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''King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella'' is a
graphic adventure game An adventure game is a video game genre in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story, driven by exploration and/or puzzle-solving. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based ...
developed by
Sierra On-Line Sierra Entertainment, Inc. (formerly On-Line Systems and Sierra On-Line, Inc.) was an American video game developer and publisher founded in 1979 by Ken and Roberta Williams. The company is known for pioneering the graphic adventure game ge ...
for the
MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few op ...
,
Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers produced by Commodore International, Commodore from 1985 until the company's bankruptcy in 1994, with production by others afterward. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16-b ...
,
Apple II Apple II ("apple Roman numerals, two", stylized as Apple ][) is a series of microcomputers manufactured by Apple Computer, Inc. from 1977 to 1993. The Apple II (original), original Apple II model, which gave the series its name, was designed ...
,
Apple IIGS The Apple IIGS (styled as II) is a 16-bit personal computer produced by Apple Inc., Apple Computer beginning in September 1986. It is the fifth and most powerful model of the Apple II family. The "GS" in the name stands for "Graphics and Sound" ...
, and Atari ST computers and released in 1988. The player takes on the role of Princess Rosella, daughter of King Graham of Daventry (''King's Quest I'' and ''King's Quest II'') and the twin sister of Gwydion/Alexander (''
King's Quest III ''King's Quest III: To Heir Is Human'' is the third installment in the ''King's Quest'' series of graphic adventure games developed and released by Sierra On-Line in 1986. The game was originally released for the Apple II and MS-DOS; it was lat ...
''), who must save her father and a good fairy and destroy an evil witch. Critically acclaimed, it was one of the first games for
IBM PC compatible An IBM PC compatible is any personal computer that is hardware- and software-compatible with the IBM Personal Computer (IBM PC) and its subsequent models. Like the original IBM PC, an IBM PC–compatible computer uses an x86-based central p ...
s to support a
sound card A sound card (also known as an audio card) is an internal expansion card that provides input and output of audio signals to and from a computer under the control of computer programs. The term ''sound card'' is also applied to external audio ...
.


Gameplay

''King's Quest IV'' uses the
Adventure Game Interpreter The Adventure Game Interpreter (AGI) is a game engine developed by Sierra On-Line. The company originally developed the engine for ''King's Quest'' (1984), an adventure game that Sierra and IBM wished to market in order to attract consumers to ...
(AGI) and
Sierra's Creative Interpreter The Sierra Creative Interpreter (SCI) was a game engine developed by Sierra Entertainment, Sierra On-Line in the late 1980s as a successor to the earlier AGI (Adventure Game Interpreter) engine. SCI first appeared with ''King's Quest IV, King’ ...
(SCI) systems. This is the only chapter in the ''
King's Quest ''King's Quest'' is a graphic adventure game series, released between 1980 and 2016 and created by the American software company Sierra Entertainment. It is widely considered a classic series from the golden era of adventure games. Following ...
'' series where the action takes place in real-time and within the allotted time limit, as the events of the game cover about 24 hours. Some activities must be completed during the day, while other puzzles can be solved only at night (the nightfall in the game happens either at 9 pm or at a certain point in the plot). The overall high difficulty of ''
King's Quest III ''King's Quest III: To Heir Is Human'' is the third installment in the ''King's Quest'' series of graphic adventure games developed and released by Sierra On-Line in 1986. The game was originally released for the Apple II and MS-DOS; it was lat ...
'' was toned down in ''King's Quest IV''.


