King's Quest III Remake Released

Infamous Adventures Kings Quest III remake by DreamMaster · 2011-02-24 20:48 · Score: 1, Informative

For those who don't already know, Infamous Adventures also released a remake of Kings Quest III some time back - http://www.infamous-adventures.com/

Zork by Another,+completely · 2011-02-24 21:01 · Score: 1

I recently re-played Zork I all the way through, and it was a blast.

Infocom released all three of the original text adventures on their website for, in their words, "zero Zorkmids!"

Re:Zork by Seumas · 2011-02-24 21:22 · Score: 1

And GoG is still selling them for $6. (???)
Re:Zork by kalirion · 2011-02-25 03:38 · Score: 2

From the disclaimer:
This site is not commercial and in no way affiliated with the current rightholder of Infocom copyrights, Activision, Inc., and does not claim to have any rights pertaining to any and all articles by Infocom and subsequently Activision, Inc.
So I'm not sure they have the right to be offering those games for free.

Great.... by Israfels · 2011-02-24 21:01 · Score: 1

Where did I put that instruction booklet so that I can get the proper ingredients for the spells and not turn myself into a something.

Re:Great.... by dingen · 2011-02-24 21:53 · Score: 1

They changed this process a bit in the remake, so you don't kill yourself every time you make a typo.

--
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
Re:Great.... by commodore6502 · 2011-02-24 23:41 · Score: 1

Damn modern games - always making things too easy. I *like* dying in a game when I do dumb stuff. ("If you keep wandering in the dark, you'll like get eaten by a grue.") It adds realism to those old classic games that modern games lack. These new games are... too easy.
Hey why are those kids on my lawn???
(door slams)
(muffled yelling)

--
Information wants to be expensive AND wants to be free. So you have Value vs. Cheap distribution fighting each other.
Re:Great.... by Israfels · 2011-02-25 00:57 · Score: 2

Exactly. Back then you had to type what you wanted to do. Now days people just use the action cursor and spam it all over the screen until the solution is automatically given to you.
It's replaced the user intent (push, pull, climb, take, move, play, turn, lift, pick, pry, catch, jump, eat, steal, drink, etc) with *ACTION CLICK*
Re:Great.... by Ksevio · 2011-02-25 02:27 · Score: 1

That was my thought when I first read this ...I'm going to have to find that damn booklet again.
Re:Great.... by kevinmenzel · 2011-02-25 08:54 · Score: 1

No it hasn't. There are multiple actions, selected by the user, that use different cursors. This isn't King's Quest 7.

Living in the past by DNS-and-BIND · 2011-02-24 21:02 · Score: 2

Yet another remake, sequel, re-imagining, mashup, or reinterpretation. Sigh. I never realized at the time that things were so good...I honestly expected that we would keep going onward. For the past 10-20 years, it has just been remake after remake. For every movie like Pulp Fiction or Necronomicon, there are two Karate Kid or McHale's Navy made. Just imagine if all the talented people who spent hundreds or thousands of man-hours making this remake instead spent their energy on something new. It just says that things were better before and imagination has become an unusual quality.

--
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!

Re:Living in the past by Theleton · 2011-02-24 21:13 · Score: 1

They did make an original game before this. It was called Al Emmo, and it wasn't very good.
Re:Living in the past by Theleton · 2011-02-24 21:46 · Score: 1

If you are looking for an original adventure game title, Gemini Rue was released yesterday. It's made with the same engine and runs in the same resolution as KQ3, but rather than reusing an existing property it creates a new science fiction game world and story (though fans of the genre may find many elements that remind of Blade Runner, Beneath a Steel Sky etc.). It was made mostly by one guy, and it won the IGF student competition last year.
Re:Living in the past by cbrichar · 2011-02-24 22:00 · Score: 1

Yeah, but just wait for the remake!
Re:Living in the past by iGN97 · 2011-02-24 22:29 · Score: 2

Yet another whine, sulking, bitching repeat-post. Sigh. I never realized at the time that things were so good...I honestly expected that we would keep going forward. For the past 10-20 years, it has just been whining laced thickly on whining. For every comment with a constructive suggestion or a "hey, let's go make something new and interesting ourselves, because we have some good ideas, right?", there are two whiners whining about how much better things were before and how much better everything would be if everyone's time were spent making something new, as if newer is better. It just says that things were better before, when everything was new, and there was nothing to whine about.
Re:Living in the past by MrHanky · 2011-02-24 22:42 · Score: 5, Insightful

