The one nice thing is that swimming west from the pier works relatively kindly. There's one less screen of ocean to cover, no extra shark probabilities, and it lines up with the part of Genesta's island where the feather is most likely to appear.
@@vargsvansifyI assume they first tried this a long time ago and they got past it since then or just as valid, have no interest in resuming a decades old sierra game
@@OneShortEye If you make an honest effort to get that stuff legitimately and can't even figure out who you need to talk to, I think you've got a good argument for just printing your own poster. Moral argument, I mean. It probably wouldn't stand up in court.
I distinctly remember myself as a child playing this and panicking the second the fairy said I only had twenty-four hours to do everything, suddenly overcome by warlike flashbacks to the timer in KQIII.
I like how the little green son seems to genuinely love her. He gives her the key so she isn't forced to marry him, doesn't try to pressure her into staying in the castle even once the danger has passed despite obviously still being smitten, and doesn't get angry when she rejects him at the end. That bit was so hilarious btw
Thanks for the shout out, OneShortEye! And WOW, what a video! I always enjoy your in-depth looks at these classic games, and it's amazing how you keep raising the quality bar with every video. The amount of research that must have went into this one is nothing short of gargantuan. Congrats! And yes, since I've never actually looked at the original game's code, there were quite a few details that I wasn't aware of myself (I had no idea the shark's behavior was so complex!). It's pretty funny how the KQ4 programmers never seemed to reuse the same code for different characters (or even for the same character on different screens), but I've always felt like this makes the game feel more alive. Cheers!
While I did play this back in the day, I can't claim to have beaten it unspoiled. Whenever I got stuck, I'd ask my parents if we could go to the mall, where I could go to Software Etc. and root around in the unshrinkwrapped King's Quest Companion to get unstuck. Eventually they got sick of dealing with this and just bought me the book, and I wore both the covers off of it, along with a bunch of pages from each end. KQIV is a game that's best when replayed. Once you know what you're "supposed" to do, the frustration around the game design is less of an issue, and you can enjoy spending time in this beautiful, whimsical, and sometimes scary game world. I think it's really fun to explore, and although I would say I know this game inside and out, I certainly learned a lot from this video. 😳 I feel like your production value has really hit new heights here, and it's great. Thanks for making this and sharing it with us!
I used to play this game with my parents AND my granddad, who was obsessed with the Sierra games. I still have some of his hand-drawn maps of the labyrinth and desert in KQ5, and they're so precious to me. He loved these games so much and was surprisingly good at brute forcing stuff. So here's a fun fact, courtesy of my granddad: you can also bug the zombies out by equipping the frog crown. If you put on the crown right as a zombie is about to grab you, the game gets confused. Zombie Rosella will stagger away, and a couple seconds later it displays the "You decide to take off the crown" message, you turn back into Rosella, and can carry on your merry way! Of course when he got to the mummy it was all over, but I just think it's so cool he figured that out. I'd like to think he'd be a mad speedrunner today.
Not sure if this was intentional or coincidental, but your "I can't read this!" was a perfect impression of part of an easter egg from Larry 7. The Narrator, Neil Ross goes "Al! I can't read this! I have standards!", ostensibly to the writer Al Lowe about a line that was too dirty. Funny stuff.
Friends will cry and maidens weep, Your Hero's in the grave asleep. You may yell and you may roar -- But better if you click "Restore." The Moral's plain -- the old refrain -- Frequently just Save the game.
We live in an era when people will pour literally thousands of hours into something like Team Fortress or Genshin Impact. I don't think time was the deciding factors. And normally a game like this would last you a month or two. Like so many puzzles you would pick away at it a bit then let your brain rest then pick away again.
About the evil trees... on the screen where one of them is shorter than the others, if you get grabbed by *that* tree, there's a unique animation in which Rosella struggles and one of her shoes falls off. Getting grabbed by any of the others just shows her immediately dying. And yes, the Unicorn Tales remake progress has been slowed to a crawl - mainly due to the tragic passing of Karen Soroe, but work is still being done on it and we will release it in her honor. There have been other delays and technical difficulties, however, and it seems that work on the introduction and ending(s) won't be able to resume until after the new year. We are nearly finished with the actual gameplay section though - at the moment, there's just a couple little things that need to be squeezed in.
@1:00:45 Yes, you can finish the game without the Lantern. The first time I played the game it was without walkthrus or help. I finished the game by navigating the cave in the dark, by literally stepping one pixel at a time and saving between each step. If I made a bad step, I reloaded a previous step and tried a different direction.
26:35 Oh, interesting tidbit that I rediscovered last night in SQH's discord. Later versions of the game (don't know which exact version it was introduced), add a proper hint to the bridle. In earlier versions, typing "look at boat" would produce the text "It looks as if many an unlucky sailor had been stranded here." Those later versions add an additional sentence "You see a glint coming from one of the wrecked boats on the beach."
I've never seen this "inside whale" map before... though I *have* seen another, very similar "inside sperm whale" map for the text adventure version of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy! (The KQ4 whale is probably also a sperm whale; though it's never explicitly identified as such, it looks like one on the outside, is large enough to swallow Rosella, and is clearly a toothed whale rather than a baleen whale. Curiously, while the whale swallows Rosella in all versions of KQ4, the SCI version describes the pool of liquid as the whale's stomach while in the AGI version it's the back of the whale's mouth.)
