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corn in the bible
Jun 5, 2004

Oh no oh god it's all true!
update is delayed by techincal difficulties

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corn in the bible
Jun 5, 2004

Oh no oh god it's all true!
PART TWO



The chapters alternate in protagonist, and Valanice was in charge for Chapter One so we're playing as Rosella this time around. Chapter Two is a fair bit longer, and is basically just a collect-a-thon -- you get all the stuff you need, and then you win. Of course, before that happens, there's a lot of talking.



Welcome, most beautiful of princesses!



Hmm? Who -- who are you, sir?
I am King Otar Fenris III, ruler of the Vulcanix Underground. And you are the princess Rosella, yes?
Oh my. How do you know me? Where am I? I saw a beautiful castle before -- where could I find it, please?

Rosella literally lives in a magic castle, why is she so insistent on finding another one? Hell, she's been on adventures before -- even disregarding the novels she starred in, she was the protagonist of King's Quest 4. Though, considering how many times she's been kidnapped, she should probably be more concerned about what's going on here.



Your majesty, what weren't you expecting? What's going on?
I... wasn't expecting you to be so lovely, my lady. You will be the most radiant bride in all the world!
BRIDE?!

This guy is Rosella's love interest for the game. Get hyped, dudes!





I'm a -- I'm a -- I'm a --
A troll, dear lady. Oh, please don't be sad, Princess. You make a lovely troll. A -- a simply stunning troll!



They did a lot of animation for Troll Rosella, and it's clear they wanted it to be very loose and cartoonish to contrast with the more Disney Princess style of her regular appearance. Though at least as a troll she's not wearing a ridiculous dog collar. I mean, who the gently caress dresses like that, seriously? Since so much of their animation for her is finished, but unused, it's probable that the troll transformation was meant to be extended or play a larger part in the story. But, if so, that was cut to meet the deadline.

Come along, Princess. Let me escort you to your chamber. Perhaps you'll feel better if you rest...



A troll, huh?



We're finally given control of Rosella. At least, we are until she leaves the room, where more talking will ensue. We can check out her bedroom, but there's not much here:



Rosella's weirdly childish in this game, even though at this point she's in her 20's and has almost died multiple times. It contributes to the feeling that this game was meant for a younger audience than previous ones. Maybe it is supposed to contrast with Valanice's more mature approach to things, but it's still out of character for her.



Here's the main lobby of the Underground. This chapter, like I said, is a quest for some arbitrary junk; when you've got it all you hand it to the troll in the middle and you're done. Rosella's chapters are all pretty linear, and you can't leave without the things you need for the next one; Valanice, on the other hand, has to backtrack constantly and can easily miss items she needs later on. Though if you're completely stuck, you can just hit New Game and start on the next chapter, I guess.

Who are you, missy? You're no real troll! I can see right through you. What do you want with King Otar, you human minx? You're trying to steal the throne of the Underground! Userper, Userper! [sic]



Sometimes the subtitles are really bad. There are two styles, and you would think they'd use the one with a smaller font for long dialog, but they don't always. I don't know what that's about.

I'm not crying.



Fun fact: when I recorded this game, the ensuing dialog that tells you what to look for didn't play. Please enjoy the text I transcribed from low-quality youtube videos for your entertainment.

I'm Mathilde, and I used to be King Otar's nursemaid when he was just a wee troll. Anyway, I can give you a list of ingredients for a magic potion that will turn you back into a human, just like that. But you have to do something for me.
Anything!
Up above this kingdom is a dark land called Ooga Booga. Our kingdoms were never crazy about eachother, but we had a civil relationship. Now, because of HER, the Ooga Boogites attack any troll that shows his face above ground. Missy, when you're a human, will you go above and investigate? I have a gut feeling that our kingdom is in terrible trouble. Now, listen, girl. Bring me some baked beetles, a crystal dragon scale, water of emerald, a silver spoon, and a gold bowl. Got it?
Got it.

