IA's King's Quest 3 VGA

IA's KQ3VGA is nearly a 1:1 remake. They kept the waiting, the deaths and all, but at the same time, they simplified the spell process and added cut-scenes to expand on the storyline. Personally, I like the changes and I think they did a good job remaking it. It's not perfect, mind you, but they really took the trouble to enhance it while trying to remain true to the original and it shows. The voicepack also adds a nice touch to the game as there's not a single voice in there that sticks out like a sore thumb, unlike KQ2VGA+. (Not trying to praise myself here even though I voiced four characters in the game. Everyone else sounded good.) A few clips didn't seem to fit the scene very well, but that's probably a matter of scene intepretation by the IA team. The easter eggs on the other hand are rather difficult to access because they're put on a very high randomiser (only managed to see two after many repeated attempts and still can't access the third). I'll still examine this game anyway because there are some things worth noting.

Story Presentation

The introduction's been expanded on. We first see Gwydion (the protagonist) dreaming about his past, except he doesn't realize that it's more than a "strange dream". An old maid meets up with the evil wizard Manannan and hands him the kidnapped baby. Manannan shows gratitude by incinerating her. There's no loyalty among villains, is there? Gwydion wakes up and the Narrator explains that he's been Manannan's slave boy for almost 18 years. Manannan then enters the scene and orders him around, reminding Gwydion that he'd lost all his rights "since he cursed his poor parents the day he was born". Manannan then laughs cruelly and leaves Gwydion with unanswered questions about his past. Gwydion resolves to get to the bottom of things.

The manual and the website give more information on Mannannan. His first slave got too curious at age 18 and discovered his secret spellbook. Unfortunately for the slave, he got caught in the act and was killed. From then on, Mannannan swore that he'd kill his slave once he reaches 18. Gwydion's almost 18, so...

The story mainly progresses whenever the wizard is away or sleeping, as Gwydion can't explore very far if he's being watched. Once he's made a pair of ears to understand animal speech, he'll be able to hear rumours of his true past from the animals. Who would have thought that animals liked to gossip? Eventually, Gwydion would have collected all the items needed to defeat the wizard and leave the place for good, but if he hasn't defeated Manannan before the wizard makes his second trip, the player gets rewarded with a cut-scene.

During the second trip, Manannan visits Mordack, his brother, and both joke about dumping Gwydion's corpse at his parents' front door to add salt to the wound. Mordack notes that Manannan has a fondness of cats and that his slaves share the cat's curious nature. This proves ironic later on since Mannanan gets turned into one by Gwydion. This scene adds a rather nice touch overall and anyone who's played KQ5 would like watching this scene for the nostalgia. For the player who's not familiar with KQ5, however, it works well as a foreboding sign.

The second objective of the game is revealed through the Oracle once Gwydion visits the cave. The Oracle will show him the events surrounding his true family in Daventry, and we get to see a short exchange between King Graham and Princess Rosella just before she leaves as a willing sacrifice for the three-headed dragon that's plaguing the kingdom. "You, Alexander, are the only one who can save them!" The Oracle tells him, revealing his true name at the same time. This (and I say this with some bias since I voice-acted the Oracle) was a really cool scene and I liked how they expanded it and showed the dialogue exchange between father and daughter. They portrayed Rosella as a brave woman and gave the player a reason to like her and want to save her. This wasn't the case in the original as the player only got to see her damsel-in-distress form. Of course it helps that Rosella had an amazing voice thanks to Maghrabi, so there's another reason to sympathize with the character.

There's a slight twist to the scene where Alexander tricks Manannan into eating the magical porridge. Unlike the original, there's a delayed reaction here, which leaves both Alexander and possibly the player shocked and confused that "it didn't work", only to have Manannan reappear and mew before turning into a cat. After that, there's a beautiful closeup view of a scared cat with a congratulatory message from the Narrator. It's quite empowering to see a former tormentor and big bad turned into a scaredy cat, and as a glorious closeup. It'll be good to bear that in mind when making games with depressing introductions. It's also good to to throw unexpected curveballs in areas where one might take a scene for granted (but it has to be within reason, as opposed to something completely random).