Amazing job on this. So much love and care put into the production. And I must give a giant shout out to Sarah Kelley delivering such a standout performance as the narrator. Her sardonic chiding delivery was absolutely perfect. I would love to see you do outtakes or a "director's cut" addition that featured her narrating the game overs, etc. That would be amazing :)
Just yesterday I was clicking on OneShortEye's profile because I hadn't seen a new video for a while and was jonesing for a new one. This is welcome. Thank you. 50:18: Paul says his favourite part is "when Night turns to Day" several times during his bit, but from context, I think he means "when Day turns to Night."
I love this game so much, it is my favourite King's Quest game. With all the unwinnable states, unfair deaths, stairs and absurd puzzle design... it still has its charm and sweet story. I love the bittersweet feeling throughout this game with the ghosts and abandoned house and the danger of Lolotte.
Man, those developers back in the 80's sure had a lot of fun back in the office. Imagine writing and coding all those responses in those oldass computers.
Paul commenting that you don't need nostalgia to enjoy these games hit so close to my experience with Sierra adventure games in general! They were a bit before my time so I didn't play them growing up and I didn't discover them until my late 20s, but I can say wholeheartedly that I love Sierra games in general and King's Quest games in specific! There are a lot of things that are frustrating in retrospect or haven't aged well, but there really do have something special that I fell in love with not just years, but decades, after their release.
Cedric seems to be *creating a sticky little puddle at his feet.* The tone of the second half of that line does not sound like the narrator shaming Cedric, but rather sounds like he's going to cap that line with "Cedric has been a naughty little owl, hasn't he?"
Another enjoyable OneShortEye video, and loved learning all these things about KQIV I never knew about before. Also puts a smile on my face that Josh Mandel continues to reprise his role as Graham whenever asked, absolute legend.
"rub self" def didn't go "undiscovdered for thirty years". I remember discussing it on bulliten boards and seeing it myself as I played KQ4 right after a larry game, where you were encouraged to do stuff like that for funny responses. I can't imagine I was the only one.
just stumbled upon this vid. this must be the most fun i've had watching a video about a videogame in the past year or so! no editing miracles, no cynical meta jokes. the walkthrough is explained well and the humor is top notch. almost feels like a video from early 2010s gaming youtube
Thank you for the care and effort you put into all your videos, and especially this one. It’s so easy to point out flaws in old games and be rude about it for a cheap laugh. That you took the time to ask people to mention some things they loved gave the video such a warmth and frankly it echoes how I feel about 4. I love so much about it but it’s also one of the few games I’d never want to play it myself (played it with friends) because of how insane some of the asks are. That remake sounds like the perfect way for me to play.
I'm just filled with joy that a channel that focuses on Sierra games has as much traction as you do. I hope more people will be able to find these videos and try the games out. :)
KQ4 periodically alternates with KQ6 for being my favorite game in the series. It’s definitely the KQ that gave me the most strange and bizarre dreams at night when I was a kid. I distinctly remember dreaming about the troll cave, the ogre & his house, Lolotte’s castle & the goons, as well as the haunted mansion & the surrounding cemetery. I even once had a dream where my mind inserted a lighthouse on the shoreline that contained a secret underground passage to the troll cave. I think it’s the KQ game I spent the most time thinking about when I wasn’t playing it.
The swear list and kissing tier list remind me that in Conquests of Camelot, fuck was properly put in as a verb. Many characters will politely refuse the offer
As someone who only experiences these games through THESE videos, I love the random percent chances of events. My favorites being 49% and 50/101 situations.
After seeing the 'a game that can make you cry!' ads again, I'm now wondering if Death from KQ6 is supposed to represent a jaded, unimpressed gamer, fused to his computer chair, having seen every type of adventure game he no longer feels any emotions and yet, will grant you mercy if you can make him shed a single tear
Saw this live. KQ4 is a really weird game. There's quite a few cool things about it, but the way it's designed ends up making it probably my least favorite KQ out of the ones I've beaten. I feel this game is also one of the biggest notable instances of Roberta's influence of Colossal Cave Adventure shines through. It's in almost all her games, especially the early ones, but the out there puzzles and luck, not to mention the idea of taking so long to figure it out on your own, certainly is lifted from it. Another banger adventure game video. Can't wait for more! I'd love to see someone such as your self cover more LucasArts game or even the MacVenture series.
Well, back when this came out I remember being quite impressed by the marketing as "Software Etc..." had computers set up playing live action skits of a girl with a lantern navigating a dark cave in a reference to the troll cave section. One thing I did notice towards the end (weird messages about urban legends aside) was that Sierra seemed to become far too experimental and arrogant towards the end, instead of sticking with what they did well, or learning to evolve it. I noticed that King's Quest IV, V, and VI were all big events and well promoted, but they put more effort into IV than either of the other two and seemed to be skimping on everything. After that it seemed to die with a whimper while they seemed to think they could print money through things like their "Imagination network" and getting people to pay by the minute for things like Ysebrius and Twinson even as far better games were slapping them around hard. I still remember comparing say "The Realm" which was one of their last projects to "Ultima Online" and realizing that was where all their money went. While they got pretty greedy towards the end, with people even joking their logo looked like "The Death Star", I can't help but feel that they were one of the old school game developers that would have made things better if they had stayed around, close to their original outlook, and failed to serve as a cautionary tale to other developers about why one should try and stay in their lane, and if they must change, to do it gradually, to avoid turning into oncoming traffic.
