# King's Quest *Quest for the Crown* - Work: Adventure game - Date: 1984 (IBM PCjr) - Made by: Roberta Williams (Designer & writer) - Houses: Sierra On-Line - Platforms: IBM PCjr, Tandy 1000, Apple II, MS-DOS, Atari ST, Amiga, Macintosh, Apple IIGS, Master System - Canonical: https://www.lanternhall.org/works/kings-quest/ > Sir Graham walks into a storybook: Roberta Williams's animated fairy-tale adventure, built to show off IBM's PCjr, where you steer a knight behind trees and in front of castles in search of a magic mirror, shield and chest. **Why it matters:** King's Quest turned the text adventure into an animated, explorable world, rescued Sierra On-Line after the 1983 crash, and began the graphic-adventure genre's most celebrated fantasy series. ## Quick answers **When was King's Quest first released?** King's Quest was first released in 1984 (IBM PCjr). **Who created King's Quest?** King's Quest was made by Roberta Williams (designer & writer). **Who published or developed King's Quest?** Sierra On-Line. **What kind of work is King's Quest?** King's Quest is an adventure game in the Fairy-Tale Fantasy tradition, released for IBM PCjr, Tandy 1000, Apple II, MS-DOS, Atari ST, Amiga, Macintosh, Apple IIGS and Master System. **Why is King's Quest important?** King's Quest turned the text adventure into an animated, explorable world, rescued Sierra On-Line after the 1983 crash, and began the graphic-adventure genre's most celebrated fantasy series. ## Overview A small knight walks across a green meadow, disappears behind a tree, and reappears in front of a castle moat patrolled by alligators. In 1984 this was astonishing. *King's Quest*, designed by [Roberta Williams](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/roberta-williams/) for [Sierra On-Line](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/sierra-on-line/) and first published by IBM for its PCjr computer in May 1984, sends Sir Graham across the kingdom of Daventry to recover three stolen treasures for the dying King Edward: a mirror that shows the future, a shield that protects its bearer from all harm, and a chest that never empties of gold. Succeed, and Graham will be king. Although not a role-playing game, *King's Quest* belongs in any history of digital fantasy. It gave a generation their first explorable fairy-tale world on a computer and started the adventure series that sat beside *Ultima* and [*The Bard's Tale*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-bards-tale/) on 1980s software shelves. ## Origins Roberta and Ken Williams had founded On-Line Systems in 1979; Roberta's fascination with [*Colossal Cave Adventure*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/colossal-cave-adventure/) had led to her first game, *Mystery House* (1980), and the company, renamed Sierra, had grown to nearly 100 employees. In late 1982 IBM approached it to make a graphical adventure, similar to Sierra's *The Wizard and the Princess* (1980) but animated, to show off the upcoming PCjr's 16-color graphics and larger memory. IBM provided roughly $700,000, making it Sierra's most expensive project to date, and demanded secrecy. Roberta took the brief literally and wrote a heroic quest drawn from familiar fairy tales, from giants and beanstalks to leprechauns, dragons and witches, set in [Grimm](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/grimms-fairy-tales/)-like country. A team of six programmers and artists spent 18 months building it. Background art for each of the roughly 80 locations was traced into the computer as drawing instructions with "priority" values that told the engine what stood in front of what, and the reusable Adventure Game Interpreter (AGI) let a walking hero move through those layers. It was Sierra's first game with a third-person protagonist, something its Apple II titles could not have handled. ## How it plays The player moves Graham with the keyboard and types commands such as "get stone" or "open door," which must fit where he is standing. Screens flip as he walks off one edge onto the next. Puzzles often have multiple solutions, points reward clever or kind choices, and death comes easily, whether falling from a bridge, drowning in the moat or meeting a wolf, so saving often is essential. Graham climbs to the Land of the Clouds, tricks underground leprechauns and outwits a dragon before returning to the throne room. ## Reception & impact Reviewers were dazzled by the animation. *Computer Games* called it a "revolutionary breakthrough," *Family Computing* a "giant leap forward," and several critics said playing it was like being inside a cartoon, though some found it slow and difficult. The PCjr flopped, but with IBM's encouragement Sierra ported the game widely, to the Tandy 1000, Apple IIe, MS-DOS, Atari ST, Amiga, Macintosh and Apple IIGS, and in 1989 to Sega's Master System. It sold more than 100,000 copies by 1986, and the first three games together passed 500,000 by mid-1987. The timing saved Sierra. The video game crash of 1983 had cut the company to about 30 employees, and IBM's money, followed by more IBM contracts and new access to retail chains, kept it alive. Roberta Williams has called *King's Quest* the real beginning of Sierra. ## Legacy Seven more *King's Quest* games followed from 1985 to 1998, and Sierra remade the first in 1990 with its newer engine; fan and official reimaginings appeared in 2001 and 2015. Critics describe it as the progenitor of the graphic adventure as it was known for the next two decades, the tradition of point-and-click games that paralleled the computer RPG. *Time* named it among the 100 greatest video games in 2012, and in 2020 it entered the World Video Game Hall of Fame. ## Facts - IBM commissioned it to showcase the PCjr's 16-color graphics; Sierra's documents referred to it by the code name 'BFC.' - Sierra never saw a real PCjr during development and worked on modified IBM PCs instead. - Screens were stored as drawing instructions rather than images, so each scene visibly paints itself in a few seconds. - It is often named as the first computer game in which players moved an animated character both in front of and behind scenery. - Its engine, the Adventure Game Interpreter, powered many later Sierra games. - The hero, originally Sir Grahame, is tasked with finding a magic mirror, a protective shield and an ever-full chest of gold. ## Sources and further reading - [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_Quest_I) --- From The Lantern Hall (https://www.lanternhall.org/), a museum of fantasy literature and roleplaying games.