Blah, blah, blah. Throughout history, most works of fiction have been derivative crap, a few have been original and fewer still have been really good. Hell, pretty much all the best works of fiction are derivative works: Shakespeare's dramas hardly contain a single original storyline. Computer games certainly weren't any better in the 80s than they are now, you just tend to forget the more forgettable ones. Some of the better ones (Giana Sisters) were pure rip-offs.
Re:Living in the past by C0R1D4N · 2011-02-24 22:47 · Score: 5, Informative

This isn't some company trying to cash in on and old IP (like Leisure Suit Larry Magna Cum Laude) this is a labor of love for people who just want to bring the game back to new audiences and trudge up some nostalgia for us old people who loved the Sierra quest series games.
Re:Living in the past by MrHanky · 2011-02-24 23:22 · Score: 2

Utter bullshit. It can't possibly be a "self-justifying excuse" as I'm not justifying myself, nor excusing anything. OTOH, I do point out the fact that plenty of great canonical works are derivative. Speaking of "cultural decay", all the Greek Classics were re-telling old and well-known stories, and that at what was for more than a millennium known as the height of civilisation. So on the one hand, you have evidence, on the other hand you have your evidently false claims.
Re:Living in the past by Half-pint+HAL · 2011-02-24 23:35 · Score: 1

In that sense, it's unnecessary. SCUMMVM supports the King's Quest series, so it doesn't need to be brought back.

--
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Re:Living in the past by kevinmenzel · 2011-02-24 23:56 · Score: 4, Interesting

AGDI provides awesome nostalga in different ways, including slightly reworking the games (massively reworking in the case of KQ2) - ways that hint every so often not only at the game they are remaking, but giving a nod to other games in the series, and bringing back people like Josh Mandel who voiced King Graham in the Sierra KQ5 and KQ6, and now the AGDI KQ1, 2 and 3. There is something really cool about hearing the original voice of King Graham brought back to games originally written before voice acting existed.
Re:Living in the past by gl4ss · 2011-02-25 00:18 · Score: 1

everything can't be good. the meaning of the word good would dissolve if it was so. if you love everything, you love nothing as much as anything.
so there has to be some contrast. however, making a remake of a '80s adventure game is not a feat of any level in 2011(tools are so much better and you don't need to do tricks to achieve the logic so that it fits on the disks and memory, in fact it would be a pretty straightforward thing to just javascript the whole thing, yes, it would need a lot of hours to achieve that but not much of that magical it-innovation work that's hard, as it would be wiser to just do the agi-player in js but it's not as straightforward thing to do).
so what I'm saying is that they wouldn't have been able to deliver you a fresh game that would rock your socks like it was the golden age of pc gaming, that needs imagination, whilst just doing by the book does not. that's what makes it hard to have a new angle on things.

--
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Re:Living in the past by kevinmenzel · 2011-02-25 00:45 · Score: 1

Ther King's Quest II remake greatly expanded on the original game, and it was the original elements that made it really feel like an early to mid 90s adventure game, not the elements that were in the original game... but you have a point, something entirely original would be really cool. A solid 2D adventure game. It would be amazing to see something released for a console, because you could make an incredibly immersive 2D game in a DVDs worth of space, and the Monkey Island remakes have shown how well a console controller works for those sorts of games.
Re:Living in the past by Willtor · 2011-02-25 02:50 · Score: 1

Quality frequently doesn't abide by a rule of progress. It is okay to continue to play old games and not treat it as a commentary on new ones. There were some real gems that were produced back then. Keeping them alive for the next generation is a noble end in itself. Recognizing that is not criticism of games that have been produced more recently. It is merely proper acknowledgment of the quality of those games.

--
"The knee is the elbow of the leg." -- My wife
Re:Living in the past by Beetle+B. · 2011-02-25 03:31 · Score: 1

Just imagine if all the talented people who spent hundreds or thousands of man-hours making this remake instead spent their energy on something new.

If you'd bother to look, you'd know that AGDI has produced original pieces of work.

--
Beetle B.
Re:Living in the past by DNS-and-BIND · 2011-02-25 06:47 · Score: 1

So...about that Greek culture. How did that turn out? They're still going strong, right?