I was never that much into old adventure games, but man, your videos are so much fun to watch that I cannot help myself but start loving adventure games and speed running of them
I've never seen Retold before!! That's amazing! I love the remakes I've played of the other titles and didn't know about this one. I'll definitely have to play it!
it's sunday night here, i'm going to bed in about 2-3 hours and don't think i'll sleep very well i'm saving this for my inevitable insomnia, always a good day when shorty uploads, even better when it's a kings quest video, and even BETTER when it's the length of a friggin movie
Ah, the memories. When I was a grade school child I would go upstairs and down the walkway to my friend's apartment [her and her dad]. She was like an older sister to me, and we'd play Kings Quest IV together for hours, as well as Super Mario 3. Good times.
I love your videos and style of production so much. I have learned so much about a genre I would never be able to play myself, and it has given me a deep appreciation for all of these games you have documented. Please keep making these as long as you can.
I played alot this game, and I mean a lot, like 5 years before using a hintbook. I was able to discover the fearie island by myself (And my brother) by "cheating" the shark by staying next to the edge of the screen and each time shark would come close, i would "zone". I also was able to bypass the evil forest without having the axe by 1000+ trial and error and finding a 1 pixel path to the next screen. At the end, i was stuck in the game and couldn't figure out how to solve the puzzles. The main reason is the dwarf diamond pouch... I always gave it first to the fisherman, then without knowing it could never get the dwarf lanthern... Thanks formthis review, walk through!
When talking about the strange game design, one have to put things into perspective. Sierra Games back then cost about 120 DM in Germany, which would be 60 € now, but more like 120 € because of inflation. How long does it take you to get through the game with a walkthrough? Maybe two hours? If it would have been easy, people would just not have spent that much money on these games back then. Getting softlocked was just part of the deal. Also, games weren't a mass market back then as they are today. No casual gamers. On the other hand, restarting was not much of an effort. This was not some open world game that got you softlocked after 50 hours of grind.
This was my first videogame. It took me from age seven to age 25 using online text walkthroughs before I beat it. About five years I was stuck in the whales mouth and another one or two years I was unable to outrun the ogre with the hen because I was in that awkward phase where the computer was faster than the software. My dad bought it when it was brand new because he was a computer guy and wanted to own some state of the art software to feel like a real techie. I may have spent more time wandering around this world than time spent on any other game for the rest of my life just hoping to figure stuff out. Finding the golden ball took way way too many years
I was born in 2005 and having not grown up in the era of iconic point-and-clicks (besides the Sam and Max games), I love watching you tear into these. No matter which game it is or what year it's from, I can't pull my face away from the screen. Thanks for such awesome content!
I had no idea there were two versions of the game with different graphical levels. I still have an original boxed copy with the nine 5.25" disks, so I'll be hanging on to that one!
Had to split this into a couple of different viewing sections but your videos are always worth it. The "Inside the Whale" diagram from the guidebook literally made me cackle, god tier imagery.
Well, you're not exactly robbing the graves, because you're immediately returning what you find to the person they were buried with (ironically, they couldn't rest without them). Pandora's box, albeit very risky morally, was for a greater good, and you can return it.
As someone who mostly stuck to action games and text adventures, your videos on these old graphical adventures are fascinating. Thank you so much! 1:12:39 As a programmer who makes mistakes like these and has to fix them a lot, I feel your pain. It's so frustrating to keep in mind whether the Random function in any given context is inclusive or exclusive and whether I've done the math and the sign correctly, whenever I have the rest of the program to work on, too, so it's nice to see someone appreciate that 0 through 100 inclusive is 101 possibilities. 1:16:41 Holy shit.
Excellent work as always! I'm so glad I found this channel, many childhood memories watching my dad play the old King's Quest games. I also wish listed Phantom Fellows, love a good adventure game!
1:17:13 the dude speedrunning and repeatedly getting eaten by sharks going like "yes! please! give me another one, I love it!" is so relatable, I do that exact same thing xD
I played this game as a kid and I adored every moment. The first time, it was PC speaker bleeps and blorps, but when KQ7 came along, what with it's lack of subtitles, it finally mandated the acquisition of a sound card. No Roland MT-32 at the time, I played it with a Sound Blaster 16. Still better than PC speaker beeps and bops. Yes, the game has dead ends. It's a Sierra game pre-KQ7. That was the norm. Yes, it isn't always clear what will eventually solve a puzzle, but so long as you address whatever you CAN figure out, all the puzzle pieces do eventually fall into place. I'm basically just helping people as I go along and getting tools I can eventually use to help other people, and at some point, that may just help me with my own task. I'm a heroine, it's what we do! The whale tongue is it's own kind of hell, but frankly, playing as a family, we all managed to find the bridle for one reason. That chunk of ship looks to be obviously hiding something, and looking inside that reveals the bridle. Any obscured chuck of geometry like THAT is something I learned even then to always look inside. Like, it's a universal law of gaming, up there with "there's always something behind the waterfall" (there was) and "there's something hidden in the well (well well well, at least there is in KQ1). Yes, the mythologies are all OVER the place. I just accepted it, because I played a Dracula game where you fight Medusa for some reason, and I played a lot of Japanese RPGs where you fight all kinds of mythical creatures out of time and place just because "it's fantasy". Heck even Chronicles of Narnia just tosses centaurs and satyrs at you out of nowhere. It wouldn't make Tolkien happy, but eh, it's fine. And I adored the sarcastic narrator! It's part of the charm of the game. All in all, I found it a wonderful fairy-tale story that wasn't exactly a straight comedy, but didn't take itself too seriously either. I accept all the little silly aspects like a mummy literally put in the game just to run right back into it's sarcophagus. It was a charming experience where, a lot of the time, you appear meant to have to die to learn something about what you'll be facing next so you know to go back and explore and hopefully find what you need. The rule of this game is "save often, and in separate save files with distinct names". But, that's a lot of early King's Quest games. The one thing I'll admit is this. This is not a good speed running game. I don't play them that way, so that's fine by me, but I can understand it and respect it as valid criticism. As for the dead ends and the occasional parser issues, yep, I agree that the fan made version is the ideal way to play it these days. Sure, I'd have loved Tierra to have taken a shot at remaking it themselves so there'd be a straight range from 1-5 of identical looking and sounding games, but it's a good compromise. I only wish they'd added all the text descriptions items got in the AGI version.