The ending scene by far is the longest of the lot. The IA team attempted to explain why King Graham could never locate Alexander all these years, something which the original never really touched on and which bothered a lot of players back then. It's a decent attempt since it's a fairy tale-styled game, but its simplistic approach probably wouldn't satisfy the more cynical players. Rosella accepts her twin brother all too quickly, and her explaining that Graham searched everywhere for him with the whole town supporting would just prompt some to ask how a seasoned adventurer can fail to find him in a nearby land. Then again, this has always been a difficult question and the original hardly addressed it in a manner which pleased the fans, so the approach used for the remake is sufficient. They also focused on bonding time between father and son, something which the original didn't do either.

The bonus ending can only be viewed if the player scores the full points. In it, the player gets to see Mordack fetch his feline brother and burn down the house. The look on his face as he burns it down hints of the events that'd occur in KQ5. For the super hardcore KQ fan who has read the KQ Companion, this bonus adding also acts as an inside joke as a certain obnoxious character claimed to have moved into that house after Manannan was turned into a cat.

Game Design

As mentioned earlier, they made an attempt to stay true to the original, so death by falling off cliffs is very possible. The hardcore Sierra player would have no problems with that, but those who aren't familiar with that kind of style are likely to be turned off by it. I watched Perseus try to navigate about the cliffs and he didn't find it amusing to fall off that easily. Joshua stopped playing (temporarily) after being unable to get past that scene. The very first cliff scene (where both ran into troubles with) has a huge boulder blocking the player's view of the path, and so it also misleads the player into thinking that he/she has to walk behind it rather than around it. I don't recall if the original's path was exactly the same, but I do recall the large rock being there. Any original game should avoid using environments with ambiguous paths. I suppose this isn't something you can fault the IA team for since they were trying to following the original. As for me, even though I have played the original before, there were still some cliffs that I had difficulty navigating (not so much the first cliff scene as I played through that several times in the original).

The spell system has it share of fans and haters. The original was a copy-protection system that ensured supporters of pirated copies wouldn't be able to complete the game without the manual, and so players were expected to type out every step and spell line as listed. A typo meant death. Now, problem with that system is that there was a typo in the manual at that time, and so many people were stuck at a crucial puzzle. Oh joy. IA decided to simplify the spell system based on feedback from some of their testers, so the only way to cast the spell successfully is to have all the required spell components and items. Spellcasting is done through clicking the "Cast" speech bubble icon on any one of the spell icons in the spellbook. Version 1 also checked whether any of the items required were already used for something else before determining whether a spell was successfully cast. I don't recall if the original had that, but I do recall some players complaining about that aspect and so that condition was removed for version 2. Fans of this spell system liked it because they didn't like having to type everything from a book while hardcore players complained about the danger element being removed.

There was also another condition that was added in version 1 and removed in version 2. Version 1 made sure that Gwydion reads the spell description concerning cat hair before allowing you to get it from the cat. This wasn't in the original and so some complained about this. It's actually a logical condition to have since you usually shouldn't let players take what they don't know they should be taking yet, but this logic wasn't applied to every other spell item, so it was very contradictory. Like why would Gwydion not think of getting cat hair but would be willing to collect fly wings, for instance? Or chicken feathers? Once a certain logic is established, it needs to remain consistent with everything else, or it'll just be bad game design.

One problem that this game had (and was also present in the original) was the lack of a clear goal for the beginning. A new player who's completely unfamiliar with the King's Quest world wouldn't get what the slaveboy's objective is. Like the original, you have to explore the entire house when the wizard is away and locate the spellbook. Only then will your objectives be clear. Perseus suggested that the introduction could have shown Gwydion accidentally discovering the spellbook, and so the player would know what the objectives are and wouldn't be wandering around wondering what to do.

The bonus ending was a nice addition. It's a good idea to implement a reward so that players would strive to get the perfect score.

GUI

This game uses the standard Sierra interface, so there's not much to comment there. What's interesting to note is that the original had a timing on the top right corner of the screen which players had to use to time their travels. The remake however placed the timing in the options menu, and so some players thought the timer was removed and weren't happy with not being able to keep track of the time. While they did mention it in the manual, it was very easy to forget this, especially those who are used to playing the original. Even I forgot. I feel that unless there's a programming limitation, something as important as a timer should be placed in a prominent position.

