From Monochrome to Monarchy: The History of King's Quest, Part Four
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Since its debut in 1984, King's Quest had established something of a cyclical protagonist rotation. The first two adventures starred Graham; the third featured Prince Alexander, King Graham's son; Princess Rosella took the lead in the fourth KQ game, and Graham and Alex reprised their heroic roles in King's Quest V and VI, respectively. Lorelei and Roberta decided that Rosella's time to shine had come once again in King's Quest VII, but this time, she would be joined by Queen Valanice, her mother and a character that had never been playable in a King's Quest game.
The Disney influence was apparent from the beginning of King's Quest VII. In the game's opening, Princess Rosella sings her displeasure at being compelled to marry. Over the course of her song and dance, Rosella arrives at a pond. When her mother approaches and begins lecturing her daughter on the practicalities of finding a husband and settling down, Rosella, more interested in adventure than cooking and childbearing, stares wistfully into the pond--and is shocked to see an otherworldly, seahorse-like creature burst through the surface.
After the creature plops back into the water, Rosella watches it swim back to a fantastical kingdom at the bottom of the pond. Enchanted, Rosella dives in. Panicked, Valanice plunges in after her daughter. As they sink, mother and daughter are caught within a colorful whirlpool. The two strain to touch hands, but moments before their fingers intertwine, a hairy, beastly arm bursts through the side of the vortex and snatches Rosella away.
Divided into six chapters that alternate between Rosella and Valanice, KQ7 first puts players in control of Daventry's queen. Popping up from the ground and caught in the thrones of a tornado, Valanice is spit from the twister onto the parched desert ground, one of multiple regions in the world of Eldritch. As Rosella climbs to her feet and takes a look around, players familiar with the royal family's past adventures also needed a few moments to gather their bearings: gone were the familiar walk, talk, take, and other icons commonly used to interact with KQ game screens. Instead, KQ7 utilized Sierra's new SCI32 engine (also known as SCI2 and SCI3), one specifically written for games that favored interactivity and cinematic storytelling.
