Adventure Gamers - Forums

Just to be clear, I didn’t mind the dead ends until KQ5. When done right they are a welcome challenge factor. KQ1 had multiple solutions vor the harder puzzles, KQ2 and KQ3 were easily avoidable or easy to go back and try again. KQ4 were a bit trickier but also mostly avoidable. It was just in KQ5 that they became unbalanced and frustrating.
KQ6 seems to do the job great (and I’ll be finish it this week).

Mmm. the game started freezing a lot. When I try to enter the catacombs or when I try to touck the hole in the wall next to the snapdragons it just stops, stuck with the crown symbol (although I can still restore a game so it’s not completely frozen).
Any fix?

Are you playing it in ScummVM?  If not, try playing it that way.  Always worked fine for me.

Lambonius - 08 October 2014 08:50 PM

Are you playing it in ScummVM?  If not, try playing it that way.  Always worked fine for me.

I wasn’t, I’ve been looking around and apparently that is indeed the only way to solve this.
Just means I’ll have to start over because the save system seems to be different in SCUMMVM. Why didn’t I use from the start…

Caliburn - 08 October 2014 10:43 AM

And yes, I agree with you about KQ6—it’s my favorite.

Mine too!

wilco - 09 October 2014 11:36 AM

I wasn’t, I’ve been looking around and apparently that is indeed the only way to solve this.
Just means I’ll have to start over because the save system seems to be different in SCUMMVM. Why didn’t I use from the start…

Before you do that, you might try setting the speed (in the game menu) as fast as it goes right before you do the action that’s causing the freeze. This trick has helped me get through some similar issues in old Sierra games on newer machines.

fov - 09 October 2014 02:47 PM

Before you do that, you might try setting the speed (in the game menu) as fast as it goes right before you do the action that’s causing the freeze. This trick has helped me get through some similar issues in old Sierra games on newer machines.

Tried various speed settings but didn’t work. I’ve been looking around and it seems like a common problem with the talkie-version or something. There’s various possible fixes that are not working for me but seems like most people settle with using SCUMMVM

So after losing motivation with the technical problems I got back in the saddle and finally restarted KQ6 with ScummVM and have now finished it. It was faster then I was expecting but I had already solved half the game since I got stuck around the minotaur labyrinth.

Used the walkthrough a couple of times (mostly pixel hunting) and then after finishing (long path) went to see what the other path was and possible variations of the ending. It really is an ingenious system, kind of like KQ1 where you could keep goig by “buying” the way out problems, here the game just lets you finish with possible multiple solutons.

My main error in the playthrough was not showing the ensignia to Jollo and in consequense not being able to save the genie at the end, it was a preety random problem and solution but while in KQ5 it would lead to being hopelessly stuck at a deadend, here I could finish using other solution and getting a slightlier worse ending. Although a deadend could still be reached if I hadn’t taken the mint leaves… The system wasn’t perfect and still involved a lot of loadings and small obscure stuff but I think it worked and again gave the point system a reason to exist. (Nowadays there would probably be different trophies for rewarding all the endings )

I’m also happy I took the long path because the writings and moments at the Land of the Dead were great and probably the best I’ve seen in the series so far. The story and writing does go up a lot in quality (like I’ve heard everyone saying multiple times ). Alexander being the protagonist and doing spells again was awesome (I do wish there were more of them). In the ending I was surprised that he actually stayed there and we didn’t get to see what was up with Daventry

But that credits song… 

Off to Kings Quest VII now!

wilco - 03 January 2015 08:48 PM

Off to Kings Quest VII now!

I’m sorry.

wilco - 03 January 2015 08:48 PM

I’m also happy I took the long path because the writings and moments at the Land of the Dead were great

I’m glad you saw the Land of the Dead too as it’s one of my favorite sections of the game with many memorable moments: Riding Nightmare. Discovering that the “Tickets, please!” death screen is a place you can actually visit in the game. Playing Dem Bones on the xylophone. Facing Death. Also, I just enjoy the Greek mythology flavor of the whole thing: it’s basically King’s Quest’s take on the Orpheus myth.

The branching paths in KQ6 are interesting. I suspect the designers of KQ6 hoped many players would take the longer path and get the best ending (or close to the best) either the first time through or with just a small amount of reloading of earlier saves. And they designed the shorter path and the minor ending variants as backups to help ensure you could usually finish somehow.

wilco - 03 January 2015 08:48 PM

But that credits song… 

LOL, yeah, I’m fond of it in all its goofiness but it sounds quite dated today. It seemed less embarrassing during the Disney renaissance era when their animated films usually ended with a pop ballad in this Peabo Bryson style.

Lambonius - 04 January 2015 04:49 PM

wilco - 03 January 2015 08:48 PM

Off to Kings Quest VII now!

I’m sorry.

TimovieMan - 04 January 2015 05:08 PM

KQ7 gets WAY too much flak…

Seems like a controversial game , makes it more interresting to try it out.

First impressions are not very good - no configurations options (subtitles, walking speed), the animations are slow and has a limited interface and no save slots. It does look good like a cartoon.

I remember being weirded out at first by KQ7 when it came out, after loving KQVI so much. It seemed to be marketed toward girls, and was so overtly Disneyish, but it quickly became a guilty pleasure and I ended up loving it. I’ve replayed it countless times at this point, and I can’t see why anyone would dislike it.

I loved Kings Quest 7 too. I thought the story was great, the voice acting sometimes was over the top, but, I enjoyed playing it so much. What helped too was that I could play it with my kids and they loved playing the game with me. Kings Quest 7 is my favorite Kings quest game, as there are no dead ends that I know of. I was so ticked off with one of the kings quest games… think it was 5, where I never found the shoe in the desert or something. argh. Those kind of things make me not want to finish the game.

To me growing up with AGs and KQs, getting stuck, restarting, and getting hints was all just a part of the deal. That was how you got through games. Only at a certain point after that did it become “against the rules” to ever get stuck. Sometimes I think the “official game design” mantras that get thrown around are too rigid and people don’t realize how equally dated they will appear some day, just like the old (sometimes better) ways.

There’s nothing really inherently wrong with dead-ends, at least not all of them. They might be lame at times, but the steadfast rule against them can tie designers’ hands too much. There are some items in KQ that yeah, you should have picked up and you were dumb not to have. Don’t blame the designers for allowing you to glaze over it without specifically holding your hand. The tips they always told you at the time were “pick up everything, save often, explore as much as possible” etc.

TimovieMan - 04 January 2015 05:08 PM

KQ7 gets WAY too much flak…

King’s Quest 7 doesn’t get ENOUGH flak.

It was a terrible decision, both creatively and from a business perspective, to completely reinvent the formula after capturing near perfection with King’s Quest 6.  When you happen upon something that is nearly universally praised, why in the fuck would you throw it out the window and restart from scratch?  All they should have done was tweak the formula and improve the graphics, and they did neither.  KQ7 was the beginning of the end of good adventure games.