--
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Re:Living in the past by SoftwareArtist · 2011-02-25 08:40 · Score: 1

There's something really ironic in complaining that modern games are all remakes or sequels, not like King's Quest... 3. :)

But really, it's not as if the 80's were a golden age of great game design. For every gem like King's Quest or Super Mario Brothers, there were a dozen games that did well enough at the time, but have since been justifiably forgotten... and another dozen games that were basically garbage. And the same is true of the games being made today. 20 years from now, most of them will have been forgotten, but people will still be playing and enjoying a handful of the best ones. By that point the technology will look hopelessly outdated, but that won't matter. They're good games and don't rely on technology to be fun. And maybe someone will remake them with more modern technology, and then they'll be even better.

As for other games that deserve to be remade: Below the Root. Arguably the very first "action adventure" game ever made. I recently replayed it on an emulator, and it was just as fun as ever.

--
"I'm too busy to research this and form an educated opinion, but I do have time to tell everyone my uninformed opinion."
Re:Living in the past by MrHanky · 2011-02-25 09:42 · Score: 1

Yes, it's doing fairly well, considering that it's the origin of Western culture. Did you know that idiot is a Greek word? It describes you accurately in more than a dozen languages.
Re:Living in the past by Johann+Lau · 2011-02-25 11:40 · Score: 1

But you're equating derivation with remaking something, which is nonsense...

Now, I don't know KQ. If it has a truly great story, I can see the point of translating it into a more modern medium. Just like good songs should be covered every now and then, because they're still good songs and "stuff happened" in the meantime.

But even then, if you just 100% recreate the thing, instead of switching it up a bit -- why bother? I wish remakes would make more of a point of NOT sticking to the original. No, increased resolution doesn't count. Neither does new music, especially when it's worse than the old one. Change the puzzles, enhance the mechanics, twist the story. DO something, *anything* with it. Don't just redress the same old thing.

If you think these crappy games from the 80s are perfect and magic, even their authors would laugh at you, I'm sure. they're commercial, done with a deadline and for shitty hardware. To remake them without substantially changing them is foolishness IMHO. It's kinda icky actually.
Re:Living in the past by Johann+Lau · 2011-02-25 11:44 · Score: 1

Same here. I am kinda nostalgic about the Amiga, but of the billions of games I "loved" the only ones I can stand to still play for more than 3 minutes is stuff like Speedball 2. 99.9% of the games are only great in my memory... until I load them up into an emulator, then it's just excrutiating ^^ Some stuff should just rest in peace I guess.
Re:Living in the past by kevinmenzel · 2011-02-26 01:38 · Score: 1

Which is exactly what AGDI did with KQ2, KQ3, and from what I hear QfG2, thoug I've never played it.
Re:Living in the past by DaVince21 · 2011-03-02 02:05 · Score: 1

Forward progress is done in parallel to the remake after remake. Some prefer to stick to the old values and games and try to improve them in their own way; others will stick to sequels because it pays well, and then there's the small amount of games that experiment, try to innovate, etcetera.

--
I am not devoid of humor.

Re:Err ... by Seumas · 2011-02-24 21:23 · Score: 1

Wow, you're right. That's really lame. I guess they don't want google to index them.

no SDL? by danomatika · 2011-02-24 21:25 · Score: 1

No Linux version and the OSX version requires X11? hrmm must not have used SDL.

Re:no SDL? by kevinmenzel · 2011-02-24 21:55 · Score: 1

They didn't write the engine. Complain to the people that wrote the engine.
Re:no SDL? by Rynor · 2011-02-25 00:59 · Score: 1

The windows version runs fine under wine though.

Re:The best one by dingen · 2011-02-24 21:35 · Score: 1

Yeah, especially considering that KQ3 uses the oldest tech in the series (16 colors, sound from the PC speaker, no mouse). KQ1 and 2 were released with the same engine, but remakes made by Sierra were released in the '90ies to bring the game up-to-date with the tech of the time. KQ4 was released with a new engine, supporting sound and mouse right from the start. But KQ3 was left behind. No remake, no update, nothing.

Such a shame, because KQ3 is really *really* good. I wonder why Sierra have released remakes of KQ1 and 2, but not part 3. Anyhow, this remake looks great and I look forward to playing through the game one more time. I think it's awesome.

--
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.