Find all the things, give them to an NPC. Basic adventure game stuff. Suddenly, though, a little troll girl shows up and yells at everyone:



As a good adventure game protagonist, Rosella immediately takes the rat for herself. If it's not nailed down, it belongs to us! She also steals that shield from the wall. You have to go into the close-up examination mode in order to see the shield has a spike, which you need to remove for a puzzle later on. It's annoying.

Now, the kitchen is the first place to head to, since if you do it first you cut down on backtracking. Unless you forget to grab things and have to go back there anyway, but that would never happen.



All right then! Just a touch of frog lips! A dash of mouse noses! A sprinkling of spider legs!

See, the joke is that trolls......... are gross! It's comedy gold!



Wow, I wonder what the solution to this problem is. We can't do anything yet, though, because he immediately spots Rosella, even though she was hiding her leg behind that rock! That almost always works!



Let's try that again.





I guess the rat somehow closed the door, too. That's pretty impressive.

We get Baked Beetles by clicking everything until we find the thing that magically creates some baked beetles.



Another puzzle solved. There's a bowl on the shelf, too! Rosella's solving puzzles like crazy today!



Oh hey, it's the woman from the box art.



BARF! BARF!



Princess Rosella, master of stealth.

Geez, Hogarth, ya nearly got yaself fried!
Aw, I'm not scared a dat nasty wench. I could break her in half like a carrot.



Riveting.

We can ask them about the woman who just left:



Malicia, and her fearsome dog Cuddles. For some reason Rosella always ends up fighting fairies; King's Quest 4 was about them as well. Maybe they represent her status as a Strong Female Protagonist. Those guys weren't very helpful, but if we leave and come back then we get to meet some new characters who have important clues for us.




The fact that flowers can be used to wake up trolls doesn't come into play until the very last moment of the game, but we'll be using sulfur very soon. Here's some buff trolls.



Can't do anything with those guys yet, but downstairs is a lantern we can steal for ourselves:



We also need some emerald water, and we've got a bowl all ready to collect it. I definitely didn't come all the way here and then realize I had to return to the kitchen to grab one, no sir.



There's also sulfur down here, and we have to get Rosella across the crevice to get to it.



Wow! What an updraft!



Haha, wow.





Just... terrible. Next time, we'll get the rest of the stuff Mathilde wanted, and then work on getting out of the Volcanix underground.







corn in the bible fucked around with this message at 23:01 on Mar 17, 2015

Hemingway To Go!
Nov 10, 2008

im stupider then dog shit, i dont give a shit, and i dont give a fuck, and i will never shut the fuck up, and i'll always Respect my enemys.
- ernest hemingway
Wow, the main character has a trollsona, this game was really ahead of the times!

corn in the bible
Jun 5, 2004

Oh no oh god it's all true!

Acne Rain posted:

Wow, the main character has a trollsona, this game was really ahead of the times!

And Valanice is a furry, so it's truly the most modern of stories.

GenderSelectScreen
Mar 7, 2010

I DON'T KNOW EITHER DON'T ASK ME
College Slice
Tumblr must love this game.

Accordion Man
Nov 7, 2012


Buglord
Fairies are all bunch of assholes so its good that someone is keeping them in line.

Chokes McGee
Aug 7, 2008

This is Urotsuki.

Sums up the game pretty perfectly so far, I feel.

corn in the bible
Jun 5, 2004

Oh no oh god it's all true!
"This was the first King’s Quest game which could not be released on diskette, as the number of disks which would be required to hold the files would never fit in a game box, or even multiple game boxes! The graphics were breathtaking in scope, created by a team of animators who drew individual images, cel-style, and then digitally added color and sequenced the images to produce motion. The resulting animation not only set new standards for game graphics, but also rivaled or surpassed the animation available on TV or film."

Concept art for Chapter Two!
There's more, but we've got more poo poo to do in this chapter as well so I'll leave it for later. Animation for Chapter Two was done by Dungeon Ink & Paint, but I don't know much about them They also did work on Chapters Three and Five, so it's possible they got the job for being good at doing non-human stuff? I'm not sure, but that seems like it might be a good explanation.



Rosella as a troll. I couldn't find much concept art for her, but they did a hell of a lot of animation work for her, even though most of it's never used. I don't know why, but it's pretty clear they wanted her to look right.



