it a second time to the goat before beating the troll, game over. The dwarf, randomly, pick-pockets you and steal a sacread treasure, game over. Fall down a hole without the shrinking mushroom? You guessed it, game over. AGD gives you a mode without dead ends, thank god. Now, the grand daddy of obscure and hard as nails adventure puzzles, The Rumpelstiltskin puzzle. You all know the tale of the gnome Rumpelstiltskin that wants you to guess its name. Fine and dandy, now lets ignore that it's spelled Rumplestiltskin here, you also needed to realize that a note you found in the Hanzel and Gretzel gingerbread house that tells you to "think backwards" are connected. Answer Nikstlitselpmur? No, the creators of Sierra thought that was to easy, so instead you had to swap the alphabet as well, giving you the answer Ifnkovhgroghprm. If someone solved this in 1984 I'm impressed. At least it gave you three takes. AGD accepts both versions thank god.

The story now, the kingdom of Daventry is fading away as king Edward the Benelovent is dying and the three sacread treasures have disapeard. He sends his bravest knight, sir Graham on a quest to reclaim the treasures and bring hope to Daventry as its new king. You have to destroy the monster holding the realm captive using your cunning, outsmart gnomes and dwarves. Traverse the sky and underworld, all for an all-seeing mirror, a shield which the bearer cannot loose with and a treasure chest of endless gold. Simple and straightforward. This is what started one of the greatest fantasy series in video games.