Re:The best one by kevinmenzel · 2011-02-24 21:50 · Score: 1

Only KQ1 was re-released, and that was using the SCI 1 engine - still 16 colors. KQ2 was never re-released. Also, KQ4 was released in both an AGI version and an SCI version.

Re:The best one by dingen · 2011-02-24 22:32 · Score: 2

I'm sorry, you are right. Anyhow, KQ3 is imho the only game in the series worth remaking. Everything from 5 on is fine as it was released and part 1, 2 and 4 are not that interesting to play anyway. KQ3 really stands out in terms of storyline and gameplay, so its awesome that AGD released this new version today.

--
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.

Re:License by kevinmenzel · 2011-02-24 22:37 · Score: 1

From the game manual "This game is a non=profit production avaliable for download at www.AGDInteractive.com and is not to be sold, rented, or distrubted under any circumstances." It's not open source. Be happy that they even have official approval from Vivendi and Activision.

Re:The best one by kevinmenzel · 2011-02-24 22:42 · Score: 1

Give their KQ2 remake a try, they greatly expanded the game, and it's a lot more fun to play.

Engine by nkh · 2011-02-24 22:44 · Score: 1

Somehow related but is there an open-source, cross-platform adventure game engine scriptable with a language like Lua. I haven't found one yet and always wished I could write new adventures for Guybrush Threepwood (or create somethin else completely new ). Most of the existing projects are using closed-source win32-only engines which is disappointing. I could help such a project if there is one.

Re:Engine by kevinmenzel · 2011-02-24 22:59 · Score: 1

You could read into creating a game compatible with ScummVM.... it's open source and cross platform... and supports quite a few interpereters I suppose, given the games it already supports... it might be over or underkill depending on your needs though... http://www.scummvm.org/
Re:Engine by gl4ss · 2011-02-25 00:24 · Score: 1

well, there's nothing technically preventing you from doing fresh scummvm games. it's not the adventure gaming engine that's hard to do but coming up with the new script, graphics, plot etc etc.
AGI, the adventure game vm/script runner (various versions) support is also merged to scummvm nowadays(also sierra sci). it could probably be modified to support a 'new' engine too.
but if you're creating something new, coding from scratch is nowadays simpler if you got a clear idea what you want to achieve.

--
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Re:Engine by Hatta · 2011-02-25 02:23 · Score: 1

Not yet, but soon! This adventure game was created with Adventure Game Studio. This has been a closed source project for many years, but late last year he opened the source to the IDE and the source code to the engine is forthcoming. If you're patient we will finally get AGS on Linux.
For those suggesting ScummVM, it is not intended for homebrew games. There aren't even any authoring tools. The best case scenario would be incorporation of the AGS engine into ScummVM, but that's a long way off.
FWIW, AGS games already work pretty well with WINE. The only problem I've had is getting videos to play, but others have had better luck.

--
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Re:Engine by kevinmenzel · 2011-02-25 09:00 · Score: 1

However, there are authoring tools avaliable for AGI games and SCI games... http://www.agidev.com/
Re:Engine by MemoryDragon · 2011-02-28 09:07 · Score: 1

There are a handful of those, just google around I think one is called adventure game creator or so.

Re:No typing? by kevinmenzel · 2011-02-24 22:52 · Score: 1

I actually prefer the Sierra point-and-click adventures - at least compared to the AGI Sierra games. The AGI parser wasn't very intelligent, and the point-and-click interface pretty much covers everything you could do in those games except get killed every time you enter a typo into the KQ3 spells... Games like SQ3 were a bit different I suppose, the SCI parser was better than the AGI parser at least... but even then, Sierra's games were never much more than verb-noun games, with a very limited set of verbs that the icons pretty much cover completely. They took it too far in KQ7, I'll give you that, but in terms of gameplay, you're not really missing anything by the move to the mouse, and you gain the ability to explore the environment in a little more detail, with some entertaining results.

Re:The best one by kevinmenzel · 2011-02-24 23:39 · Score: 1

I think you'll find that all AGI games were 16 color maximum. The pallette may have been different on different platforms, but it wasn't 4000 colors. Nor was it "CD quality sound"

Maybe you should go grab your Amiga, your Amiga copy of KQ3, and play it again. Refresh your memory.