Plot

Picking up immediately where '' King's Quest III: To Heir Is Human'' left off, as King Graham tosses his children his adventure's cap, he suffers a
heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when Ischemia, blood flow decreases or stops in one of the coronary arteries of the heart, causing infarction (tissue death) to the heart muscle. The most common symptom ...
and is left on his death bed. The devastated Princess Rosella is contacted via the Magic Mirror by the good fairy Genesta in the faraway land of Tamir who reveals the existence of a magic fruit that can heal King Graham in exchange for Rosella helping Genesta. Rosella agrees and is teleported to the
fairy A fairy (also called fay, fae, fae folk, fey, fair folk, or faerie) is a type of mythical being or legendary creature, generally described as anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic, found in the folklore of multiple European cultures (including Cel ...
kingdom of Tamir. The realm's ruler, Queen Genesta, reveals that her archenemy, the evil fairy Lolotte, has stolen her talisman, without which Genesta will die in twenty-four hours. Additionally, without the talisman, Genesta lacks the power to return Rosella to Daventry. Rosella agrees to undertake a quest for both the talisman and the magic fruit and goes out undercover, dressed as a peasant girl. Rosella manages to find the fruit, traversing a dangerous underground passage and swamp, but is captured in Queen Lolotte's perilous mountains and imprisoned in her castle. The witch demands that Rosella undertake three tasks for her in order to earn her freedom and a big reward. Rosella reluctantly agrees and captures a unicorn, steals the golden hen, and recovers
Pandora's Box Pandora's box is an artifact in Greek mythology connected with the myth of Pandora in Hesiod's c. 700 B.C. poem ''Works and Days''. Hesiod related that curiosity led her to open a container left in the care of her husband, thus releasing curses ...
for Lolotte, who intends to use the items to increase her evil power and influence. Lolotte reveals that her hideous and deformed son Edgar has fallen in love with Rosella and she intends for them to marry, trapping Rosella and condemning King Graham and Genesta to death. However, a sympathetic Edgar helps Rosella escape and she slays Lolotte with Cupid's bow. Rosella recovers the talisman, the hen, and Pandora's Box and rescues the unicorn. To keep Pandora's Box from being used for evil again, Rosella returns it to its tomb and seals the entrance so that no one else can ever enter. Rosella returns the talisman and the hen to Genesta, saving her life. As a reward for his help and kindness, Genesta transforms Edgar into a handsome young man. Rosella rejects Edgar's marriage proposal, although she expresses hope that they will meet again
someday Someday or Some Day may refer to: Film and television * ''Someday'' (1935 film), a British film directed by Michael Powell * ''Someday'' (2011 film), a Japanese film directed by Junji Sakamoto * ''Someday'' (2021 film), an Indian Hindi-lang ...
. Rosella is teleported back to Daventry where the fruit heals King Graham, much to the joy of his family. Although Rosella's primary quest is to retrieve the magic fruit needed to save King Graham, it is possible to return to Daventry without completing this task, but this leads to a tragic alternate ending to the game where Rosella returns in time to witness her father die. A second alternate ending exists where, if Rosella is caught after escaping from her room, she will be forced to marry Edgar and spend the rest of her life in Tamir. Winning the game will not resolve all storylines, although that will be the goal in the sequels.