Most of the time he doesn't block Rosella. (He doesn't actually backhand her, that's me moving out of the way and accidentally falling in the water.) You have to be at a really particular y coordinate (I think), and I just got lucky when I was capturing footage. Decided to run with it.
I really wish I worked as a player guide map maker in this day and age. I'm _pretty sure_ I could do a map on par with that Inside Whale one, lol. Props to another amazing video, OneShortEye - complete with all that crazy math you had to explain! The hard work is appreciated. Also appreciate Anna's voice work here for Rosella; everyone did a great job but Rosella has to say some bizarre things in this, lol.
This was my first and only KQ game, and I never finished it, having gotten stuck on the snake. Still, it sparked my love for adventure games, which has never extinguished.
![[FREE] Morad X Baby Gang Type Beat "Midnight"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/dQS2VgCSrE4/mqdefault.jpg)
"Inside Whale" is truly the most helpful diagram any game manual has ever provided.
I had to clip that part of the video: ua-cam.com/users/clipUgkxlR74vLvZGzFDk3UAVm9PjhtGIdzXeJF7
Nah, "Samus' left arm" in the first or second Metroid booklet seems way more useless :P
Definitely a “Yes, the floor is made out of floor” moment
Inside Whale
[Inside Whale]
Good band name
The first time I went in the ocean I immediately got eaten by a shark. I assumed that was as far as i could go.
Right? It’s such weird game design.
The one nice thing is that swimming west from the pier works relatively kindly. There's one less screen of ocean to cover, no extra shark probabilities, and it lines up with the part of Genesta's island where the feather is most likely to appear.
This happened to me irl
@@williamdittmann9281 You should try again! Maybe it was just bad RNG?
@@vargsvansifyI assume they first tried this a long time ago and they got past it since then or just as valid, have no interest in resuming a decades old sierra game
The inside whale map is absolutely as funny as you think it is. Absolutely fantastic
If I had the time and energy to track down the rights holders, I'd want that as a poster / print / t-shirt.
@@OneShortEye If you make an honest effort to get that stuff legitimately and can't even figure out who you need to talk to, I think you've got a good argument for just printing your own poster.
Moral argument, I mean. It probably wouldn't stand up in court.
@@OneShortEyehow many people will get the joke though? Honestly, I didn't even know about this before I watched your video 😂
@@lutfimakarim8258 If I'm the only one who buys it, it will have been worth it.
@@OneShortEyeMaybe dropping Aunt Berta an email could get that going, ha.
"Watch video"
"Ah, you feel better now."
Verb synonym group: [watch, scrub, gaze, rub]
"Which video? Your reccomendation tab is full of them! Be more specific!"
I distinctly remember myself as a child playing this and panicking the second the fairy said I only had twenty-four hours to do everything, suddenly overcome by warlike flashbacks to the timer in KQIII.
I like how the little green son seems to genuinely love her. He gives her the key so she isn't forced to marry him, doesn't try to pressure her into staying in the castle even once the danger has passed despite obviously still being smitten, and doesn't get angry when she rejects him at the end. That bit was so hilarious btw
"you do weirder stuff than kiss birds in king quest games" PREACH BROTHER
I knew that owl was seducing me!! ~ Graham, probably.
After this game I always referred to our dogs nose as "velvety soft nose". I learned both the words "velvet" and "uvula" from this game.
My dumb brain refuses to read "uvula" as anything but "vulva" after reading "velvet". Help
Velvet Uvula is my favorite Nine Inch Nails album.
let me touch your velvety uvula 😶
I learned so much vocabulary from kq3 & kq4. I had a sheet of paper I'd add words to as I learned them in game.
@miramurray1379
Thanks. Now I cant read it as anything else either.
Thanks for the shout out, OneShortEye! And WOW, what a video! I always enjoy your in-depth looks at these classic games, and it's amazing how you keep raising the quality bar with every video. The amount of research that must have went into this one is nothing short of gargantuan. Congrats!
And yes, since I've never actually looked at the original game's code, there were quite a few details that I wasn't aware of myself (I had no idea the shark's behavior was so complex!). It's pretty funny how the KQ4 programmers never seemed to reuse the same code for different characters (or even for the same character on different screens), but I've always felt like this makes the game feel more alive.
Cheers!
While I did play this back in the day, I can't claim to have beaten it unspoiled. Whenever I got stuck, I'd ask my parents if we could go to the mall, where I could go to Software Etc. and root around in the unshrinkwrapped King's Quest Companion to get unstuck. Eventually they got sick of dealing with this and just bought me the book, and I wore both the covers off of it, along with a bunch of pages from each end.
