KQ2 Critique

[Meuchler]

I recently finished playing King's Quest 2 VGA, and I was very impressed at the quality and craftsmanship that went into this game.  The price was right, and it was faithful to the series while adding enough new game play to make it almost a new game.

I figured the best way to show my appreciation for the game is to give some honest feedback.  You all seem to be a well motivated team interested in building good adventure games, so I hope what I say can help in your future endeavours.

First, I'll give my credentials, so I can at least sound arrogant with some authority.   I first learned to type playing King's Quest I on a Tandy 1000.  I have played almost every Sierra Adventure game, and most of Lucas Arts.  I played Mask of Eternity to the end, not because I enjoyed it, but because it was part of the series, consarnit.  I've kept up, playing up and comers like TLJ and Syberia. That's enough of my spouting off; on to the matter at hand.

Good Points:

- No deadlocks.  There was not part of the adventure that I couldn't recover from.  That has always been a big frustration.

- It was logical.  There was a decided progression to the story and there was always someplace to check out.

- The jokes.  A trademark of the King's Quest serious was a serious story interspersed with comic relief.  From the Madness of King Graham to the Batmobile burning donuts, I laughed a lot.

- The clues. The death messages, inventory descriptions and screen captions all gave a nudge in the right direction for the puzzle at hand.

Points to Improve:

- Swamp puzzle.  I have always been of the belief that once a puzzle has been completed, it shouldn't have to be done again.  However, one has to re-navigate the swamp each time they leave.  It can get annoying.

- Location of the Mallet.  I think I spent at least an hour looking for something to hit the skull with before I gave up and consulted the walkthrough.  Turns out I had clicked on the tree, but on the lower of the two holes.  It seemed kind of nitpicky to me.

-Illogical Action Restrictions.  SPOILER.  Why did I have to take my cloak off before opening the coffin?  Why couldn't I enter the tower without  first opening the portal home?  Why couldn't I move the dresser without picking up the cat hair first?  I have no doubt these decisions can be explained in terms of the program, but they are baffling to the user.  In passing, what was the rationale for these decisions?

-More points for counter-intuitive actions.  SPOILER.  I have a delicious ham in my inventory.  There's a giant hungry lion blocking my way.  Imagine my surprise when I found out that you get more points by disenchanting the lion.

-Falling Death.  I understand death is integral to Sierra Games.  They are a source of hilarity and clues, and I made sure to die in as many ways as possible, if only for the entertainment value.  I was frustrated however with the bridge crossing scene.  If I just clicked on the other side of the screen, good old Graham would walk off the cliff despite there being a bridge a few pixels to his right.  Perhaps the system should be more forgiving when it comes to drops.  Even Sierra poked fun at themselves about ridiculous height navigation (remember LSL2?).

-Sharkees.  I have trouble believing that a group talented enough to weave such a great story couldn't come up with a better name for a race of Shark-beings than Sharkees.  Just my opinion though.

- Non-skippable dialog.  Depending on the dialog, I could sometimes click through what people are saying, and other times I had to wait for the speech to finish.  Is this a bug inherent in the engine or something else?

Anywho, that's my two cents.  I am really looking forward to QGII.  Final question:  Do you need any help with the project?  Usually projects such as yours have a page requesting outside help for odds and ends.

Cheers!

[Erpy]

Hi Meuchler. Thanks for the feedback and comments.

I recently finished playing King's Quest 2 VGA, and I was very impressed at the quality and craftsmanship that went into this game.  The price was right, and it was faithful to the series while adding enough new game play to make it almost a new game.

I figured the best way to show my appreciation for the game is to give some honest feedback.  You all seem to be a well motivated team interested in building good adventure games, so I hope what I say can help in your future endeavours.

First, I'll give my credentials, so I can at least sound arrogant with some authority.   I first learned to type playing King's Quest I on a Tandy 1000.  I have played almost every Sierra Adventure game, and most of Lucas Arts.  I played Mask of Eternity to the end, not because I enjoyed it, but because it was part of the series, consarnit.  I've kept up, playing up and comers like TLJ and Syberia. That's enough of my spouting off; on to the matter at hand.

Good Points:

- No deadlocks.  There was not part of the adventure that I couldn't recover from.  That has always been a big frustration.

- It was logical.  There was a decided progression to the story and there was always someplace to check out.

- The jokes.  A trademark of the King's Quest serious was a serious story interspersed with comic relief.  From the Madness of King Graham to the Batmobile burning donuts, I laughed a lot.

- The clues. The death messages, inventory descriptions and screen captions all gave a nudge in the right direction for the puzzle at hand.

Thanks for the positive critique.

- Swamp puzzle.  I have always been of the belief that once a puzzle has been completed, it shouldn't have to be done again.  However, one has to re-navigate the swamp each time they leave.  It can get annoying.

You're correct. (although you only have to navigate the swamp twice) Perhaps navigating the swamp the second time is to maintain the suspense...after returning from the church, Graham is being hunted down by the wolves and when playing through for the first time, I actually expected them to catch up to me in the swamp instead of the lake shore.

