Gameology 2.0

Let me say something unexpected for a big fan of graphical adventure games. I don't like the King's Quest series. Even though I appreciate their historical importance and the many innovations Sierra brought to the genre (some might say "founding" it, even), I have always found these games at best cute, at worst, frustrating and virtually unplayable. Nevertheless, I decided to give the series another try, this time choosing the sixth game in the series. Why the sixth? Well, some Googling revealed to me that many fans of the series deem the sixth game to be the best. Indeed, some go far as to call it the best GAG ever made. Hmmm. I tried to clear away my prejudices based on my experience with other KQ games and give this one a fair evaluation. Fortunately, KQ 6 proved to be far more playable and enjoyable than the other KQ games I've tried, and I was compelled to play it through to completion. However, it is severely flawed in several places--flaws grave enough to make a guidebook a necessity (indeed, I was amused to see in the ending credits at least three different people recognized for their work on the guidebook!). While there are plenty of nice things to say about KQ 6, I'd advise passing on it if you're not already a fan of the series.

King's Quest 6: The Gnome Puzzle: King's Quest 6 - Gnome Puzzle

I'll try to break this review up into five sections--the interface, the game world, the puzzles, and the characters. This might sound like an ambitious list, but I'll try to be brief. Before I get started, though, I should warn potential players about two major playability issues. The first problem is compatability. Even with the latest version of Dosbox, I had a heck of a time getting this game to work properly, and it frequently crashed. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, there are several manual look-ups in the game that originally served as copy prevention. Thankfully, there are PDFs of the manuals available online, but it's a pain in the arse. Perhaps Sierra was able to sell more copies of the game with this scheme, but I doubt it very much--and now it just makes reviewing and studying the game that much more difficult (and thus unlikely!) Perhaps Sierra will one day release all these games with their source code into the public domain so these problems can be resolved.

Dig out that game manual, friend. It's copy protection time!: King's Quest VI - Copy Protection

Interface

KQ 6's interface is simple yet slightly cumbersome. The GUI works by a "pointer mode" mechanism. Clicking the right mouse button cycles the pointer through EXAMINE, OPERATE, WALK, and TALK. The problem with this style of interface is that the player must switch modes so often that the cycling gets tedious. It is especially problematic in timed puzzles, since there is no way to cycle back. A mouse wheel is the obvious answer, yet those weren't really an option in 1992 (I'm not sure they even existed then). Later games tend to conflate these controls and use pop-up labels or automatically changing mouse pointer modes. So, if the mouse hovers over an exit-area, the pointer changes to a walking man. In early games like KQ 6, this change must be made manually. Tedious, perhaps, but anything is better than having to deal with one of Sierra's horrible text parsers!

The inventory is straightforward enough, and the avatar seldom more than a dozen or so items. Inventory combining is occasionally needed, but not nearly as creatively as in later games like Return to Mysterious Island. On the plus side, the avatar can carry as many items as he can find, and there doesn't seem to be any red herrings.

KQ 6 occasionally breaks the interface, especially during the copy-prevention sections. There are also a few small cut-scenes, but these are neither particularly impressive nor intrusive.

Game World

As I've mentioned in other reviews, the secret to a good GAG is a well-developed, coherent, and intriguing gameworld. KQ 6 has a great gameworld split into a series of small islands (the island setup seems to be quite common in GAGs). Each island has a distinct character. There is an Alice-in-Wonderland island that reminded me of Piers Anthony's Xanth series. Another island is based on the old Beauty and the Beast story. There is also a labyrinth (complete with minotaur), a druid-infested stonehenge, and a castle to explore. Even though the islands are very different, there is enough continuity among them to create the impression of a unified gameworld. If the player takes the "hard road," he will even get to visit Hades.

KQ 6 has some nice graphics. Because of the aforementioned compatability issues, some of the animations didn't work properly (I got severe stutter with the opening cartoon), but the display works well enough for you to clearly see objects and exits. The interface doesn't let you know which objects can be manipulated and which are just decoration, so there will be some unnecessary clicking. However, these are small nitpicks. The gameworlds are lovely to look at.