KQIV is a game that's best when replayed. Once you know what you're "supposed" to do, the frustration around the game design is less of an issue, and you can enjoy spending time in this beautiful, whimsical, and sometimes scary game world. I think it's really fun to explore, and although I would say I know this game inside and out, I certainly learned a lot from this video. 😳
I feel like your production value has really hit new heights here, and it's great. Thanks for making this and sharing it with us!
A Summoning Salt AND a OneShortEye video on the same day, I feel spoiled.
What a time to be alive
I was shocked when I looked in my feed. Came here to make the same comment.
truly the 2 best youtubers of this day and age
I used to play this game with my parents AND my granddad, who was obsessed with the Sierra games. I still have some of his hand-drawn maps of the labyrinth and desert in KQ5, and they're so precious to me. He loved these games so much and was surprisingly good at brute forcing stuff. So here's a fun fact, courtesy of my granddad: you can also bug the zombies out by equipping the frog crown. If you put on the crown right as a zombie is about to grab you, the game gets confused. Zombie Rosella will stagger away, and a couple seconds later it displays the "You decide to take off the crown" message, you turn back into Rosella, and can carry on your merry way! Of course when he got to the mummy it was all over, but I just think it's so cool he figured that out. I'd like to think he'd be a mad speedrunner today.
Not sure if this was intentional or coincidental, but your "I can't read this!" was a perfect impression of part of an easter egg from Larry 7. The Narrator, Neil Ross goes "Al! I can't read this! I have standards!", ostensibly to the writer Al Lowe about a line that was too dirty. Funny stuff.
Friends will cry and maidens weep,
Your Hero's in the grave asleep.
You may yell and you may roar --
But better if you click "Restore."
The Moral's plain -- the old refrain --
Frequently just Save the game.
clever!
@@dominamortis1111 That's from QfG 5
I was just watching the backlog to help me through my pneumonia! Thank you so much for the new video!!
Hope you feel better soon!
How did anyone have the time or patience to beat these games legit lol
Summertime computer allowance and collaborating with a sibling is how we got it done.
Hint Books and 1-900 numbers.
We live in an era when people will pour literally thousands of hours into something like Team Fortress or Genshin Impact. I don't think time was the deciding factors. And normally a game like this would last you a month or two. Like so many puzzles you would pick away at it a bit then let your brain rest then pick away again.
@@IPFreelyYT I remember doing that with the first Monkey Island as a kid, fortunately I grew up right as gamefaqs was becoming a thing, lol.
Once you've played a few of them, you kind of get into the rhythm. They just take some patience and a bit of creative thinking.
About the evil trees... on the screen where one of them is shorter than the others, if you get grabbed by *that* tree, there's a unique animation in which Rosella struggles and one of her shoes falls off. Getting grabbed by any of the others just shows her immediately dying.
And yes, the Unicorn Tales remake progress has been slowed to a crawl - mainly due to the tragic passing of Karen Soroe, but work is still being done on it and we will release it in her honor. There have been other delays and technical difficulties, however, and it seems that work on the introduction and ending(s) won't be able to resume until after the new year. We are nearly finished with the actual gameplay section though - at the moment, there's just a couple little things that need to be squeezed in.
@1:00:45 Yes, you can finish the game without the Lantern. The first time I played the game it was without walkthrus or help. I finished the game by navigating the cave in the dark, by literally stepping one pixel at a time and saving between each step. If I made a bad step, I reloaded a previous step and tried a different direction.
26:35 Oh, interesting tidbit that I rediscovered last night in SQH's discord. Later versions of the game (don't know which exact version it was introduced), add a proper hint to the bridle.
In earlier versions, typing "look at boat" would produce the text "It looks as if many an unlucky sailor had been stranded here." Those later versions add an additional sentence "You see a glint coming from one of the wrecked boats on the beach."
I've never seen this "inside whale" map before... though I *have* seen another, very similar "inside sperm whale" map for the text adventure version of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy!
(The KQ4 whale is probably also a sperm whale; though it's never explicitly identified as such, it looks like one on the outside, is large enough to swallow Rosella, and is clearly a toothed whale rather than a baleen whale. Curiously, while the whale swallows Rosella in all versions of KQ4, the SCI version describes the pool of liquid as the whale's stomach while in the AGI version it's the back of the whale's mouth.)
Amazing job on this. So much love and care put into the production. And I must give a giant shout out to Sarah Kelley delivering such a standout performance as the narrator. Her sardonic chiding delivery was absolutely perfect. I would love to see you do outtakes or a "director's cut" addition that featured her narrating the game overs, etc. That would be amazing :)
Just yesterday I was clicking on OneShortEye's profile because I hadn't seen a new video for a while and was jonesing for a new one. This is welcome. Thank you.
50:18: Paul says his favourite part is "when Night turns to Day" several times during his bit, but from context, I think he means "when Day turns to Night."
Paul just lives on his own time schedule.
I was bothered by this too even though I know what they meant >.
I love this game so much, it is my favourite King's Quest game.
With all the unwinnable states, unfair deaths, stairs and absurd puzzle design... it still has its charm and sweet story. I love the bittersweet feeling throughout this game with the ghosts and abandoned house and the danger of Lolotte.
Is that cobra a………POISONOUS snake?
No; venomous. 👀🦉 (Moe from QFG1: "Oh, a wise guy, eh?") 😁
I love how Leisure Suit Larry 3 made fun of the whale mouth climbing puzzle. "More emotion, Rosella!"
Thank you for doing a deep dive on my favorite computer game of all time. KQIV and I both turned 36 this year.
