King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella

aka: KQ4
Moby ID: 129
DOS Specs
Buy on Apple IIgs
$600.00 new on eBay
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Description official descriptions

King Graham and Queen Valanice were glad to have their children back. Graham thinks that it is time to pass onto them his old adventurers' hat. When he throws it across the room, he suffers a heart attack and collapses on the floor, and he is carried off to bed. The only way that Graham's health can be restored is by retrieving the magic fruit in the faraway land of Tamir. A beautiful fairy called Genesta offers Rosella the chance to be transported to the land, and find the fruit. But once she gets transported, she cannot be sent back unless she helps the fairy regain her talisman that was stolen by the evil witch, Lolotte.

King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella is the first game in the series to have a female protagonist. Rosella will meet characters that will either help or hinder her. The player moves Rosella around with arrow keys, and have her perform actions by typing commands. Unlike the previous King's Quest games, which used the AGI engine, this installment uses the new SCI engine with more detailed graphics; the most visible effect is that the game is paused while the player is typing, giving unlimited time to complete even the longest commands. An AGI version of the game, however, was released as well.

Gameplay-wise, the game is similar to the first two installments of the series, with a large interconnected world open for exploration and no time limit imposed. The game is the first in the series to have a day and night cycle; certain actions can be performed only during a specific time.

Spellings

  • King's Quest IV: המיסתורין של רוזאלה - Hebrew spelling

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Credits (DOS version)

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Written by
Design
Programming
Programming (AGI)
Programming (intro and ending movies)
Interpreter / Development System
Graphics / Artwork
Animation
Music
Executive Producer
Director
Graphics System
Cavalry Coding
Wrangling
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 77% (based on 23 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.9 out of 5 (based on 92 ratings with 8 reviews)

Ground breaking in some ways, backwards in others

The Good
King's Quest IV was a truly breakthrough game for the IBM PC and compatibles. Before this game, people had absolutely no reason to upgrade from the already dated CGA graphics card and the PC Speaker. This was among the first games that convinced people to buy a fancy EGA graphics card and an Adlib sound card, the latter being especially untried on PCs.

This game laid the second foundation that Sierra was able to bring state of the art graphics to PC Games. The graphics in this game were drawn in the new 16 color 320x200 resolution, as opposed to the old 4 color 320x200 resolution. The increase in detail from their older, blocky games, was stunning at the time. The background screens are very fairy-tale like, the Disney influence is obvious. One of the unique features to this particular Quest game is that the designers have implemented a sense of scale. In outdoor screens, people are very small sprites on the screen. Indoors, they become proportionately larger. Also, the game takes place during the day and at night, and there is separate artwork for each outdoors screen.

The music in this game was a true step up from the PC Speaker or Tandy sound. Before this game, music in computer games generally was limited to a short opening theme and little ditties throughout. While there is less music than in later games, what is there is quite rousing and fits in well with the whimsical fantasy setting. They actually got a real musician to write the game's intro and his services were well worth it.

The story is basic fantasy, but it does have a nice twist or two in the plot. Some sequences, like the ogre's house, the witches' cave and the troll's cave are suspenseful. Lolotte makes for a second in a memorable series of King's Quest villains.

The Bad
This is a Sierra adventure game, and all the usual caveats apply. It is very easy to die in this game, fall off a cliff or down the stairs, swim too far, get killed by a random monster, etc. Sierra games let you wander willy-nilly, so if you forget to do something or get something before you enter an area that does not allow you to return, hope you have a good save ready. Maniac Mansion, a contemporary of this game, did not punish the player with instant death at the slip of a keystroke.

In the older games, random monsters would inhabit screens you could avoid, but in this game a random monster haunts an area you have to go through, twice. If you played the game you know the part I mean. Some parts of the game are timed, so if you don't figure out how to proceed, you will die or can't continue. Finally, a crucial item has a limited number of uses, so if you use it in the wrong place, you cannot win.

While the graphics were improved in detail over the older Quest-engine, some objects were difficult to clearly identify. Also, as this is a text parser game, many times you have to guess what the programmer wants you to type in order to proceed. Character interaction is one-sided and limited.

This game was the last game in which Sierra would support 16-color composite graphics or the Apple IIe/IIc series of computers. Unfortunately, both use the older engine and thus were hard to find back in the day, never mind today.

The Bottom Line
A very historically-important PC game, technologically, but very little new in terms of gameplay.

DOS · by Great Hierophant (559) · 2006

A great effort in graphics and sound for its time.

The Good
The release of this game was a big event of its time. The King's Quest series was really the flagship game series for IBM computers. At a time when the venerable Apple II & Commodore 64 and the up and coming Amiga & Atari ST were the dominate home platforms with a larger library of games. This game took full advantage of the new EGA graphics card and the new array of sound cards. Showed that the IBM could have games that looked and sounded just as good as those other systems.

The game was much larger than previous quest games. Not just in hard drive space but in the game world. There was a lot of ground to explore. And the improved graphics really added to the game play. I distinctly remember how creepy that run down house looked.

The game mixed in its regular brew of fairy tale references with its plot development. There were several mini quests that you had to solve that revolved around a certain area of the world. For example the above mentioned house had some ghosts that you had to deal with.

