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
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 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.
@@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 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!
@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.
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.
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!
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.
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."
really? didn't know that, sounds cool, if i remember LL3 was the only ONLY game in the franchise where you get to do it, but its all pixelated garbage, i was bumped out as a kid, but hey, i'm from the playboy/penthouse generation, not this zoomer generation where if you like hot girls you're a sim* or a tho*, idiot generation
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."
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.
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.
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 :)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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!
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. :)
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?"
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
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.
"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.
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
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'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!
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 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!
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 was one of the first adventure games I ever played, and I played it with my mom circa 1990. The walkthrough makes a lot of points like "how were we supposed to figure that out?" and I think the answer is equal parts 1. Trial and error, 2. Friends, and 3. The Sierra on-line automated hint line (a 1-900 number)! Having to acquire lots of random facts and learn what things you had to do/couldn't do/must do was basically the entire point of the game. I don't think it's a game mechanic that holds up well, but for a lot of us, it was such an early exposure to the genre (and computer games as a whole) that we just appreciated there was a game to have any mechanic. Good times
I know the kings quest games were very popular, but the fact that everything youre supposed to do to advance in each game is absolutely ridiculous and non intuitive, makes the games practically unplayable without a guide. which makes them not fun
I wouldn't say unplayable but there was a lot of wandering around, restoring, and head scratching in everything Sierra made until it finally started to make sense.
They're very playable if you know how to think like a 1980s adventure game player. Save at every step, try absolutely every random thing you can think of, use the "look around" command every time you enter a new scene, and, if possible, play in the company of other people who can come up with ideas of things to try if you're stumped by something...
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.
24:32 "Remember this book I threw on my table for dramatic effect? (I mean, how could you forget, it just happened a minute ago.)" Actually, did forget all about it in the space of that minute and a half, and even after watching this video five or six times, I still manage to forget about it by the time this line come up.
I just found your channel. This is excellent! I played the King’s Quest games amongst other Sierra and Lucas Arts classics in the 90s as a teen. Seeing this recalls great memories!😊
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.
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.
While watching this I was like, "How did I ever beat this as a kid?" and you answered my question perfectly. "Trying stuff because you have nothing better to do"
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!
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
This was the first computer game I ever played. I was able to eventually finish the game by following 3 simple rules. 1: Play with family members, who can come up with ideas for you to try if you can't think of what to do next. 2: Save the game early and often. Always save before exploring a new scene. 3: Try everything in a scene. Make frequent use of the "look around" command when entering a scene for the first time. Playing by those rules, I had all the necessary items by the time I got to the various points where I would have been stuck without them. The whale part was definitely the hardest puzzle to overcome, taking about a week's worth of gameplay (I was limited to 1/2 hour of playing per day as a kid) to finally get it right by trial and error. The experimentality of my playing style also led to my seeing almost everything in the game. The only exceptions were the scarab-less encounters with the zombies and mummy (it's possible, though very difficult, to dodge the zombies without the scarab, but not to reach Pandora's Box in the crypt before the mummy gets you, which is why the mummy is there) and that I never encountered the swamp creature who liked frog legs, as it never occurred to me to try wearing the crown in the swamp and I figured out the hopping from grass tuft to grass tuft fairly quickly. I also happened across a very amusing glitch by sheer accident. I was going along the fisherman's pier, going from the landward end toward the seaward end, and accidentally fell off the pier right when the scene was changing. The result was that Rosella was on the pier, but the game thought she was in the water, so she was striking a very unnatural pose! When she moved, she made the swimming motions, which were bizarre and gravity-defying because she wasn't in the water...
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.
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.
When you opened with the copy protection note, I figured your first "dirty secret" would be the master keyword that always works. I saved myself many manual lookups by finding that one
You know why I didn't think about that? "bobalu" only works in the 1988 original version. It doesn't work in the 1989 re-release, which is what most people have. Thanks for the reminder!
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!
"Inside Whale" is truly the most helpful diagram any game manual has ever provided.
I had to clip that part of the video: th-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
@@willaim_dittmann 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
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 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.
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 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.
like go to the ren faire themed strip club?
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!
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.
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
@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.
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!
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.
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!
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.
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."
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. :)
I love how Leisure Suit Larry 3 made fun of the whale mouth climbing puzzle. "More emotion, Rosella!"
really? didn't know that, sounds cool, if i remember LL3 was the only ONLY game in the franchise where you get to do it, but its all pixelated garbage, i was bumped out as a kid, but hey, i'm from the playboy/penthouse generation, not this zoomer generation where if you like hot girls you're a sim* or a tho*, idiot generation
You really went off on a tangent there huh
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 >.
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.
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.
I love this series so much. I always wished u could explore chess board land in 6. And the hole in the wall!!
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"
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 :)
having the text voice acted is the highlight of your presentation. goated channel
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.
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.
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
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.
45:39 - "Shake rattle"
my brain STILL auto-completes that phrase with "...and Roll!"
Snowy returns for one line and it gives me life
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.
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
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
Is that cobra a………POISONOUS snake?
No; venomous. 👀🦉 (Moe from QFG1: "Oh, a wise guy, eh?") 😁
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.
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
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.
i only played KQ5 and some leisure suit larry games, please explain this easter egg to me pls
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.
For almost 80 minutes I was all but certain that PushingUpRoses is voicing the narrator 😵
Glad I'm not the only one who thought that XD
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!