You're welcome! Glad you enjoyed it. And Happy Belated Birthday, whenever it was. :)
Man, those developers back in the 80's sure had a lot of fun back in the office. Imagine writing and coding all those responses in those oldass computers.
I would always get lost in this game because they never put "Outside Whale" on the map, so I didn't know where to go after "Inside Whale"
Paul commenting that you don't need nostalgia to enjoy these games hit so close to my experience with Sierra adventure games in general! They were a bit before my time so I didn't play them growing up and I didn't discover them until my late 20s, but I can say wholeheartedly that I love Sierra games in general and King's Quest games in specific! There are a lot of things that are frustrating in retrospect or haven't aged well, but there really do have something special that I fell in love with not just years, but decades, after their release.
Space quest was my favorite. Sq4 with Gary Owens narrating came with some packard bells. Dynamix had good simulations like red baron too
So who else spotted Murray the Demonic Skull? Just Me?
Scrolled through the comments to see, if I was the only one. Really nice easteregg or easterskull in this case.
Timestamp?
@@FelisImpurrator 36:52
@@TheParappa Nice.
For almost 80 minutes I was all but certain that PushingUpRoses is voicing the narrator 😵
Cedric seems to be
*creating a sticky little puddle at his feet.*
The tone of the second half of that line does not sound like the narrator shaming Cedric, but rather sounds like he's going to cap that line with "Cedric has been a naughty little owl, hasn't he?"
Snowy returns for one line and it gives me life
Another enjoyable OneShortEye video, and loved learning all these things about KQIV I never knew about before. Also puts a smile on my face that Josh Mandel continues to reprise his role as Graham whenever asked, absolute legend.
"rub self" def didn't go "undiscovdered for thirty years". I remember discussing it on bulliten boards and seeing it myself as I played KQ4 right after a larry game, where you were encouraged to do stuff like that for funny responses. I can't imagine I was the only one.
I never was a fan of these adventure games growing up but I really enjoy your videos breaking them down. Thanks for all the entertainment.
just stumbled upon this vid. this must be the most fun i've had watching a video about a videogame in the past year or so!
no editing miracles, no cynical meta jokes. the walkthrough is explained well and the humor is top notch. almost feels like a video from early 2010s gaming youtube
having the text voice acted is the highlight of your presentation. goated channel
Thank you for the care and effort you put into all your videos, and especially this one. It’s so easy to point out flaws in old games and be rude about it for a cheap laugh. That you took the time to ask people to mention some things they loved gave the video such a warmth and frankly it echoes how I feel about 4. I love so much about it but it’s also one of the few games I’d never want to play it myself (played it with friends) because of how insane some of the asks are. That remake sounds like the perfect way for me to play.
I'm just filled with joy that a channel that focuses on Sierra games has as much traction as you do. I hope more people will be able to find these videos and try the games out. :)
45:39 - "Shake rattle"
my brain STILL auto-completes that phrase with "...and Roll!"
IDK who is reading the text, but god does she put her heart in it ! Love it
Loved it, as always. I don't know why I'm willing to spend an hour of my life watching a documentary about King's Quest games... but here we are.
KQ4 periodically alternates with KQ6 for being my favorite game in the series. It’s definitely the KQ that gave me the most strange and bizarre dreams at night when I was a kid. I distinctly remember dreaming about the troll cave, the ogre & his house, Lolotte’s castle & the goons, as well as the haunted mansion & the surrounding cemetery. I even once had a dream where my mind inserted a lighthouse on the shoreline that contained a secret underground passage to the troll cave. I think it’s the KQ game I spent the most time thinking about when I wasn’t playing it.
Honey leave the kids, the new OneShortEye video is about to drop!
quick bring out the cough syrup!
Hey kids, leave the honey! The new drop is about to video!
Isn't it fun seeing people leave comments like this and then copying them so you can say you did it as well. I could slap you in the face
@@DreamersDisease88 > touch grass
Ah, you feel better now.
@alphabitserial you going to be a big boy now. You going stop crying when you cum?
The swear list and kissing tier list remind me that in Conquests of Camelot, fuck was properly put in as a verb. Many characters will politely refuse the offer
As someone who only experiences these games through THESE videos, I love the random percent chances of events. My favorites being 49% and 50/101 situations.
After seeing the 'a game that can make you cry!' ads again, I'm now wondering if Death from KQ6 is supposed to represent a jaded, unimpressed gamer, fused to his computer chair, having seen every type of adventure game he no longer feels any emotions and yet, will grant you mercy if you can make him shed a single tear
Organs are assembled in peices. Thats how it could have gotten into the attic. Grand and baby grand pianos can also be disassembled to some degree.
Saw this live. KQ4 is a really weird game. There's quite a few cool things about it, but the way it's designed ends up making it probably my least favorite KQ out of the ones I've beaten.
I feel this game is also one of the biggest notable instances of Roberta's influence of Colossal Cave Adventure shines through. It's in almost all her games, especially the early ones, but the out there puzzles and luck, not to mention the idea of taking so long to figure it out on your own, certainly is lifted from it.
Another banger adventure game video. Can't wait for more! I'd love to see someone such as your self cover more LucasArts game or even the MacVenture series.
Well, back when this came out I remember being quite impressed by the marketing as "Software Etc..." had computers set up playing live action skits of a girl with a lantern navigating a dark cave in a reference to the troll cave section.
