The story world of King’s Quest consists of the characters, scenes, puzzles, quests, guidebooks, hintbooks, and novels, revolving around the eight graphic based adventure games, by American video game maker, Roberta Williams.
In each of the “official” King’s Quest games, with the exception of King’s Quest VIII, Graham, or one of Graham’s offspring, is always the player character. And in each King’s Quest game, the player character embarks upon a quest involving the welfare of a member of King Graham’s immediate family.
In King’s Quest I, Graham returns three magical items to the Kingdom of Daventry and becomes king. In King’s Quest II, King Graham embarks upon a journey to marry a young women. In King’s Quest III, Graham’s son Gwydion, is the player character who frees himself from an evil wizard and saves King Graham’s kingdom. In King’s Quest IV, King Graham’s daughter, princess Rosella heals the sickly King Graham. In King’s Quest V, King Graham saves his own family from an evil wizard. In King’s Quest VI, Graham’s son, Alexander, quests after a girl and marries her. And in King’s Quest VII, King Graham’s daughter Rosella, unmarries a Troll King, and saves the inhabitants of the land.
In addition to the eight games designed by Williams, the story world of King’s Quest includes an official re-make of Kings Quest I, a book of novelizations called “The Kings Quest companion”, the unofficial fan re-make of the first three King’s Quest games, and the recently released fan-made King’s Quest IX. Interesting to note, in the fans re-make of King’s Quest II, III, and I, the only changes made in the games are to the user interface. None of the story or story elements of the fiction are changed.
As the story world of King’s Quest is rooted exclusively within existing European fairy tales and Greek myth, the existence of non-player characters, objects, cultures, laws, and economies; are all derivative. This inherited nature of the Kings Quest story world, gives the series, an ability to construct a new story world with almost no expository.
This plays well within the confines of the graphic based adventure genre, which favors embedded storytelling, exploration, and puzzle solving, and of which the Kings Quest series is considered foundational.
The fan fiction about Kings Quest tries hard to expand the story world. In The King’s Quest Companion, it’s author, Spear “…claims that the World of Daventry exists in a different plane of reality. The creatures of magic and mythology withdrew to this other world to protect their existence as science and technology took over in our world. Spear says he gets his information from Derek Karlavaegen, a scribe from the World of Daventry. After Karlavaegen interviewed Prince Alexander about his escape from the wizard Manannan, he traveled to Llewdor and took up shop in Manannan’s house. It was here that he discovered “The Eye Between the Worlds”, a device that allows him to communicate to other dimensions. It is through this that he has supposedly sent messages to Spear, including the story versions of King Graham and his family’s adventures from the King’s Quest games. Spear even suggests that the Eye can be seen in the actual King’s Quest III game, pointing out an object on the bookshelf in Manannan’s study that looks like a computer screen.”
After ten years of legal wrangling, Activision recently allowed the release of Kings Quest IX. The fan made King’s Quest IX, will be released in five separate episodes. So far, the first episode, released this past July, contains no puzzles within it’s 1.5 hours of game play. Though it is not the first Kings Quest game to be published without the involvement of the story world’s creator, it will be interesting to see how both the craft and core story are affected. So far, Kings Quest IX, does not appear to be expanding the fiction of the King’s Quest series at all. Set in the green isles, where both Kings Quest VI, and Kings Quest VIII take place, and using the player character of King Graham, the fan made Kings Quest IX, seems to be a benign re-telling of Kings Quest V.
This makes me wonder if The King’s Quest Companion will someday be updated with content from the fan made Kings Quest IX? As mentioned above, The Kings Quest companion considers the world of Kings Quest to be real and another “plane of reality” where the “…creatures of magic and mythology withdrew … to protect their existence as science and technology took over in our world.” Given the great deal of energy and technology employed by fans to make Kings Quest IX, I wonder if the idea of science and technology will someday allow the fans to take over the world of Kings Quest.