The little girl with the toy rat. You can't see much of her in-game because she is tiny.



Malicia, the antagonist. Her dog is indeed named cuddles, and he constantly BARFS whenever he appears. Make of that what you will. Pretty clear they were going for a Maleficent thing, here, but she's honestly a pretty boring villain and doesn't do much apart from shooting lightning at people. In early prototypes for the box art she's got green skin, but I haven't seen anything else with her that color.



It's the chef. He's a chef. Dude never shows up again and I don't care much about him but he sure is a chef!



The hot tub trolls. They don't all look much like the final product, probably because making them look more alike saved on animation work. It's not certain that that's the reason, but actually I'm 100% certain that that is the reason.

corn in the bible fucked around with this message at 23:25 on Mar 17, 2015

Nidoking
Jan 27, 2009

I fought the lava, and the lava won.
There's a rather terrible "puzzle" that I can't begin to defend concerning the bowl in the kitchen. There are actually two bowls, one gold and one brass. There's a way to tell which one you have if it's in your inventory and empty, but as far as I know, if you get the wrong one, you can't put it back. You have to go fill it with emerald water, then give it to Mathilde so she'll throw it away and you can get the right one. The first time I played the game, I happened to grab the right one and never knew there was another.

You can also fall into the chasm, if you jump to the tiny protrusion in the background instead of the obvious one in the middle. It might fool King's Quest V veterans, I guess. There's no reason to attempt to jump there, and since death is just an Undo button's worth of inconvenience anyway, there's little point to it at all.

idonotlikepeas
May 29, 2010

This reasoning is possible for forums user idonotlikepeas!

mateo360 posted:

it took me forever to actually find most of these and I am still missing one KQ novel:


What, no Police Quest?

Improbable Lobster
Jan 6, 2012

What is the Matrix 🌐? We just don't know 😎.


Buglord

I guess they swapped out mud for lava at the last minute too

Seyser Koze
Dec 15, 2013

Mucho Mucho
Nap Ghost

mateo360 posted:

it took me forever to actually find most of these and I am still missing one KQ novel:


I think I still have that ADF The Dig novelization lying around somewhere. :stonk:

corn in the bible
Jun 5, 2004

Oh no oh god it's all true!
I've got the Jensen novelization of Sins of the Fathers. The cover art is all taken from illustrations for the game, except for a badly cropped picture of the actor from Gabriel Knight 2. It looks terrible.

Also, remember, it's easy to make fun of the animation in King's Quest 7 but at least it's not this:

mateo360
Mar 20, 2012

TOO MANY PEOPLE MERLOCK!
ONLY ONE DIJON!

idonotlikepeas posted:

What, no Police Quest?

Nah, not much of a fan of PQ as much as the others.

Darth TNT
Sep 20, 2013
Such animated splendor. :allears:

I have a collection CD somewhere with Kings Quest on it, I've been meaning to play through them all at some point.

Xander77
Apr 6, 2009

Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.



corn in the bible posted:


Concept art for Chapter Two!
There's more, but we've got more poo poo to do in this chapter as well so I'll leave it for later. Animation for Chapter Two was done by Dungeon Ink & Paint, but I don't know much about them They also did work on Chapters Three and Five, so it's possible they got the job for being good at doing non-human stuff? I'm not sure, but that seems like it might be a good explanation.

I think some previous LP linked the unused animations and suchlike. Interesting.

corn in the bible
Jun 5, 2004

Oh no oh god it's all true!
PART THREE

So all that's left is a silver spoon and a dragon scale, and Rosella can get back to normal. Both involve spending some time with the smithy trolls upstairs.





Somehow, Rosella has captured a spark in the lantern. This is another of Sierra's "timing puzzles," as you have to use the lantern when the fire is highest. Since the game reduces the player's movement speed to its minimum during timing sections, Rosella slows down and speeds up at random in this room. Good.

Remember that sulfur puts trolls to sleep.




Now we grab the tongs from his rack of tools, and use it to pick up the box there.