One thing I did notice towards the end (weird messages about urban legends aside) was that Sierra seemed to become far too experimental and arrogant towards the end, instead of sticking with what they did well, or learning to evolve it. I noticed that King's Quest IV, V, and VI were all big events and well promoted, but they put more effort into IV than either of the other two and seemed to be skimping on everything. After that it seemed to die with a whimper while they seemed to think they could print money through things like their "Imagination network" and getting people to pay by the minute for things like Ysebrius and Twinson even as far better games were slapping them around hard. I still remember comparing say "The Realm" which was one of their last projects to "Ultima Online" and realizing that was where all their money went.
While they got pretty greedy towards the end, with people even joking their logo looked like "The Death Star", I can't help but feel that they were one of the old school game developers that would have made things better if they had stayed around, close to their original outlook, and failed to serve as a cautionary tale to other developers about why one should try and stay in their lane, and if they must change, to do it gradually, to avoid turning into oncoming traffic.
Love your videos, your narrating style is so easy to listen to and makes any game subject interesting.
I was never that much into old adventure games, but man, your videos are so much fun to watch that I cannot help myself but start loving adventure games and speed running of them
Amazing video, thank you for the voice actors and the cameos for the other creators! Added to the production value :D
One golden egg can buy many hens!
Orrr... maybe the eggs can be hatched to make more hens that lay golden eggs, and we can breed an entire flock!
Explain how!
@@enlongjones2394Golden eggs can be exchanged for goods and services.
I'll be the judge of this...
It came with our family PC in 1989, but it wasn't until 1994 that I finished it 100% 😅
LOL this is, in fact, the video to end all other KQIV vids. Well done.
Just another quality video from a quality channel.
Thank you!
"OH no, Rosella! A poisonous snake!" 32:50
Loving this. "The devs think of everything" is such a nice approach to any game. Hope you'll consider doing more of these.
I've never seen Retold before!! That's amazing! I love the remakes I've played of the other titles and didn't know about this one. I'll definitely have to play it!
"He's too strange to kiss" is such a great line. Stuck in my head forever.
Intentionally soft locking your game in a dozen different ways has to be strangest design decision ever.
why is the dog happy with one bone? there's a whole girl, full of bones, right there!
it's sunday night here, i'm going to bed in about 2-3 hours and don't think i'll sleep very well
i'm saving this for my inevitable insomnia, always a good day when shorty uploads, even better when it's a kings quest video, and even BETTER when it's the length of a friggin movie
I totally understand why I didn't finish this as a kid.
(I used a walkthrough years later, but it wasn't nearly as in-depth as this)
Ah, the memories. When I was a grade school child I would go upstairs and down the walkway to my friend's apartment [her and her dad]. She was like an older sister to me, and we'd play Kings Quest IV together for hours, as well as Super Mario 3. Good times.
FINALLY
ONESHORTEYE KQ4 VID
1:33 Recreation of the intro to the demo tape that Sierra used to sell Adlib and MT-32 sound devices.
I love your videos and style of production so much. I have learned so much about a genre I would never be able to play myself, and it has given me a deep appreciation for all of these games you have documented. Please keep making these as long as you can.
I've never really watched this family before and never played any adventure games, yet I watches this entire video, it's insanely entertaining
I have been waiting for a Kq4 video since you started this channel. Awesome!
I played alot this game, and I mean a lot, like 5 years before using a hintbook. I was able to discover the fearie island by myself (And my brother) by "cheating" the shark by staying next to the edge of the screen and each time shark would come close, i would "zone". I also was able to bypass the evil forest without having the axe by 1000+ trial and error and finding a 1 pixel path to the next screen.
At the end, i was stuck in the game and couldn't figure out how to solve the puzzles. The main reason is the dwarf diamond pouch... I always gave it first to the fisherman, then without knowing it could never get the dwarf lanthern...
Thanks formthis review, walk through!
25:00 that is sensational!! I would buy that as a poster 😂😂❤
When talking about the strange game design, one have to put things into perspective. Sierra Games back then cost about 120 DM in Germany, which would be 60 € now, but more like 120 € because of inflation. How long does it take you to get through the game with a walkthrough? Maybe two hours? If it would have been easy, people would just not have spent that much money on these games back then. Getting softlocked was just part of the deal. Also, games weren't a mass market back then as they are today. No casual gamers.
On the other hand, restarting was not much of an effort. This was not some open world game that got you softlocked after 50 hours of grind.
Still no excuse to put illogical puzzles in your game with random or purposely hidden solutions.
@@leikeylosh From today's perspective, yes. Back then, it was just common game design and part of the experience. Other games had it too.
This was my first videogame. It took me from age seven to age 25 using online text walkthroughs before I beat it. About five years I was stuck in the whales mouth and another one or two years I was unable to outrun the ogre with the hen because I was in that awkward phase where the computer was faster than the software. My dad bought it when it was brand new because he was a computer guy and wanted to own some state of the art software to feel like a real techie. I may have spent more time wandering around this world than time spent on any other game for the rest of my life just hoping to figure stuff out. Finding the golden ball took way way too many years
I was born in 2005 and having not grown up in the era of iconic point-and-clicks (besides the Sam and Max games), I love watching you tear into these. No matter which game it is or what year it's from, I can't pull my face away from the screen. Thanks for such awesome content!
This might be one of my favorite video intros you've done. "Rub self" killed me lmfaooo
Killed you? A full death, or perhaps a... little death?
Incredible work as always! Love that Josh was able to add some kingly goodness too!
I had no idea there were two versions of the game with different graphical levels. I still have an original boxed copy with the nine 5.25" disks, so I'll be hanging on to that one!
This was great. I’d be interested in you doing more videos like this on the Kings Quest games!
