Beat It! King's Quest 3 Review! (Many Spoilers)

[rogeru]

Alright before I begin this, let me just make a shameless plug. I recorded my entire KQ3 adventure in a Let's Play and the episodes are being uploaded to Youtube. I hope you find my comments mildly entertaining.

http://www.youtube.com/user/RogerUhla?feature=mhum#p/a

In this review, I'll be talking about GAMEPLAY,GRAPHICS, MUSIC&SOUND, STORY, LOGIC, and COMMERCE. Some people might say "Why Commerce". As a professional designer one of the elements that I find to be important when judging work is it's "commercial-ability"

GAMEPLAY -9-
This game was by far...by FAR the most satisfying adventure game I've ever played. By that I mean that it wasn't all fun and games in the beginning. I really had no idea where the game was going other than wandering around and wandering if some epic turn would take place. And it did very much so. I came across the Library TOTALLY by accident and finangled my way in to find a book. Without even looking in it I rushed home and after feeding Manannan I gave the book a read. As I read it GOOSEBUMPS shivvered up my spine. I saw a very clear objective and the gameplay had purpose. Every moment of the game was full of conflict and excitement from then on out. Using the very best of my logic I navigated this story with an intense suspension of belief.

GRAPHICS -7-
I have to say that while some of the graphics were very beautiful, others were not. The main character often had moments of ackwardness in his illustration, as well as there were some serious perspective issues in the story art. Much of the art in the game was well colored, but lopsided and ackward nonetheless.
To be fair, however, I truly enjoyed the graphics of the game and found them to be above average when it comes to indie-free games. Many of the special effects like the flames and smokebombs were interesting and refreshing.

MUSIC AND SOUND -10-
Oh the MUSIC!!! The music in this game was by far the most compelling element of design! I LOVED each area's background music and every emotion that could be felt was truly felt. Games don't usually do anything to me but this game had me RAVENOUS( get it?) the whole time and a major MAJOR part of it was the music. The sound effects and whatnot were great as well. Nothing felt out of place when it came to sound the whole game.

Also the voice acting was wonderful. There were several lines that game out slurred, but the fact that you got the original voice of King Graham covered any of that 10 times over.

STORY -10-
Beautiful story. Something about Gwydion discovering the truth behind the wizard and the past Gwydions really hit me on an emotional level. That and then Mannanan getting his "just desserts" (get it?). Also Alexander returning home was very very effective. Wonderful wonderful story.

LOGIC -8-
Logic is a funny thing. A game designer who is more logical will design a game that is very logical, but if an less logical person plays it, because of his lack of logic he doesn't enjoy the game. Therefore the logical thing to do would be to make a game that's logic is only as logical as the logic of those who play it.

I navigated the entire game (save one very dumb part) WITHOUT a walkthrough. Therefore for the most part I found the logic of this adventure game to be mostly spot on. The two parts that I found to be truly dumb were "The spoonful of mud" hunt and the whole "Order of Importance" test. I clicked on maybe 50 different spots on each screen to scoop up some mud and for some stupid reason, only a very small section of a creekside qualified as mud. That's illogical.

As for the Order of Importance, I carefully thought through each choice and broke down each element's importance to it's most basis form and concluded that the most important was (foodandwater)(knowledge)(work)(jewels). My justification for that was that without knowledge you could never hope to do any kind of effective work and therefore Knowledge exceeds Work in terms of importance.

Even you game designers know that without lots of game making knowledge, all the work you did to make the game would be meaningless.

Therefore I conclude that the rest of the game was highly logical with only 2 very brief parts that went south. If those were to be fixed, or at least clarified, this game would have Adventure Gaming Perfect Logic.

COMMERCIAL-ABILITY -3-
It's my understanding that this is a fan-game made totally for fun and free to play, therefore it's commercial-ability was never factored into it's design. Also the original KQ makers would not be happy to find out that you were selling a game that has thier name, ideas ect. Therefore I have to say that this project would not make a good seller.