After cooling the box off, Rosella opens it to find a silver spoon. So all that is now left is the dragon scale, and we'll be pretty much done with Chapter Two! You can put the tongs back on the rack, in a rare case of the Daventry Royal Family returning something after borrowing it.



The dragon is across that bridge. Nobody tells you that, but since it's the only place left to go it's not hard to figure out that you need to go there. Fortunately there is a cart on top of the hill, and we have a shield to replace its missing wheel:




That is some ugly animation right there. Look at it:



Terrible. Anyway, the reason she died is that I didn't affix the shield to the cart with the shield's spike. Bullshit deaths remain a Sierra trademark, but in this game you can just hit retry and you'll be back where you died, so it's never a real problem.




Rosella just straight-up killed a man. She doesn't give a gently caress about it, either.



I am. Do not fear me, little troll.

The dragon has some nice, detailed art and it's clear they wanted him to look real nice. But I guess someone along the way decided that lovely CGI was an acceptable substitute, so that's what we got. It is... not good.

You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my whole life!

The dragon goes back to sleep. Dude ain't got time for this, I guess. We give him the spark from the lantern, because I read the walkthrough and know you are supposed to do that.

Um, this doesn't happen to be the kind of spark you meant, does it?



A spark! Bless you, little troll! Here, let me have it!



This animation is... not very good.

I am indebted to you. Here, take this diamond. With it you can live like a princess.
Thank you, it's beautiful.. but what I'd really like is... one of your scales?
Little one, whatever you want. But I can wait no longer to fly! I will give you a scale when you return.

Please be amazed by the majesty of this beautiful creature.




He won't come back until we have something to take the scale from him.




It's all right. I don't mind being interrupted by someone as charming as yourself. What can I do for you?
Why, you're the most polite troll I've ever met! Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean --

The true way to Rosella's heart is unabashed sycophancy.

No, my dear, I quite understand. I can't tolerate the company of most other trolls myself. Oppi Goldworth, at your service.
You don't like other trolls? You must be so lonely, Oppi.



But I don't have the money. All I have to my name is this old, chipped hammer and chisel.

We trade our priceless diamond for his hammer and chisel, which is a pretty bad trade on the whole but that's fine.



In some versions of the game, there's another timing thing here -- if you try use the hammer at the wrong time, the dragon kills Rosella with his tail. They got rid of it in one of the patches, though, along with some other instant-death timed situations. Since death has no penalty in this game, making people retry things over and over was deemed to be poor design, which may be the first and only time that argument has worked on a Roberta Williams-designed game.

We can't ever talk to the dragon again, by the way. There's nothing to do but give our various loot to Mathilde, so she can get this whole troll thing sorted out.




You have to hand them to her one at a time, with loading in-between as it needlessly changes scenes.



Aha! I remember! We need a troll hair!





Then the king appears. I guess he can teleport? It's not clear why he would be able to do that.

Rosella! I'm stunned! Your beauty is only surpassed by your intelligence, and your courage, and...

Suddenly, Malicia appears as well. But she's got magic powers, she's allowed to pop up at random and annoy people.

You! I've had just about enough of you distracting the king, you little snip!



And we're literally back where we started the chapter. This part of the game is blatantly stretched out and it is really a shame. Do you remember the Towers of Hanoi?



Who could hate a good Tower of Hanoi? Certainly not me.





It is time for exposition. We're a third of the way through this game, they might as well establish what anyone's motivation is.



A city here, a township there, who's going to miss them? Even if all of Eldritch is covered in slag, at least THEY will be GONE!
BARF! BARF!

Oh no! She can't! She just can't!

Roberta Williams wanted to call this game "What's lava got to do with it." Not that "The Prince-less Bride" is much better...




Some weird green thing fell down, too. We pick it up, because it's important. You might think the goal at this point is to head for the elevator we saw before, but actually you need to go to the troll baths. Because.... that is where you have to go, I guess? Why would Rosella want to go there? When you do, though, there's more exposition. Rosella's chapters are generally based around lots of cutscenes, strung together by inane puzzle-solving, so this is par for the course.