Had to split this into a couple of different viewing sections but your videos are always worth it. The "Inside the Whale" diagram from the guidebook literally made me cackle, god tier imagery.
The King('s quest) is back!
So breaking a window is a grave sin but a bit of grave robbing is a-okay. Odd morality system here
Well, you're not exactly robbing the graves, because you're immediately returning what you find to the person they were buried with (ironically, they couldn't rest without them). Pandora's box, albeit very risky morally, was for a greater good, and you can return it.
This is such an amazing delight. I would absorb videos like this about every King’s Quest game… thanks for making it
all the Sierra adventure games!!
I am always so excited whenever OneShortEye posts a video! I'm jumping in immediately!
As someone who mostly stuck to action games and text adventures, your videos on these old graphical adventures are fascinating. Thank you so much!
1:12:39 As a programmer who makes mistakes like these and has to fix them a lot, I feel your pain. It's so frustrating to keep in mind whether the Random function in any given context is inclusive or exclusive and whether I've done the math and the sign correctly, whenever I have the rest of the program to work on, too, so it's nice to see someone appreciate that 0 through 100 inclusive is 101 possibilities.
1:16:41 Holy shit.
I didn't expect the unbleeped swear at the end😅
Thought I'd point it out if it wasn't intentional (it made me laugh)
Completely, unabashedly intentional.
12:00 a beautiful example of "limitation breeds creativity"
Excellent work as always! I'm so glad I found this channel, many childhood memories watching my dad play the old King's Quest games. I also wish listed Phantom Fellows, love a good adventure game!
Thank you so much!! ❤👻
Roberta did many things never done before. Her games having a lot of jank is completely fine.
36:53 I really thought Murray was actually in-game for a second hahahahahahha
1:17:13 the dude speedrunning and repeatedly getting eaten by sharks going like "yes! please! give me another one, I love it!" is so relatable, I do that exact same thing xD
This really makes me appreciate a game I'll never play but had heard of from time to time
I played this game as a kid and I adored every moment. The first time, it was PC speaker bleeps and blorps, but when KQ7 came along, what with it's lack of subtitles, it finally mandated the acquisition of a sound card. No Roland MT-32 at the time, I played it with a Sound Blaster 16. Still better than PC speaker beeps and bops.
Yes, the game has dead ends. It's a Sierra game pre-KQ7. That was the norm. Yes, it isn't always clear what will eventually solve a puzzle, but so long as you address whatever you CAN figure out, all the puzzle pieces do eventually fall into place. I'm basically just helping people as I go along and getting tools I can eventually use to help other people, and at some point, that may just help me with my own task. I'm a heroine, it's what we do! The whale tongue is it's own kind of hell, but frankly, playing as a family, we all managed to find the bridle for one reason. That chunk of ship looks to be obviously hiding something, and looking inside that reveals the bridle. Any obscured chuck of geometry like THAT is something I learned even then to always look inside. Like, it's a universal law of gaming, up there with "there's always something behind the waterfall" (there was) and "there's something hidden in the well (well well well, at least there is in KQ1).
Yes, the mythologies are all OVER the place. I just accepted it, because I played a Dracula game where you fight Medusa for some reason, and I played a lot of Japanese RPGs where you fight all kinds of mythical creatures out of time and place just because "it's fantasy". Heck even Chronicles of Narnia just tosses centaurs and satyrs at you out of nowhere. It wouldn't make Tolkien happy, but eh, it's fine.
And I adored the sarcastic narrator! It's part of the charm of the game. All in all, I found it a wonderful fairy-tale story that wasn't exactly a straight comedy, but didn't take itself too seriously either. I accept all the little silly aspects like a mummy literally put in the game just to run right back into it's sarcophagus. It was a charming experience where, a lot of the time, you appear meant to have to die to learn something about what you'll be facing next so you know to go back and explore and hopefully find what you need. The rule of this game is "save often, and in separate save files with distinct names". But, that's a lot of early King's Quest games.
The one thing I'll admit is this. This is not a good speed running game. I don't play them that way, so that's fine by me, but I can understand it and respect it as valid criticism. As for the dead ends and the occasional parser issues, yep, I agree that the fan made version is the ideal way to play it these days. Sure, I'd have loved Tierra to have taken a shot at remaking it themselves so there'd be a straight range from 1-5 of identical looking and sounding games, but it's a good compromise. I only wish they'd added all the text descriptions items got in the AGI version.
The fisherman really backhands her off the pier? That's hilarious. XD
Most of the time he doesn't block Rosella. (He doesn't actually backhand her, that's me moving out of the way and accidentally falling in the water.) You have to be at a really particular y coordinate (I think), and I just got lucky when I was capturing footage. Decided to run with it.
Dude I love your videos. This one in particular was a gem. Please please PLEASE do more long form videos on the other Sierra games!!
NEW ONE SHORT EYE DOCUMENTARY I KNOW WHAT IM DOING FOR THE NEXT HOUR AND A HALF
I really wish I worked as a player guide map maker in this day and age. I'm _pretty sure_ I could do a map on par with that Inside Whale one, lol.
Props to another amazing video, OneShortEye - complete with all that crazy math you had to explain! The hard work is appreciated. Also appreciate Anna's voice work here for Rosella; everyone did a great job but Rosella has to say some bizarre things in this, lol.
Ok the surprise kiss tier list has me rolling
This was my first and only KQ game, and I never finished it, having gotten stuck on the snake. Still, it sparked my love for adventure games, which has never extinguished.