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. :)
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?"
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?
Intentionally soft locking your game in a dozen different ways has to be strangest design decision ever.
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
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.
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.
Just another quality video from a quality channel.
Thank you!
"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.
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?
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% 😅
Amazing video, thank you for the voice actors and the cameos for the other creators! Added to the production value :D
Love your videos, your narrating style is so easy to listen to and makes any game subject interesting.
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
FINALLY
ONESHORTEYE KQ4 VID
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.
"He's too strange to kiss" is such a great line. Stuck in my head forever.
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!
Loving this. "The devs think of everything" is such a nice approach to any game. Hope you'll consider doing more of these.
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.
The voice actress rocks 👍 nice video! EDIT: Your list of synonyms for bad parser words is amazing and now I am subscribed to your channel 😂
I have been waiting for a Kq4 video since you started this channel. Awesome!
"OH no, Rosella! A poisonous snake!" 32:50
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
Congratulations. This is the ultimate King's Quest IV video. The King's Quest IV video to end all King's Quest IV videos.
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!
LOL this is, in fact, the video to end all other KQIV vids. Well done.
IDK who is reading the text, but god does she put her heart in it ! Love it
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
why is the dog happy with one bone? there's a whole girl, full of bones, right there!
This was one of the first adventure games I ever played, and I played it with my mom circa 1990. The walkthrough makes a lot of points like "how were we supposed to figure that out?" and I think the answer is equal parts 1. Trial and error, 2. Friends, and 3. The Sierra on-line automated hint line (a 1-900 number)! Having to acquire lots of random facts and learn what things you had to do/couldn't do/must do was basically the entire point of the game. I don't think it's a game mechanic that holds up well, but for a lot of us, it was such an early exposure to the genre (and computer games as a whole) that we just appreciated there was a game to have any mechanic. Good times
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 know the kings quest games were very popular, but the fact that everything youre supposed to do to advance in each game is absolutely ridiculous and non intuitive, makes the games practically unplayable without a guide. which makes them not fun
I wouldn't say unplayable but there was a lot of wandering around, restoring, and head scratching in everything Sierra made until it finally started to make sense.
They're very playable if you know how to think like a 1980s adventure game player. Save at every step, try absolutely every random thing you can think of, use the "look around" command every time you enter a new scene, and, if possible, play in the company of other people who can come up with ideas of things to try if you're stumped by something...
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.
24:32 "Remember this book I threw on my table for dramatic effect? (I mean, how could you forget, it just happened a minute ago.)"
Actually, did forget all about it in the space of that minute and a half, and even after watching this video five or six times, I still manage to forget about it by the time this line come up.
I am always so excited whenever OneShortEye posts a video! I'm jumping in immediately!
I just found your channel. This is excellent! I played the King’s Quest games amongst other Sierra and Lucas Arts classics in the 90s as a teen. Seeing this recalls great memories!😊
Incredible work as always! Love that Josh was able to add some kingly goodness too!
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.
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.
While watching this I was like, "How did I ever beat this as a kid?" and you answered my question perfectly. "Trying stuff because you have nothing better to do"
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 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)
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!! ❤👻
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
This was the first computer game I ever played. I was able to eventually finish the game by following 3 simple rules.
1: Play with family members, who can come up with ideas for you to try if you can't think of what to do next.
2: Save the game early and often. Always save before exploring a new scene.
3: Try everything in a scene. Make frequent use of the "look around" command when entering a scene for the first time.
Playing by those rules, I had all the necessary items by the time I got to the various points where I would have been stuck without them. The whale part was definitely the hardest puzzle to overcome, taking about a week's worth of gameplay (I was limited to 1/2 hour of playing per day as a kid) to finally get it right by trial and error. The experimentality of my playing style also led to my seeing almost everything in the game. The only exceptions were the scarab-less encounters with the zombies and mummy (it's possible, though very difficult, to dodge the zombies without the scarab, but not to reach Pandora's Box in the crypt before the mummy gets you, which is why the mummy is there) and that I never encountered the swamp creature who liked frog legs, as it never occurred to me to try wearing the crown in the swamp and I figured out the hopping from grass tuft to grass tuft fairly quickly. I also happened across a very amusing glitch by sheer accident. I was going along the fisherman's pier, going from the landward end toward the seaward end, and accidentally fell off the pier right when the scene was changing. The result was that Rosella was on the pier, but the game thought she was in the water, so she was striking a very unnatural pose! When she moved, she made the swimming motions, which were bizarre and gravity-defying because she wasn't in the water...
25:00 that is sensational!! I would buy that as a poster 😂😂❤
The King('s quest) is back!
1:33 Recreation of the intro to the demo tape that Sierra used to sell Adlib and MT-32 sound devices.
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.
Thank you for the hour and a half of entertainment. This much effort on a KQ game deserved my like and comment!
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.
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.
When you opened with the copy protection note, I figured your first "dirty secret" would be the master keyword that always works. I saved myself many manual lookups by finding that one
You know why I didn't think about that? "bobalu" only works in the 1988 original version. It doesn't work in the 1989 re-release, which is what most people have. Thanks for the reminder!
36:53 I really thought Murray was actually in-game for a second hahahahahahha
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!
Y'know I always heard these games were nonsensical but I don't think I was ever quite aware of the sheer extent of it.