There's something wrong with him! What have you done to him, witch?
You don't want to know, ancient one. Your old nerves couldn't take it. Suffice it to say that it's a lot nicer than what I'm going to do to you!

Whatever Malicia's plan for the old troll was, it was apparently foiled by simply walking somewhere else.



At this point, you have to give the green thing (the game calls it a "dragon-toad") to Mathilde.



She does something, and the toad starts talking.



The current king running around is a fake king. It's a shocking twist, or something like that.




Suddenly, more bullshit:


Barf? BARF!



Malicia is afraid of small animals, so she vanishes and it looks like we're free to leave. But then she appears again, because that was a fake out or something, I don't know, why is Chapter Two so long and boring and repetitive




Chapter two, complete. Time taken: half an hour. Retsupurae's time: an hour. Chapter three will involve Valanice's adventure in the world of furries, so that'll be exciting.

corn in the bible fucked around with this message at 01:38 on Mar 19, 2015

gschmidl
Sep 3, 2011

watch with knife hands

Sierra patching out bullshit?

:crafty:

corn in the bible
Jun 5, 2004

Oh no oh god it's all true!

gschmidl posted:

Sierra patching out bullshit?

:crafty:

One of the other issues addressed by the patch was a Roberta Williams classic idea -- a firecracker you could light, but which would explode and kill you on a timer if you did. Except since you can retry from where you died, it was perfectly possible to wander around forever, with the occasional explosions merely serving as an annoyance. So in the patch they just made it stop exploding, because that was stupid.

Endorph
Jul 22, 2009
all of my race are inferior to you, you beautiful fair-skinned blonde-haired blue-eyed woman. we are all simple savages. however, i am aware of the weaknesses i was born into, and strive to someday be half as good as you. i loathe the rest of my race for not having the same self awareness.

Outpost22
Oct 11, 2012

RIP Screamy You were too good for this world.
Oh man I remember Ooga Booga land scaring the poo poo out of me as a kid. You should probably put a trigger warning before that chapter.

Orange Fluffy Sheep
Jul 26, 2008

Bad EXP received

Outpost22 posted:

Oh man I remember Ooga Booga land scaring the poo poo out of me as a kid. You should probably put a trigger warning before that chapter.

How about this?

FisheyStix
Jul 2, 2008

This avatar was paid for by the Silent Majority.

Outpost22 posted:

Oh man I remember Ooga Booga land scaring the poo poo out of me as a kid. You should probably put a trigger warning before that chapter.

Man, you aren't kidding. I remember coming home from school one day, and my mom was telling me about it in the car. She really liked point and click adventures, and I'd basically grown up playing the King's Quest games with her, starting with III, I think. She and my sister had managed to progress further in the game while I was at school that day. Anyway, they totally hyped me up on it, telling me all the creepy stuff that happened if you hosed around too long or messed with the wrong things.

I bought into it, of course, and seeing it in real life didn't help. That weird song that played stuck with me for a while. Years later, I watched the Nidoking (?) LP of it and it was comical how unscary it all was. My imagination back then was just so much more powerful, I guess, it really could take me over.

grandalt
Feb 26, 2013

I didn't fight through two wars to rule
I fought for the future of the world

And the right to have hot tea whenever I wanted
Oh one guy in Ooga Booga was scary, and still holds the idea of what something of that kind should look like.

Tiggum
Oct 24, 2007

Your life and your quest end here.


corn in the bible posted:

We give him the spark from the lantern, because I read the walkthrough and know you are supposed to do that.

If you actually talk to him he will literally tell you he's lost his spark. This is a lovely game, but it's not as lovely as you're making it out to be. The puzzles so far have actually been fairly decent, if arbitrary - standard adventure game stuff - though there are some bullshit ones coming up. The animation is terrible, the writing is terrible, the pacing is terrible, there's no end to the criticisms one could legitimately have for this game, but it's actually remarkably free of pixel-hunting and try-every-inventory-item-on-every-other-object puzzles.

Darth TNT
Sep 20, 2013
If the dragon actually mode a bit more fluent, I think I would still dig his design. Sure, the CGI sticks out like a sore thumb compared to the rest, but it's not a bad dragon design.