Re:The best one by kevinmenzel · 2011-02-24 23:51 · Score: 1

Not to mention that he's wrong, AGI games had the same features on all computers - the only distinction being that the sound was slightly better on some computers by virtue of being 3 voice with an "effects" track in some game - essentially designed to take advantage of the IBM PCjr. Yes, the Amiga was technically superior. But not for Sierra AGI games. The best platform for those was actually probably the Apple II GS.

Re:The best one by JackieBrown · 2011-02-24 23:54 · Score: 1

Same here. This was one the first computer games I played.

I loved it.

Did anyone else had the cheat book that you needed the red plastic to read? My dad had it but wouldn't let us use it so we would have to sneak into the computer room if we were stuck.

Re:The best one by kevinmenzel · 2011-02-25 00:02 · Score: 3

It was square waves. That was it. Have you even PLAYED KQ3 on an Amiga? Are you sure you aren't thinking of a different KQ game? KQ3 runs on the AGI interpereter, which doesn't shift pallettes ever. It uses 16 colors. The same 16 colors for the entire game. The same 16 colors for EVERY AGI game. They didn't re-write the game for the Amiga, they took exactly the same resources, and shipped them with an interpereter for a variety of platforms. That is, until they released it for the Apple II GS when they slightly tweaked the music.

So you're wrong. Flat out wrong. I know that the Amiga as a platform was capable of those things, but it did not do those things for King's Quest III, at least not on the Amiga I had at school, and you won't find a screen shot or an Amiga emulator that will prove you correct.

What other remakes are out there? by mrjb · 2011-02-25 00:04 · Score: 1

What other remakes of old adventure games are floating around out there?

Why, all the Scott Adams classics of course: Mission impossible, Pirate's adventure, Voodoo Castle... Most *definitely* won't be pleasing to the young'uns graphics-wise ;)

--
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book

Re:What other remakes are out there? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-25 03:55 · Score: 1

Morroblivion (Morrowind ported to the Oblivion engine) is getting close to completion...
Dagger XL (Daggerfall remake) looks interesting too, hope it gets finished.
Re:What other remakes are out there? by operagost · 2011-02-25 05:16 · Score: 1

I never did find the lamp in "Voodoo Castle". That was annoying.

--

Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.

Re:The best one by kevinmenzel · 2011-02-25 00:10 · Score: 1

I had one of those for one of the Space Quest games I think... 4 or 5... I don't remember which... those were classic.

Re:The best one by scdeimos · 2011-02-25 00:24 · Score: 2

Right and Amiga has a 4000 color palette youngling.

So, so sorry to burst your bubble but... the Amiga 500/1000 (and the Apple IIgs as well) had 12-bit RGB video output yielding a total of 4,096 possible colours. Palettes were always a subset of those 4,096 colours. Hence the usage of the name "palette".

Palettes on the A500/1000 were 16 or 32 colours (OCS had 6bpp graphic buffers) and 16 or 256 colours on the Apple IIgs, though more colours could be displayed on either platform by employing palette-switching tricks during horizontal retrace periods. This is essentially what HAM (Hold and Modify Mode) was and it could only really be used for stills. Half-Brite mode was a trick that switched palettes during the vertical retrace period and got you 64 colours on A500/1000.

It wasn't until the A1200 came along that with the AGA (and its 8bpp buffers) Amiga got 24-bit RGB output, but it was still limited 256 colour palettes or 262,144 colours (18-bit) in HAM-8 mode.

Re:The best one by kevinmenzel · 2011-02-25 00:24 · Score: 3

Oh, and based on further research, the first Sierra engine that appears to use more than 16 colors on the Amiga is the SCI 2 interpreter used in King's Quest 5, which looks WORSE on the Amiga as compared a VGA DOS version... so even once you start using more of the avaliable Amiga technology, IT'S STILL not as good as it was on other systems. Not necessarily DOS (Although for SCI 2, DOS is almost certainly the best), but other systems nonetheless.

Re:The best one by scdeimos · 2011-02-25 00:37 · Score: 1

Gak, typo: OCS had 5bpp graphic buffers

Also, "18-bit" is an implication, not a buffer depth. Although 262,144 is 2^18 HAM/HAM-8 modes don't work that way. HAM-8, because it's palette driven, is limited to 256 colours per scanline. In 1,024x768 mode you could get a maximum of 196,608 (256x768) colours, but by employing overscan tricks as well you could get to 262,144 (256*1,024) colours.