Development and release

With the SCI engine, Sierra dropped disk-based copy protection schemes in favor of requiring the user to enter a word from the manual, as the new-generation games were designed primarily to be installed and run from a hard disk. ''King's Quest IV'' was the first commercially released game for
IBM PC compatible An IBM PC compatible is any personal computer that is hardware- and software-compatible with the IBM Personal Computer (IBM PC) and its subsequent models. Like the original IBM PC, an IBM PC–compatible computer uses an x86-based central p ...
s to support
sound card A sound card (also known as an audio card) is an internal expansion card that provides input and output of audio signals to and from a computer under the control of computer programs. The term ''sound card'' is also applied to external audio ...
s instead of only the standard built-in speaker. In addition to the familiar
PC speaker A PC speaker is a loudspeaker built into some IBM PC compatible computers. The first IBM Personal Computer, model 5150, employed a standard 2.25 inch magnetic driven (dynamic) speaker. More recent computers use a tiny moving-iron or pie ...
and
Tandy Tandy may refer to: Companies * Tandy Corporation (1919–2000), a leather supply company which became the RadioShack Corporation in 2000 ** Hinckley-Tandy Leather Company, name used from 1919 to 1956 ** TRS-80 Color Computer, rebranded as Tandy C ...
sound, it could utilize
AdLib Ad Lib, Inc. was a Canadian manufacturer of sound cards and other computer equipment founded by Martin Prevel, a former professor of music and vice-dean of the music department at the Université Laval. The company's best known product, the ''Ad ...
, Disney Sound Source, IBM Music Feature Card, or
Roland Roland (; ; or ''Rotholandus''; or ''Rolando''; died 15 August 778) was a Frankish military leader under Charlemagne who became one of the principal figures in the literary cycle known as the Matter of France. The historical Roland was mil ...
boards. The new SCI engine allowed the game's designers to incorporate an orchestrated musical score along with more complex sound effects, a previously unattainable feat. To ensure an immersive soundtrack, composer William Goldstein was hired to write the game's musical score, totaling over 75 short music pieces. The series' author
Roberta Williams Roberta Lynn Williams (; born February 16, 1953) is an American video game designer and writer, who co-founded Sierra On-Line with her husband, game developer Ken Williams. In 1980, her first game, '' Mystery House'', became a modest commer ...
wrote in the notes to the ''King's Quest Collection Series'': "Before ''King's Quest IV'' was released, word leaked out that Graham would have a heart attack and might die. Fans were upset enough to write in, asking to save Graham. I wanted ''King's Quest IV'' to have some pressure applied to you: a timed game, taking place over a 24-hour period, so you roam around during the day and eventually it turns to night. I don't remember other games using the same scenes at night; it looked creepy". With a female protagonist and more colorful graphics than in her earlier games, she attempted to appeal more specifically to female demographics. As the game's aspect that satisfied her most, she said: "I like the heroine, Rosella. I guess because she's a part of me that's coming out. I really identified with her. Sometimes she's delicate, but she's strong, knows what she wants, she's not afraid to do what she has to do. She's courageous. It was fun for me to do a female character". The game was simultaneously produced and published in the AGI and SCI engines. The AGI engine was used in all earlier Sierra adventure games, the SCI in all later ones. SCI supported higher-resolution graphics (320×200 resolution versus 160×200), more sophisticated animation, mouse, and sound card support. Some older features like CGA composite mode and
PCjr The IBM PCjr (pronounced "PC junior") was a home computer produced and marketed by IBM from March 1984 to May 1985, intended as a lower-cost variant of the IBM PC with hardware capabilities better suited for video games, in order to compete mor ...
support were removed. Memory requirements for SCI games were thus double those of AGI games (512 kB vs 256k). The new engine was designed for then-current IBM-compatible hardware (i.e., 8–16 MHz 286 or 386 machines with EGA or
VGA Video Graphics Array (VGA) is a video display controller and accompanying de facto graphics standard, first introduced with the IBM PS/2 line of computers in 1987, which became ubiquitous in the IBM PC compatible industry within three years. T ...
graphics and a hard disk) and ran poorly on older
8086 The 8086 (also called iAPX 86) is a 16-bit microprocessor chip designed by Intel between early 1976 and June 8, 1978, when it was released. The Intel 8088, released July 1, 1979, is a slightly modified chip with an external 8-bit data bus (allo ...
computers. The game was previewed at the
Consumer Electronics Show CES (; formerly an initialism for Consumer Electronics Show) is an annual trade show organized by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). Held in January at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Winchester, Nevada, United States, the event typi ...
on June 4, 1988. ''King's Quest IV'' was the only native-mode SCI game to also have an AGI version (some games originally made with the AGI engine like the original ''
King's Quest ''King's Quest'' is a graphic adventure game series, released between 1980 and 2016 and created by the American software company Sierra Entertainment. It is widely considered a classic series from the golden era of adventure games. Following ...
'' were released in updated SCI versions). This was done mostly as a fallback measure because the SCI engine was new and unproven, and also for the large existing user base of 8086 machines. However, only a quite small number of copies were sold. It was discontinued within a few months of the game's August 1988 release. The two games are identical in gameplay, except that the SCI version was updated with some additional parser responses. The AGI version 2.0 contains the " beam me"
Easter egg Easter eggs, also called Paschal eggs, are eggs that are decorated for the Christian holiday of Easter, which celebrates the resurrection of Jesus. As such, Easter eggs are commonly used during the season of Eastertide (Easter season). The ...
, which transported Rosella to a ''
Star Trek ''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the Star Trek: The Original Series, series of the same name and became a worldwide Popular culture, pop-culture Cultural influence of ...
''-esque room with all of the development team present (this Easter egg is not present in any SCI version). A version identical to the AGI version was released on the
Apple IIGS The Apple IIGS (styled as II) is a 16-bit personal computer produced by Apple Inc., Apple Computer beginning in September 1986. It is the fifth and most powerful model of the Apple II family. The "GS" in the name stands for "Graphics and Sound" ...
with improved music and effects (over the
MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few op ...
AGI counterpart); the IIGS port does not use the SCI engine for performance reasons.