Szurumbur
Feb 17, 2011
I'm not watching videos - are the animations (dragon's, for example) made more choppy in .gifs, or do they really have about 3-5 frames per second?

steinrokkan
Apr 2, 2011



Soiled Meat

Szurumbur posted:

I'm not watching videos - are the animations (dragon's, for example) made more choppy in .gifs, or do they really have about 3-5 frames per second?

Some animations are quite smooth, others are REALLY terrible. I guess they could only support a certain max. size for animations, so the longer and larger ones got shafted?

Ephraim225
Oct 28, 2010
With all these timing puzzles I feel inclined to make a Dragon's Lair joke. I can't think of one, sadly. Geez, King's Quest hasn't aged well, has it?

steinrokkan
Apr 2, 2011



Soiled Meat
You done hosed up, op.

Nidoking
Jan 27, 2009

I fought the lava, and the lava won.

FisheyStix posted:

Years later, I watched the Nidoking (?) LP of it and it was comical how unscary it all was.

Frankomatic did that LP, and I just did some bonus videos for it that are no longer online (except for the one I was forced to post to Youtube for some reason I can't remember right now). I've been meaning to get around to posting those on Youtube and having them added to the archived version, but there are copyright issues with a few and the quality's not great, so for now, I'm the only one who has them.

That said, I apologize for ruining the second best joke in the game, but it's circumstantial.

DLord
Apr 28, 2013
The Dragon I felt looked nice, all glass and bit other worldly. Yes one guy coming up will make you run.

Love this line "I'll make every bat, every rat, and every snake to explode at once!"

Xander77
Apr 6, 2009

Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.



Nidoking posted:

Frankomatic did that LP, and I just did some bonus videos for it that are no longer online (except for the one I was forced to post to Youtube for some reason I can't remember right now). I've been meaning to get around to posting those on Youtube and having them added to the archived version, but there are copyright issues with a few and the quality's not great, so for now, I'm the only one who has them.

Oh? The two things I remember from previous KQ LP's is that missing animations page I linked earlier, and stealing a gif from the Mask of Eternity LP to illustrate something in one of my LP's. I was convinced that was your LP. (My memory is fragmentary at best, but very self-assured)

Nidoking
Jan 27, 2009

I fought the lava, and the lava won.

Xander77 posted:

Oh? The two things I remember from previous KQ LP's is that missing animations page I linked earlier, and stealing a gif from the Mask of Eternity LP to illustrate something in one of my LP's. I was convinced that was your LP. (My memory is fragmentary at best, but very self-assured)

I did Mask of Eternity, but Frankomatic did the seven numbered games.

corn in the bible
Jun 5, 2004

Oh no oh god it's all true!
PART FOUR



According to Roberta Williams, the troll underground was her favorite part of the game. I can't imagine why, but that might explain why it takes so drat long to get out of there, especially since we're never going back. This section is going to be much shorter, because most of its plot was cut to meet the game's deadline.



Oh yeah, the lizard. He likes prickly pears (and really, who doesn't?).



The hint for this is that none of the other items can be used on him. But at least he seems happy, so that's fine. Now we're done with the desert, maybe (we're not done with the desert, we're never done with the desert)




It's a deer. The theme for this chapter is "talking animals," or possibly "terrible voice-acting." But you can't have voice and subtitles on at the same time, which in a normal game would be a detriment but in King's Quest 7 is like a miracle from heaven. Anyway, the deer has something to say to us:



Then he sits back down. You have to keep talking to him, over and over, until he runs out of things to say. Otherwise you can't complete the game.



Haha, wow

Lady Valanice, know this: the oak tree you see before you was once my wife, Ceres, she who is Mother Nature. I could not stop her being turned into a tree, for I had already been turned into a stag. I, Attis, Lord of the Hunt, could not save her.
Who has done such a terrible thing, my Lord Attis?
It was so sudden and ferocious that I saw nothing. Only a noble from the high court of Etheria could have done it, but that is unthinkable.



I am sorry for your loss, Attis, but I must search on. Farewell, my friend.
Valanice, wait. To the far west is the Wood of the Were Folk. Do not enter them, for the Were Folk are never friendly, and always dangerous.