Re:The best one by commodore6502 · 2011-02-25 01:28 · Score: 1

>>>A500/1000 were 16 or 32 colours

And they could display HAM at 4096 colors. It's why the Amiga could display images like these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:HAM6example.png - Most RPGs of the period used still images. Those images were rendered in HAM.

--
Information wants to be expensive AND wants to be free. So you have Value vs. Cheap distribution fighting each other.

Re:The best one by commodore6502 · 2011-02-25 01:34 · Score: 1

>>>Even if you have a computer in your house for something other than games, you shouldn't bother using it to play games simply because there's something better for gaming out there on the market.

No my rational is more like this:
- The Amiga can do everything an 80s-era PC could do (word processing, database, spreadsheet) AND it had awesome graphics/sound (which is why it was used in television shows) rather than a measly 16 colors and sound that went "beep".

So given the choice between purchasing an 80s PC and an 80s Amiga, the more capable machine is the logical conclusion. IMHO.

--
Information wants to be expensive AND wants to be free. So you have Value vs. Cheap distribution fighting each other.

Re:The best one by Schadrach · 2011-02-25 02:05 · Score: 1

I had one of those for a different sierra game (they made one for basically all of them, and those hint books were the inspiration behind UHS (Universal Hint System) which was basically a windows app that read hint books with similar functionality.

The best hint book for King's Quest though was The King's Quest Companion. Look it up. =)

Re:The best one by kevinmenzel · 2011-02-25 02:05 · Score: 1

I dunno, I think it was pretty important back then to have something that ran WordPerfect, not something that did word processing. And to have something that ran Lotus 1-2-3, not had a spreadsheet program. And maybe the base model Amiga 500 costing $1600 had something to do with it. (Well, $1600 includes the RGB monitor, but that seems pretty fair...)

Deja Vu by bedouin · 2011-02-25 02:11 · Score: 1

Wasn't it already remade once in the 90s? Sierra rereleased all the EGA KQ1, LSL, SQ games with VGA and a modified interface (no typing needed).

Re:Deja Vu by Corporate+Troll · 2011-02-25 02:56 · Score: 1

No... Only the first instance of each (Not even sure of that... I have my doubts on Police Quest, for example) series were made. So, KQ1, SQ1 and LSL1 are those I know of.
Re:Deja Vu by bedouin · 2011-02-25 03:16 · Score: 1

Yeah, I think you're right. PQ1 did get a remake for sure though.
Re:Deja Vu by Corporate+Troll · 2011-02-25 03:22 · Score: 1

Cool... Didn't know about that one.
Re:Deja Vu by kevinmenzel · 2011-02-25 09:05 · Score: 1

The remake of KQ1 wasn't even VGA (despite being called that in many an official KQ collection.) King's Quest 1 was one of the first remakes made by Sierra, and was remade using the SCI0 engine, which was still EGA based. 320x200 resolution, 16 colours. The big improvement in those games was support for devices like the MT-32. If you haven't played an old sierra game with an authentic MT-32 or LAPC card, you are missing out, because Sierra, more than anyone else I know, really took advantage of loading custom patches to that brilliant piece of kit. And even using the text display for the occasional joke when starting the game.

Phone Games by sycorob · 2011-02-25 02:24 · Score: 2

Games like King's Quest have relatively low graphics levels, require little computational power, and the interface is generally pretty simple ("Go North", "Look", etc). Wouldn't these make great smartphone games? Just make sure it autosaves all the time, and also add the ability to save manually (to restart something if you get stuck or dead). I'd love to play half an hour of King's Quest on the train. VGA was 640 x 480, and my Moto Droid (sideways) is 854 x 480, more than enough. You'd actually have to letterbox it!

Re:Phone Games by MemoryDragon · 2011-02-28 09:06 · Score: 1

Actually the scummvm already has been ported to smartphones, and broken sword for instance also is ported to the iphone, ipad.
And also the Nintendo DS has more than its fair share of adventure games.
And yes they make great games less on smartphones due to the limited display size compared to the finger size, but for tablets they are a perfect match.
The biggest issue is the input the point and click interface has to be refined slightly towards a finger centric approach which means optional hotspot display and also marking things selected around the finger one way or the other. I think the Broken Sword ports did a perfect job to make the old point and click interface finger centric.
But as I said point and click adventure games map best of all genres (maybe strategy to some degree as well) towards the finger centric approach, action games map way less good.