One improvement over the original is the arrow function that allows you to keep all unsafe magical items underneath the bed while leaving the non-magical and safe magical items intact in your inventory. Another was the use of colour codes to denote which items were safe magical, unsafe magical, and non-magical so that you'd know which items are ok to carrying around in front of the wizard. A third was that they improved the map feature to allow players the chance to "cheat" at a couple of locations that previously could only be accessed through climbing dangerous cliffs/stairs. Not surprisingly, some people thought it was a bug. I considered it a relief.

There were a couple of items that were distinctly hard to find. The glint for the key occurs too few times for players to notice, and the key itself can barely be seen. I watched Perseus play and not once did it glint as he madly clicked everywhere to hunt for the item (because I told him that he missed it). The other "glint" is mentioned by the Narrator in the study, but there's no visual to indicate where the glint is among the many books in the bookshelf. While this still worked for the original as the game allowed Gwydion to instantly locate the lever through typing a command, it doesn't work with point & click as you have to click your eye icon on every book to hunt down the right book. A KQ3 veteran would have no problems with this since he/she already knows which book to click on, but someone who hasn't played the game won't have any easy time with this.

Zork Nemesis Review

I first started playing this morbid game in 1997 (I think) with my siblings. Wandering around alone in a monastary that's haunted by a demon and ghosts can be very terrifying. Having to visit the room with four dead bodies and talk to their spirits is another. Lying in a sarcophagus to retrieve an important item is creepy. Taking a dead body out of a morgue in order to decapitate it and then question its head on some machine was overdoing it. I heard that the previous Zork games were nowhere as dark or as gruesome as this, so I've no idea why the developers thought it was necessary for Zork Nemesis to stray so far from its predecessors. Still, if you ignore the gore, it's a fairly good game (even though it felt a lot like Myst) with a variety of interesting puzzles, and the visuals are pretty so long as there's no blood or corpses in the screen.

Story Presentation

It's played from a first-person perspective and the visuals are a remediation of film, just like Myst. There are books and letters scattered everywhere which serve to reveal the background history of the locations, the character motivations and how some of the puzzles are to be solved. The manual itself is written as a journal, providing even more background info on the characters, locations and certain special objects to take note of. It also provides maps and introduces the player to the mystery surrounding four alchemists, the temple where they were last headed for (and where the player will begin the journey), and the Nemesis.

The game begins with the player hearing the voice of the dead woman Alexandria, asking for his/her help to save them. After entering the temple, Nemesis will warn the player through his creepy yet booming voice to abandon the quest since all he/she will find is death. He's not kidding. There are four dead bodies in the main hall, each in its own see-through coffin. How and why they died is a mystery the player has to solve, but it's a no-brainer that the four are also the missing alchemists.

The player gets to wander around the temple and solve puzzles that are associated with either the four elements (water, fire, air and earth) or planets (Venus, Jupiter, Saturn and Mars). Each of the elements and planets are associated with the four alchemists (Venus = water, Jupiter = fire, Saturn = air, and Mars = earth). Solving any of the group puzzles would allow the player to speak to the dead alchemist spirit associated with those puzzles, and the alchemist would reveal how the Nemesis murdered them and two young adults, Alexandria and Lucien, in an attempt to get the Philosopher's Stone. All four will talk the player into venturing to their homes and create the stone before he does, explaining that it's the only way to bring them all back to life.

Once the player starts visiting their homes, however, he/she will get to see flashbacks through touching certain objects which slowly reveal their true motivations. This part seems rather odd. There's no reason given why touching those objects would show flashbacks that the four alchemists wouldn't want anyone to see. Anyway, the player gets to realise eventually through reading the letters and seeing flashbacks that the only true innocents are Alexandria and Lucien, and that the four wanted to use Alexandria's blood to create the stone for themselves because she's special.

What the game doesn't explain at all is *how* Lucien became the Nemesis. While the player gets to see how Lucien killed all four one by one after arriving seconds too late to prevent Alexandria's murder, it doesn't show how he turned from a perfectly normal human being to a floating pink glow. Ooh, scary! A floating pink glow! The other flaw is that the way the four were killed by this one guy was incredibly lame. They just stood there and let him kill them one by one! And one of them is supposed to be an accomplished military general. All the years of plotting for immortality wasted just because they didn't think of ganging up against him.