On the other hand the one thing about this project that I saw as COMMERCIAL-ABLE is that now you guys have assembled a crack team of indie designers who could quite successfully make thier own original works and have a base audience to market to. THAT is a possibility that I would consider.

OVERALL
Like I said before this was the most compelling adventure game I've ever played. I truly overall found this to be a fun, compelling, logical, and emotional experience and I look foreward to seeing the next big AGD project.

[Erpy]

It's my understanding that this is a fan-game made totally for fun and free to play, therefore it's commercial-ability was never factored into it's design. Also the original KQ makers would not be happy to find out that you were selling a game that has thier name, ideas ect. Therefore I have to say that this project would not make a good seller.

This one kinda puzzles me. When making games, I try to make them fun and my (maybe naïve) position is that the more fun a game is, the better it would sell if it was commercial. The original KQ makers received a lot of money in exchange for the willingness not to feel unhappy when someone other than themselves sold the game (as long as they were legally in the clear), so I'm not sure what you mean here. I'm curious how you came to the conclusion that commercial-ability was obviously not factored into the game's design.

[rogeru]

I understand the qualm. What I meant was THIS particular game, not the original KQ3.

Fun factor is obviously a must have for a great selling game, but I'm sure we all agree that there are a great deal of great selling games that made thier millions off of other things than fun-factor. The best example of what I'm talking about would be something like Heavenly Sword. No one thought a whole lot of it, and it hasn't stood the test of time well, but it made a lot of money because the graphics were good and they chose a gorgeous girl to be the main character.

[Erpy]

So...are you saying the game as it is wouldn't have sold well as a commercial remake unless we turned Alexander into Alexandra?

[Radogol]

No one thought a whole lot of it, and it hasn't stood the test of time well, but it made a lot of money because the graphics were good and they chose a gorgeous girl to be the main character.

It COST a lot of money. However, I believe it didn't make its budget back. So there.

[Anonymous Game Creator 2]

Ken WIliams was offered the opportunity to buy the Sierra IP back just before Vivendi's franchises were acquired by Activision in 2008, an offer he sadly turned down. I think it's probably safe to assume that if Ken had the chance to reclaim the legacy he created, and chose not to, then he's probably not too concerned about who's profiting from KQ games (or other Sierra IP) these days, as long as they have the legal permission.

In regards to commercial viability, I'm not a big fan of dumbing down games to appeal to the masses so that they'll get more sales but a crappier product. I have no qualms about keeping the good aspects of Sierra's game design, removing the bad parts like dead-ends, and adding some modern gameplay elements (i.e. achievements/awards). You see, it also can work in reverse: why follow the status quo, just because everyone else is? There's nothing wrong with trying to wean casual players onto more challenging games like these.

Look at HOG's; a few years back they were very simple "look at the scene, find all the objects, and click them" type games. Anyone could knock out a lackluster HOG in 2005-2008 and make a small fortune by releasing it on casual portals like Big Fish Games. But nowadays, those HOGs don't sell anymore. Even the casual HOG players started demanding more challenge in their games, so HOG's are starting to adapt by including more and more traditional adventure game elements. To me, this is a very good sign, because it shows that casual gamers get bored easily, and many of them are craving an increased level of challenge with more thinking and puzzle-solving involved. Sierra style adventures that make the player think are the next logical step away from that.

[rogeru]

Well in any case, it was an awesome game and it was fun for me. I look foreward to the next ADG game with excitement.

[DrJones]

Well in any case, it was an awesome game and it was fun for me. I look foreward to the next ADG game with excitement.

That's going to be a pretty long wait, I presume.

[Gronagor]

I agree with AGD2 that selling clone-games to the masses is pointless for most companies.

One of the advantages of the adventure community: Players know what they want.
No need to spend millions on marketing to 'brainwash' people into buying a game.

Edit: In other words, selling a million copies is more than enough. Why go for 100 mil? Greed?

[rogeru]

Well like I said before this game was by FAR the most compelling and satisfying game I've played in years.