Puzzles

One of LucasArts' most celebrated innovations in GAGs was to eliminate the possbility of getting the game into a "non-beatable" state. Any poor soul suffering through KQ 6 will understand why this innovation was so important. The problem is far worse than just the occasional death. The real problem is playing for hours and then realizing that because you missed some object or failed to notice or do something earlier in the game, you now have no choice but to start all over. This requires playing through considerable parts of the game over and over again, and the repetition soon becomes agonizing. This happened to me several times during KQ 6, particularly towards the end. Thus, the game was making it easy for me to make mistakes and then punishing me severely for making them--a bad combination for something that is supposed to be fun!

Other puzzles are unsolvable unless you die several times and keep reloading. This happens during the labyrinth part a lot--the only thing you can do is save before entering the next screen and mapping out which rooms automatically kill you. This kind of thing happens again later, when you must discover which lamp to trade off a peddler. The only way you can even know that you need such a lamp (and why) happens after it's too late to go back to the peddler. In short, the chance to swap lamps comes before you even know why you need to do it, much less have any clue which one you will need. The only solution is either to use a guidebook (recommended), or make sure you save at this point so you can start over from it when you have the vital information.

I managed to get about 3/4 through the game before the typical "Sierra crackpipe puzzles" starting cropping up, stopping me dead in my tracks and forcing me to head for the hintbook. I don't consider 3/4 to be a bad figure for a Sierra game; many are far, far worse. It's almost as if Sierra ran out of cash and gave up on playtesting and "quality assurance" just as they were completing the game. At any rate, I'm not sure how anyone could win the game without external hints (except perhaps the old "try everything on everything" approach, which just isn't fun). Even this approach probably won't work, because some of the puzzles are only solvable if you make totally illogical (even in the context of the game!) decisions, such as not peering through a hole in the wall to see the woman who is crying until you doubleback and have a letter to show her. If you look before, she isn't there when you get back, and there is only one option: Restore a previous saved game. Uh, yeah, that was stupid, Sierra.

The reason all of this is so disappointing is that the first parts of the game have some of the most creative and intelligent puzzles I've seen. I especially liked the "five gnomes" puzzle and the many clever riddles sprinkled throughout the game. Another fun idea was the "hole in the wall" creature the avatar can capture and use to spy through walls. The spellbook was also well-implemented. However, all of these pleasures are forgotten by the end of the game as the player suffers through one poorly designed puzzle after another. It's startling to see just how little Sierra had learned by 1992 (LucasArts' Monkey Island had been around for two years, even!) The same poor design present even in the first King's Quest is blatant here. Some people just can't seem to "get it."

Characters

Like most Sierra games, there isn't much here in the way of drama or character development. The avatar (a prince) and the princess are cardboard cutouts straight out of a fairytale. The only halfway interesting character is the genie, but interaction with him is kept at a bare minimum (basically, if you try to interact with him you die). The cutscenes are over-the-top and generally pretty stinky, even if you take into consideration the technology of the time.

The dialogue is also bland, with the only respite coming in the form of good riddles. Perhaps it's unfair to approach this game just after playing The Dig, which featured some of the best dialogue I've seen in a GAG yet.

Concluding Thoughts Eww! They're kissing! Would you be caught playing this game?: King's Quest VI: Kissing

Clearly, the best part of KQ 6 is the interesting gameworld, lighthearted atmosphere, and a series of intelligent, well-designed puzzles. It's also a very ambitious game for its time--there are two different ways to successfully complete the game, though one leads to a less positive ending than the other (you rescue the Princess, but don't win her parents back from the land of the dead). In short, KQ 6 is not a bad way to spend a few afternoons, and it definitely has its charm, but there are much better games out there. If this really is the best of that the King's Quest has to offer, I'm amazed that it was able to carry on for so long (and maintain a large fanbase to this day!)