The Bad
While the game looked and sounded good. I felt that the way this game was planned out made for some frustrations in play.

Since the game world was large and mostly open you could wander about collecting items in your usual Sierra fashion without really advancing the story much. While this worked for me in Sierra's original Hero's Quest game, in KQ4 I found myself lost until I found some hints in a magazine to help me along. This being the days before the easy download of walkthrus on the Internet.

This ability to wander also meant that you could slip into night without being ready for it. There were certain puzzles that could only be solved at night. The real time advance of the clock was a nice touch for the game but only if you were ready for it. If you had not done the things to activate the night time quest you'd have to wait until it was nightfall again. This meant that I had to wander around the game world a lot waiting for night to come.

I also found the puzzles being a bit more obtuse that the previous games. Too often I wondered just how the heck I was ever going to use an object. But perhaps to some people they are obvious but not for me. I think that the puzzles in an adventure game while not being easy should have a logical flow to them and I did not feel this was the case here.

The Bottom Line
While I had some problems with how this game played out, I still found myself enjoying the game. Despite the frustrations I had with it, I would still recommend it to players.

DOS · by woods01 (129) · 2002

Once Again a Princess Takes the Spotlight from the Royals

The Good
The story centers on Rosella, daughter of King Graham, who must find a cure for her father as well as stop the evil witch Lolotte from ruling the land. As always a knowledge of fairy tales will help in solving the game's puzzles. The game was the first in Sierra's new SCI engine which was a significant improvement from the old AGI engine. The music finally supports sound cards so another big improvement there. This installment also has a day-night cycle, one of the first games to implement this. There are two possible endings to this adventure. All in all a huge step forward in adventure game design.

The Bad
There are still the Sierra gotcha! instant kills but they are not as bad as previous games. Walking on paths & climbing are still dangerous to you. one wrong move equals death. Good luck climbing that whale's tongue! Also there is a plot critical item that will not be found without a walkthrough (the bridle).

The Bottom Line
The cream of the crop for 80s Sierra games, girls really do get it done in adventure games.

DOS · by Grumpy Quebecker (612) · 2023

[ View all 8 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
KQ4 issues, KQ and Roberta Williams in general Andrew Fisher (697) May 21, 2023
It's not possible to visit the island at night, or is it? Nowhere Girl (8680) Jan 29, 2017
An unconventional credit source Lain Crowley (6630) Feb 26, 2012

Trivia

Development

King's Quest IV began development right around the time Sierra wanted to go with a new game engine, so it was developed simultaneously in both game engines--the new one (SCI) so that they could work the kinks out, and the old one (AGI) so that they could still release a product if any major setbacks occurred with SCI. No such problems occurred, and King's Quest IV was released in two versions: The AGI version which traditional 160x200 graphics and only requiring 256k of RAM, and the new SCI version with 320x200 graphics, but requiring 512K of RAM. The older version is extremely hard to come by--it had a very limited release.

Gags

If you asked Rosella to "undress", she refused by replying that children might be playing the game.

Graphics

At the time of its release (and according to the box) this was the largest game ever made. Over 3 megabytes of code! The new graphics started a trend with the Sierra games of the late 80s and early 90s that would test the limits of how many disks can be crammed into a box... until CD-ROM became standard.

References

If you type in some vulgar words, the game will respond "Perhaps you should purchase a copy of Leisure Suit Larry instead?" For example, try "shit".

References to the game

Rosella makes a cameo appearance in Leisure Suit Larry Goes Looking for Love (In Several Wrong Places). She can be found tending the barbershop in the airport. In game when you type "look girl" it responds with:

"You find Daventry Women Sexy. (But then you find any woman sexy!)" followed up with the question, "By the way, have you played 'King's Quest IV' yet?

"Why no, I haven't " Larry replies, "is it good?"

"Well I certainly think so," she concludes, "maybe it's just me!"

Indeed, it is you Rosella. It is you. :)

Sound

The big deal with this game when it came out was that it incorporated stereo music support for sound cards. The composer, William Goldstein, also wrote the music for the musical Fame. Another big deal back then was the inclusion of a female protagonist.

Information also contributed by Adam Baratz, Brolin Empey, Michael Palomino, Olivier Masse and woods01

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Related Sites +

  • DJvu Browser Plug-in
    Website containing plug-in needed to view the Spring '89 issue of The Sierra Newsletter.
  • Hints for KQ4
    Wonderful hints nudge you along to help you solve the many puzzles in KQ4.
  • ScummVM
    supports the DOS and Apple IIgs versions of King's Quest IV under Windows, Linux, Macintosh and other platforms.
  • The Sierra Newsletter - Spring '89
    The Spring '89 issue contains an interesting article about "The Making of King's Quest IV". Worth a look. You must have the DJVu Browser plug-in in order to access the magazine.

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 129
  • [ Please login / register to view all identifiers ]

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Are you familiar with this game? Help document and preserve this entry in video game history! If your contribution is approved, you will earn points and be credited as a contributor.

Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Andy Roark.

Amiga added by POMAH. Apple II added by Guy Chapman. Atari ST added by Terok Nor. Apple IIgs added by Servo.

Additional contributors: Katakis | カタキス, Jeanne, Crawly, Macs Black, Patrick Bregger.

Game added May 23, 1999. Last modified February 13, 2024.