- Location of the Mallet.  I think I spent at least an hour looking for something to hit the skull with before I gave up and consulted the walkthrough.  Turns out I had clicked on the tree, but on the lower of the two holes.  It seemed kind of nitpicky to me.

Perhaps. The hammer is one of the few items that didn't change location, so we figured most people wouldn't have trouble figuring this one out.

-Illogical Action Restrictions.  SPOILER.  Why did I have to take my cloak off before opening the coffin?

Technical reasons, more or less. Allowing the player to keep the cloak on would require us to create an additional animation of Graham being slammed into the wall, an additional animation of Graham being killed by the count and an additional closeup-version of Graham being pinned against the wall.

Why couldn't I enter the tower without  first opening the portal home?

Because the climax is supposed to be finding Valanice and defeating Hagatha. Having to roam the island and solve another puzzle might draw out the conclusion. Also, those clues in the sand are supposed to be Valanice' lines and it wouldn't make sense to try and guess their meaning while the real thing is walking right next to you. (she wouldn't leave you guessing the meaning either, since it's assumable she wants to get out of here quickly)

Why couldn't I move the dresser without picking up the cat hair first?

That gripe wasn't there in the first version, but by making the player unable to move the dresser before picking up the cat hair, we took the sole remaining dead end situation out of the game. Apparantly people also took issue with ONE dead end situation still being in the game.

-More points for counter-intuitive actions.  SPOILER.  I have a delicious ham in my inventory.  There's a giant hungry lion blocking my way.  Imagine my surprise when I found out that you get more points by disenchanting the lion.

Well, give a lion a ham and you'll feed him for a day. Disenchant him and he'll be able to get out of there and take feed himself for the rest of his life. Storywise, freeing the lion from its enchantment was the better option, so we figured it was logical to give that solution more points, even though it's less intuitive and the ham was the optimal solution in the original.

-Falling Death.  I understand death is integral to Sierra Games.  They are a source of hilarity and clues, and I made sure to die in as many ways as possible, if only for the entertainment value.  I was frustrated however with the bridge crossing scene.  If I just clicked on the other side of the screen, good old Graham would walk off the cliff despite there being a bridge a few pixels to his right.  Perhaps the system should be more forgiving when it comes to drops.  Even Sierra poked fun at themselves about ridiculous height navigation (remember LSL2?).

Point taken. Perhaps the top edge of the bridge could have been made impossible to walk off. Still, players probably still would have been able to fool the walking-mechanism into walking into the chasm.

-Sharkees.  I have trouble believing that a group talented enough to weave such a great story couldn't come up with a better name for a race of Shark-beings than Sharkees.  Just my opinion though.

Heh, maybe Wookie can reply to that one.

- Non-skippable dialog.  Depending on the dialog, I could sometimes click through what people are saying, and other times I had to wait for the speech to finish.  Is this a bug inherent in the engine or something else?

Certain cutscenes are specifically timed to the music in which case you can't skip through the text. It's not a bug, but a decision to avoid the player screwing up the music-events running parallel to each other.

Anywho, that's my two cents.  I am really looking forward to QGII.  Final question:  Do you need any help with the project?  Usually projects such as yours have a page requesting outside help for odds and ends.

Thanks again for the feedback. Right now, we're not in need of additional hands. If you're willing to help, you can consider applying for the beta testing stage when we get to that phase of the QFG2-project.

[Cadbury Wookie]

Apart from liking the name "Sharkees", wasn't there a similar "kiddy" name for those winged women in KQ5? King's Quest is supposed to be cute, isn't it? (All right, all right, so I didn't write consistantly cute!)

Anyhow, thanks for your feedback. It was largely and refreshingly constructive.  As Erpy stated, most of the issues you had were a result of specific programming and time related limitations. It's still great to hear that people are enjoying the game, after it's been out a couple of years. It is, after all, the reason we did this fan-game in the first place. For the fans!

[Brainiac]

Apart from liking the name "Sharkees", wasn't there a similar "kiddy" name for those winged women in KQ5? King's Quest is supposed to be cute, isn't it? (All right, all right, so I didn't write consistantly cute!)

The Wookie speaks!

As to the "kiddy" comment, the Harpies are most definitely NOT kiddy; read some of the Greek mythology concerning those avian women and you'll understand.

And King's Quest games aren't always cute, after all.  The Realm of the Dead in KQ6 could be considered downright creepy.

[Cadbury Wookie]

Ah, very good. Couldn't remember the name. Best not harp on about it.

For research, I frequently refer to the "Compendium of Wookiology: Creatures of Fun, Fright and Fortuitous Follicles." As I cover all three, I get the centrespread of that particular publication.

[Brainiac]

Ah, very good. Couldn't remember the name. Best not harp on about it.

GROOOOOOOOOAN

With jokes like that, I would not recommend you become a comedian on Kashyyyk.

[Jafar]

I've told worse puns...