Re:Erm... by Killjoy_NL · 2011-02-25 02:30 · Score: 1

Obvious troll is obvious :(

--
This is the sig that says NI (again)

Sweet by Taibhsear · 2011-02-25 02:36 · Score: 1

I never got to play this one. My friend had it but on a different system so we could never borrow it. I also was never able to get Quest For Glory 5. Is that freeware yet or does anyone know where to buy a copy? Would this run in dosbox or something or is there no hope for running this on a modern computer?

Re:Sweet by asavage · 2011-02-25 06:25 · Score: 1

Quest For Glory 5 will probably never be freeware and the copywrite won't expire within our lifetimes. It was released for windows and works on windows XP with a patch or in windows 98 compatibly mode. You can buy a used copy from Amazon. I don't know if you can buy anywhere else.

What about TellTale? by OwMyBrain · 2011-02-25 02:38 · Score: 1

A remake is cool, but I think the more interesting news is that TellTale games is working on a brand new title for the Kings Quest franchise. There's a brief announcement on there blog. (You have to scroll down pretty far).

Just... plain... awesome... by Rooked_One · 2011-02-25 02:49 · Score: 1

Cannot... speak... must massage.... my coax cable... to speed up this download

Damn you all! by MyLongNickName · 2011-02-25 03:08 · Score: 1

I have a paper and exam due tomorrow. And then I read this. I am fucked.

Thanks a lot!

--
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year

Re:The best one by XxtraLarGe · 2011-02-25 03:44 · Score: 1

Anyhow, KQ3 is imho the only game in the series worth remaking.

I thought King's Quest V was a lot of fun, I hope they do a remake of that.

--
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.

Re:Erm... by JohnnyBGod · 2011-02-25 03:49 · Score: 1

The thing is... I wasn't trolling. Adventure games inevitably degenerate into either pixel hunting games (i.e. find the pixel in which there's actually something clickable) or into "guess what the hell the developer was thinking so you can do stuff exactly that way" games. Examples include, but aren't limited to, Sam & Max S01E03, where you're supposed to take notice of the minute detail of Sam throwing a card into a rat hole, and can get stuck because of that, even if you've already figured out what you're supposed to do; or Phantasmagoria 2, where, in order to get the wallet your pet rat took under your couch, you need to take it out of its cage, and put a treat under the couch, so the rat can go there and bring it back. 'Cause moving a couch is something really difficult to do...

My point was: adventure games don't focus on goals, they focus on the exact steps you need to take in order to accomplish them. That's what makes their gameplay weak. Even so, their story and humor can make them worthwhile.

Re:The best one by Defenestrar · 2011-02-25 04:23 · Score: 1

ADG - The same people who did the KQ3 remake here have already done a Quest for Glory 2 remake. You can even import your character from the Sierra remake of 1 and export for the Sierra remake of 3.

goldbox by sproketboy · 2011-02-25 04:32 · Score: 1

http://golchest.sourceforge.net/

Still in alpha but making progress.

Also I like Tunnels of Doom Reboot http://www.dreamcodex.com/todr.php

Re:The best one by Hatta · 2011-02-25 05:14 · Score: 1

Really? It's easily the best of the text-parser games, but IMO surpassed by KQ V and VI. And I generally prefer the text parser for Sierra games.

--
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!

Re:The best one by MobileTatsu-NJG · 2011-02-25 05:24 · Score: 1

>>>The pallette may have been different on different platforms

Right and Amiga has a 4000 color palette youngling. King's Quest 3 alternates between that mode and 64-color mode..... making the PC version look like a primitive 70s display in comparison.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkAgq4JHbW8 -- Refresh your memory.

--

"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

Re:The best one by operagost · 2011-02-25 05:25 · Score: 1

I bought KQ IV from a friend in high school and played it on my Turbo XT. When years later I finally got a machine with a sound card, I was disappointed to find that I had the AGI version. Then again, I hear the AGI version is rare so maybe it's worth something to a collector now :-P

--

Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.

Re:The best one by Hatta · 2011-02-25 05:26 · Score: 1

KQV is already VGA, which is the standard they target with these remakes. It's also the last time Sierra adventure games had a coherent style. After KQVI (which was on the same engine as V), KQVII went to hand drawn FMV animation. KQVIII was a 3rd person 3d action adventure game (and sucked horribly). Other franchises like Gabriel Knight tried live action FMV, or attempted to shoehorn the point and click formula into 3d. None of these really make good models for an updated KQV.