So he goes back to sleep, but, like I said, we need to talk to him yet again.

Is there nothing that can break the enchantment on you and your wife, Attis?



Plot flag, check. Later (much later, like different chapter later) we'll have to talk to Feldspar and it won't work unless you keep clicking the deer until he finally mentions the dude. But we will not be saving deer guy or his tree wife in this chapter; it will have to wait. Here's another jumping "puzzle"





The reason this animation looks ok and Troll Rosella's jump did not is that they were handled by two different animation companies. The global animations, which includes a lot of Valanice's animation, was done by Animation Magic, the CDi Zelda people (they also worked on I. M. Meen and the aborted Warcraft adventure game!), who already had experience in doing animation for computer games. Troll Rosella, however, seems to have been handled by Dungeon Ink & Paint, who are a phantom and never worked on anything else, as far as I know. But here's an except from a 1994 ad that I found, which would likely be around the time they were finishing up work on King's Quest.

quote:

DUNGEON INK & PAINT

WE'LL SQUEEZE THE poo poo out of our staff to get your ink-and-paint project done ON TIME ... and ON BUDGET! Our animators and in-betweeners are just DYING to help with your next project. They just love to get out of the PIT to work on things.

Inmates and slaves trained to digitally computer scan, paint and frame. Our one-armed staff still hand ink-and-paint. The legless crew are nailed to the Oxberrys.

Please give us a call so you can experience the Dungeon. CHAINED TO THE WALL AND WAITING!

Seems like a quality company.




Just cool off for a while, my many-legged friend.



There you are, pretty one. Safe and sound.

The hummingbird can help us out with something, but that involves backtracking and I want to do as little backtracking as possible. It can wait. Here is some "comedy."



Valanice of Daventry. I seek entry to your town.
You may only enter this city iiiiiiif... if you bring me the Holy One-Ton Tomato of Antioch.
That's ridiculous! There's no such thing!
Oh, and you're going to let a little thing like THAT stop you? You don't DESERVE to be in this town!

How will we get into the town. Can you solve the puzzle.



Here is a comic relief dog.



YAP! Get out! I, Fifi le Yipyap, do order it! (slurp) You are a thtranger here, and you have no buthineth in the town of Falderal!

It is another puzzle. How will Strong Female Character Queen Valanice get out of this jam?



I want nothing from your town. I am only searching for my daughter, Rosella. She was stolen by some evil magic. Now I fear I will never see her again.



I hate this dog and I hate this town and I hate Roberta Willaims



A chicken who thinks the sky is falling! Because of budgetary cuts the chicken's plotline has no resolution.

Never mind her, my lady (slurp) She'th very thilly.

Fine, whatever. The first thing to do is visit the China Shop. Chapter Three ends when you trigger a specific event, because all the Chapters end on cliffhangers, but there's no direction towards what you have to do to get there, and there's not really any reason for Rosella to even be doing anything in this town. So we need to go to the China shop solely because the writers want you to go to the China shop. There's a bull in there, which is very humorous.



Do you get it, do you get the joke

Welcome to my shop, dear lady. I am Fernando Bullforth, proprietor.
Good day, sir.



I, uh... hm.

I'm sorry to hear that, Fernando. Is there anything I can do to help?
Not unless you have found my Treasure.
Someone stole your treasure? How awful! Was it gold, or gems?
No, my Treasure, my precious china bird. I love my Treasure more than all the stars in the sky. She is my only friend and now -- now she's gone.



Valanice has some hosed up priorities.

...Unfortunately, I've no money.

You can tell we need the mask because it's poorly matted onto the painted background. The mask is horribly animated, too, and I honestly don't know why.




Both of these characters are horribly annoying, especially with the sound on. Fortunately you don't have to actually talk to either of them; unfortunately, they keep shoving themselves into cutscenes anyway. As revenge for bothering her, Queen Valanice is going to rob the fish-man blind.




If you haven't met Fernando, the bird refuses to leave his cage. Even though he's been kidnapped and can fly.