The game forces the player to complete the mission for the four alchemists. Even if the player finds out later that he/she's really helping the bad guys, there's no way to advance forward except to do their bidding. Usually this is a bad thing and I normally get annoyed with this, but I wasn't really annoyed with this one. It's likely due to it being a puzzle-driven game rather than a character-driven one, and the twist isn't all that apparent until after you've uncovered a substantial amount of information. I was however annoyed that Lucien knew what was really going on but instead chose not to expose their deceit to me till after they've revealed their true intentions. There's no real reason why he wouldn't attempt to make the player realise what's going on apart from the "Let's not spoil the twist" reasoning, so I didn't like this part very much.

One difference between Myst and Zork Nemesis is that you aren't alone once you start venturing to other locations. The player always gets to meet exactly one living person in each of the four locations, and three out of four are connected to a puzzle each. It's hard to say whether it's a relief to see them or not. My sister always found it creepy that a place that's seemingly vacant actually isn't. I'm not even sure why those people choose to remain behind when everyone else supposedly left out of fear of being cursed.

Game Design

For a game with a linear storyline, it has a very non-linear approach to puzzle-solving because all the puzzles can be solved in any order. If you're stuck with one puzzle, you can move to the next puzzle as they usually can be solved independently. Sometimes you can choose to visit a completely different location altogether, and all the items you find in the different locations are meant to be used in those locations alone. Sometimes there'd be some literature telling you the recipe or the secret combination needed to solve puzzles, so there's usually enough feedback. The early stages of the game also has an in-game hint system (which can be disabled), where the player can touch Venus' painting after touching a puzzle in order to hear a hint. If the player can't solve it after getting a few hints, the painting will give the solution. Overall, the game handles the stuck-problem well since there's plenty of things to see and explore, and the player rarely gets completely stuck.

Most of the puzzles are logical enough to solve although some don't make much sense story-wise. Why would replacing a ripped poster with a brand new version suddenly make a concert appear out of nowhere, complete with a noisey yet ghostly audience? There are also a few frustrating puzzles, but the one I recall the most vividly involves clicking instruments in the right order in pitch darkness to play a tune in order to turn on the lights! Pixel-hunting takes on a whole new meaning in this puzzle, and it's very easy to miss the right instrument and click on the wrong ones.

I was quite impressed by the variety of puzzles used in this game. Each of the puzzles followed a theme that's associated with the characters, but even then they were presented in very different ways and solving them hardly felt repetitive. For instance, the Mars location had a painting with a hidden message and four strategy information speakers which had to be used together to key in a suitable military strategy code and win the war. It also had a pool table where keying in the right number would reveal a number combination. The player has to realise that the combination is meant for driving the tank and the clue to figuring out the right number to get the combination has to do with the titles associated with the numbers. For Saturn's place, the player has to figure out that the weird vision he/she gets from sitting in a creepy chair actually reveals a door that can't be seen otherwise.

Unfortunately, because those puzzles were interesting, the last puzzle was a letdown and seemed rather anti-climatic in comparison. You don't have to figure out how it works. Just click on all four, and you're bound to get the right combination quickly.

It is possible to die in this game, but death in this game is few and far between, which is rather ironic now that I think of it. A game that's meant to be gorey as well as creepy has fewer death scenes than the Sierra adventure games for kids. The game also usually makes it obvious when it's possible to die.

It's also possible to get into a dead-end situation. If the player hangs a lit torch before solving a puzzle, then he/she can't take it back and can't solve that puzzle, rendering it unwinnable.

The game has a ranking system that updates itself everytime the player successfully completes all the puzzles in their respective groupings. It's a useful way of seeing just how far you've progressed in the game since it only has nine ranks and lets you know which rank you're under during gameplay. It's not the same as the score system used in the Sierra games as there's no way to complete the game without getting the full score.

GUI

It uses pretty much the same interface as Myst. Navigation is done using a gold arrow, while interaction is done using a gold hand. The cursor highlights when you either encounter an object that can be interacted with or if there's another possible direction to look such as up or down.

The menu interface pops up if the cursor moves to the top of the screen, and all the options are in text only.

Right-clicking the mouse changes the cursor to an inventory item. You have to keep clicking on the right mouse button to cycle through all the items.