--
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!

Re:The best one by Aggrajag · 2011-02-25 06:49 · Score: 1

I think you are right, here's a video.

This is the SECOND big remake by euroq · 2011-02-25 07:22 · Score: 3, Interesting

I thought this was a joke when I first saw the title. The King's Quest III remake has been out for about 3 years now. Did they just re-release it for publicity?

Then I realize that the people who have been making this game are separate. The first KQ3 remix is here:
http://www.infamous-adventures.com/kq3/index.php?page=screens

So I am dumbfounded that these developers worked so hard and for so long for so many years on doing something that's already been done. I can't imagine there is much difference between the first remake and this new second remake.

--
Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.

Re:This is the SECOND big remake by kevinmenzel · 2011-02-25 09:10 · Score: 1

Then you would be wrong. While the Infamous Adventures remake is as close to a 1:1 remake as possible, the AGDI game expands on the original, adding new elements to the adventure throughout the game. Not that either is necessarily better; but they are different games.

Re:Erm... by Killjoy_NL · 2011-02-25 07:33 · Score: 1

Ah my apologies then, if you had said this instead of that one-liner, you wouldn't even have gotten that moderation that you did.
Gameplay in an adventure is often difficult to do, a lot of it is filled in by puzzles, quick time events and action sequences.
The trick is to balance them correctly. More often than not, that balance just isn't there.

Personally, I quite like adventure games, I have been playing them since Larry 1 in holy-smokes-batman 4 colour cga.
Learning english to type the correct things to make the story go forward, feeling that accomplishment when I solved a difficult puzzle and laughing at all the jokes.

The games I enjoyed the most are adventure games, with such gems as Day of the Tentacle and basically all of the Lucasarts franchise before they only released Star Wars games, Quest for Glory because of the added action and rpg elements, Space Quest because of all the comedy, including all the different ways you could die (the only game where you wanted to die, just to see the joke), etc.

These days adventure games do not live up to their heritage, are less fun and more predictable, so now I play RPG's, good stories, fun strategic battles and comedy here and there (Praise Bioware).

P.S. See if you can borrow or rent Heavy Rain for the PS3, it's mostly good for 1 playthrough, but it is 10 kinds of awesome :)

--
This is the sig that says NI (again)

Re:Erm... by JohnnyBGod · 2011-02-25 10:06 · Score: 1

Fair points. The P.S. is where I really cringed, though. I'm not really interested in a game where you can fail at sitting down, or shaving, or doing all sorts of boring, mundane things. This time, I'm actually half-trolling. :)

They are making something new: Mage's Initiation by traindirector · 2011-02-25 13:45 · Score: 1

Just imagine if all the talented people who spent hundreds or thousands of man-hours making this remake instead spent their energy on something new.

I haven't seen it mentioned in the comments yet, but AGD Interactive's commercial arm, Himalaya Studios, announced during the KQ3 release that they are working on something new: a role-playing adventure called Mages's Initiation. From the official announcement on their forum, their promo page, and a thread on the AGDI forum, it looks like in will leverage a lot of their knowledge in creating the Quest for Glory II remake to really bring that unique genre into the present day and future. I still haven't found a game that followed up on the promise of Quest for Glory II in my mind, so I'm personally looking forward to it quite a bit.

Re:The best one by tragedy · 2011-02-25 16:19 · Score: 1

Just to weigh in here. I remember the joys of playing KQ 4 in CGA way back when I first got it. At the time I longed for a system that would actually be able to match the screen shots on the back of the box. One thing I distinctly remember about that era for pretty much all computer games, including the Sierra games was the fine print explaining that the screen shots were from the Amiga version of the game. This was presumably given as an explanation for why the version you had never quite seemed to match the screen shots on the box. Still, I was always under the impression that it was not completely untrue and that the Amiga versions really did look better. If this wasn't true, why weren't all the Amiga users complaining that the screen shots didn't match?

Re:The best one by kevinmenzel · 2011-02-26 16:31 · Score: 1

But King's Quest 3 did not. Which is what you claimed.

Slashdot Mirror

King's Quest III Remake Released

91 of 121 comments (clear)