Your friend Fernando is looking for you. He says he "loves his little Treasure more than all the stars in the sky."
You've met him! Will you take me to him? Please?
Of course. Here, hop onto my finger.




Let's give the bird back to the bull. Maybe something will finally happen?





At least Valanice got that mask she wanted. But you may have noticed that, so far, there's been no reason for anything Valanice has done. In fact -- and I am sure someone will try to argue that I am wrong, but it's true -- nothing Valanice does in Falderal makes any goddamn sense at all. Rosella isn't here, and eventually Valanice even learns this but still sticks around because... hm.

The problem, of course, is that Falderal was going to play a much larger part in the plot. The specifics aren't all clear, but the whole sky is falling thing, and how it's resolved, were apparently going to be much more significant and would tie into the overarching game's story. The only reason they kept this stuff in (and this isn't a joke) is because they still wanted to have a cliffhanger in Chapter Three and couldn't afford to animate anything more, and the weird, disjointed nature of this section is the result. But you'll get to see plenty more of that next time, so stick around!

Tiggum
Oct 24, 2007

Your life and your quest end here.


corn in the bible posted:

Valanice, wait. To the far west is the Wood of the Were Folk. Do not enter them, for the Were Folk are never friendly, and always dangerous.
When I played this game as a child I could never work out what the hell the "were folk" were, because the way the voice actors pronounce it is really weird. IIRC they say it something like "weir folk".

corn in the bible posted:

Valanice of Daventry. I seek entry to your town.
You may only enter this city iiiiiiif... if you bring me the Holy One-Ton Tomato of Antioch.
That's ridiculous! There's no such thing!
Oh, and you're going to let a little thing like THAT stop you? You don't DESERVE to be in this town!
There's way more to this dialogue, isn't there? I remember him asking for a bunch of different stuff.

corn in the bible posted:

I hate this dog and I hate this town and I hate Roberta Willaims
This town may be the worst part of the game.

That bird (who I think is supposed to sound like Groucho Marx?) has a ridiculous number of lines and IIRC is completely pointless. I guess someone just wanted to record a bunch of "humourous" insults.

corn in the bible posted:

But you may have noticed that, so far, there's been no reason for anything Valanice has done. In fact -- and I am sure someone will try to argue that I am wrong, but it's true -- nothing Valanice does in Falderal makes any goddamn sense at all. Rosella isn't here, and eventually Valanice even learns this but still sticks around because... hm.
To be fair, that's pretty standard for older adventure games (and the shittier modern ones too), especially the King's Quest series. Not that that excuses it.

Mega64
May 23, 2008

I took the octopath less travelered,

And it made one-eighth the difference.

Blood-vomiting poodle is now my favorite character in this game.

SupSuper
Apr 8, 2009

At the Heart of the city is an Alien horror, so vile and so powerful that not even death can claim it.

Tiggum posted:

That bird (who I think is supposed to sound like Groucho Marx?) has a ridiculous number of lines and IIRC is completely pointless. I guess someone just wanted to record a bunch of "humourous" insults.
Hey it worked for KQ6.

Nidoking
Jan 27, 2009

I fought the lava, and the lava won.
The events in Falderal DO have a connection to the rest of the game - it's not Rosella you're after in there, but of course, if you don't talk to anyone, you don't learn anything. Again, you're doing the game a disservice and then complaining about it.

Also, the best line in the game results if you try to rescue the bird before talking to Fernando. You have to do it nine times.

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corn in the bible
Jun 5, 2004

Oh no oh god it's all true!
I did talk to all the NPCs I saw; you have to, to get through the chapter. Nobody mentioned anything. If you mean the magic mirror you find, of course that's significant and I will show it off but there's no reason Valanice would know it's there. I didn't try to steal the bird nine times though, mostly because why would I do that

I did capture more mockingbird lines, which are great of course, but I didn't want to put them all at once. He's a good character but if you listen to him over and over he can get annoying. He is not pointless; you do get an item from him eventually, but talking to him is pointless. It's when he leaves that he becomes useful.

corn in the bible fucked around with this message at 14:00 on Mar 27, 2015

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