1980s
King's Quest
1984 · Adventure · PC/DOS
Overview
King's Quest is a classic 1980s adventure game developed by Roberta Williams for PC/DOS.
Deep Dive
King's Quest is a classic 1980s adventure game developed by Roberta Williams for PC/DOS.
Developer Story
King's Quest was designed by Roberta Williams at Sierra On-Line in 1984. It was created as a showcase for IBM's PCjr computer and was the first graphical adventure game with an animated protagonist who moved around the screen. Williams had designed Mystery House (1980) with her husband Ken, one of the first graphical text adventures. King's Quest transformed adventure games from text parsers into visual worlds and launched Sierra's most successful franchise.
Did You Know?
- King's Quest was commissioned by IBM as a showcase for the PCjr — a computer that failed commercially, while the game it spawned became a decade-long franchise.
- Roberta Williams designed King's Quest in 1983-84 while pregnant — she has described creating the game during a very specific period of her life.
- Characters could be killed by falling into pits, being eaten by a dragon, or dozens of other hazards — adventure game deaths were Roberta Williams' signature.
- Williams and her husband Ken founded Sierra On-Line in their living room in 1979, building one of the most important game companies of the 1980s.
- The King's Quest series ran to eight games, with the eighth released in 1998 — a 14-year franchise spawned from an IBM showcase demo.