Reception

''King's Quest IV'' sold 100,000 copies in its first two weeks. According to Sierra On-Line, combined sales of the ''King's Quest'' series surpassed 3.8 million units by the end of March 1996. By November 2000,
PC Data PC Data was an American market research and point of sale tracking firm founded in 1991 and based in Reston, Virginia. Its founder, Ann Stephens, had worked previously as the head researcher for the Software Publishers Association. Initially, th ...
reported that ''King's Quest IV''s sales in the United States alone had reached between 300,000 and 400,000 units.
GameSpot ''GameSpot'' is an American video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information on video games. The site was launched on May 1, 1996, created by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady, and Jon Epstein. In addition ...
's staff wrote that the game "marked a dramatic increase in the series' commercial success". ''King's Quest IV'' was very well received by the trade press, including being awarded review scores of 309/400 from ''
ACE An ace is a playing card, die or domino with a single pip. In the standard French deck, an ace has a single suit symbol (a heart, diamond, spade, or a club) located in the middle of the card, sometimes large and decorated, especially in the ...
'', 79% from ''
Amiga Action ''Amiga Action'' was a monthly magazine about Amiga video games. It was published in the United Kingdom by Europress (later IDG Media) and ran for 89 full issues, from October 1989 to December 1996. After its closure, it was merged into sister ...
'', 81% from ''
Amiga Computing ''Amiga Computing'' is a discontinued monthly computer magazine Computer magazines are about computers and related subjects, such as networking and the Internet. Most computer magazines offer (or offered) advice, some offer programming ...
'', 85% from ''
Commodore User ''Commodore User'', (also referred to as ''CU'') later renamed to ''CU Amiga'', is a British magazine initially published by Paradox Group before being acquired by EMAP. Timeline ''Commodore User'' was launched in October 1983 with an initial pr ...
''/''
CU Amiga ''Commodore User'', (also referred to as ''CU'') later renamed to ''CU Amiga'', is a British magazine initially published by Paradox Group before being acquired by EMAP. Timeline ''Commodore User'' was launched in October 1983 with an initial pr ...
'', 91% from ''
Computer & Video Games ''Computer and Video Games'' (also known as ''CVG'', ''Computer & Video Games'', ''C&VG'', ''Computer + Video Games'', or ''C+VG'') is a British-based video game magazine, published in its original form between 1981 and 2004. Its offshoot webs ...
'', 9/10 from ''Datormagazin'', 90% from '' The Games Machine (Italia)'', 13/15 from ''
Tilt Tilt may refer to: Music * Tilt (American band), a punk rock group, formed in 1992 * Tilt (British band), an electronic music group, formed in 1993 * Tilt (Polish band), a rock band, formed in 1979 Albums * ''Tilt'' (Cozy Powell album), 1981 ...
'', and 79% from ''
Zzap! Zzap! may refer to: * Zzap!64 ''Zzap!64'' is a computer games magazine covering games for computers manufactured by Commodore International, especially the Commodore 64 (C64). It was published in the UK by Newsfield Publications Ltd and later by ...
''. It was also selected as "Best Adventure Game of 1988" by the
Software Publishers Association The Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) is a trade association dedicated to the entertainment, consumer and business software industries. Established in 1984 as the Software Publishers Association (SPA), the SIIA took its new nam ...
. Scorpia of ''
Computer Gaming World ''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American Video game journalism, computer game magazine that was published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 199 ...
'' reviewed ''King's Quest IV'', noting the beautiful graphics, but also mentioning the game ran slowly if the screen contained animations. She described the game's puzzles as "uneven", but considered the presentation as cinematic in quality. David Stanton of ''
Compute! ''Compute!'' (), often stylized as ''COMPUTE!'', is an American home computer magazine that was published from 1979 to 1994. Its origins can be traced to 1978 in Len Lindsay's ''PET Gazette'', one of the first magazines for the Commodore PET. ...
'' praised the graphics and sound of the IBM PC version, including its support of VGA and sound cards such as AdLib and
Roland MT-32 The Roland MT-32 Multi-Timbre Sound Module is a MIDI synthesizer module first released in 1987 by Roland Corporation. It was originally marketed to amateur musicians as a budget external synthesizer with an original list price of $695. However, ...
, and concluded that "''King's Quest IV'' sets a gaming standard others will be hard-pressed to match, much less surpass", describing the game's soundtrack as "40 minutes of the best sound available on any computer disk anywhere". ''
Page 6 ''Page 6'' (subtitled ''Atari Users Magazine'') was a British magazine aimed at users of Atari 8-bit computers and Atari ST home computers. The first issue was in 1982, and it was renamed to ''Page 6 Atari User'' and then ''New Atari User'' be ...
''s John Sweeney wrote the game was "undoubtedly excellent", but personally he preferred ''King's Quest III''. In 2009, '' Atomic'' named ''King's Quest IV'' one of the "50 Games to Play Before You Die". The magazine's Ben Hardwidge called it "a classic".
IGN ''IGN'' is an American video gaming and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa district and is headed by its former e ...
's Kosta Andreadis wrote in 2014: "''The Perils of Rosella'' stands the test of time despite its shortcomings (and you can buy it on
GOG.com GOG.com (formerly Good Old Games) is a digital distribution platform for video games and films. It is operated by GOG sp. z o.o., a wholly owned subsidiary of CD Projekt, based in Warsaw, Poland. GOG.com delivers DRM-free video games through i ...
), for above all providing a memorable and at times thrilling adventure, on top of being one of the first games ever to feature both a female protagonist as well as sound card support."


Reviews

* '' Jeux & Stratégie'' #57


References


External links

* *
''King's Quest IV''
at the Sierra Chest {{Authority control 1980s interactive fiction 1988 video games Adventure games Amiga games Apple IIGS games Atari ST games DOS games Fantasy video games Games commercially released with DOSBox King's Quest Point-and-click adventure games ScummVM-supported games Sierra Entertainment games Single-player video games Video games about witchcraft Video games designed by Roberta Williams Video games developed in the United States Video games featuring female protagonists