King's Quest: Chapter IV - Snow Place Like Home

The story continues one peaceful night... or not, as the loud crying voices of your two babies wake you up. As a loving husband, you let your wife, who is now revealed after the hunt for your princess bride in the previous chapter has been done, sleep despite being her turn to tend to the children, and as a loving father you rush to prepare the milk bottle and lull your children to sleep. But then, your tourney rival, Manny, now in human form, appears on your doorstep and disposes of your royal guards with a powerful magic. Killing you and your family would be too kind in his mad eyes, so he kidnaps your boy, Alexander, and disappears.

Your mad hunt to find your missing boy has been in vain and while time tends to cure all wounds, this one is still felt across your kingdom almost two decades after. Then, to your surprise, your missing child appears on your doorstep, claiming he used magic to escape from Manny and return home. The prodigal son returns, but the reunion isn't as jolly as Graham thought it would be. Son and father don't see eye-to-eye when it comes to using magic over wits, and Alexander does no longer go by his birth name, but by a new name Manny had given him.

There's nothing better than a vacation on a sunny tropical resort to bring the family back together, and so they all go, but instead, they find the tropical resort rather cold and frozen. Graham thinking it's still some sort of a themed resort isn't the one to turn around but faces the challenge head on. And a challenge it is, for this chapter is entirely puzzle-oriented in the most literal way. Instead of doing the adventuring part and talking to other characters, the player will mostly have to go through numerous rooms in the ice palace, each of which containing a puzzle that needs to be solved in order to proceed. And before too long, it will turn into a race to save your family while the mysterious guide, the sphinx, is torturing you with utter subtlety throughout the entire course.

The kingdom of ice is not a total surprise, as the previous chapter ended up in one of the princesses starting to turn to ice due to the magic that engulfed and shattered the tower both princesses and Graham were imprisoned at. But this entire ordeal will yield more than just bad memories as it will bring the torn-apart family back together and bridge the gaps that Manny tried to impose. As it happens that Graham's children are both in late teenage years, king Graham too will no longer be the young adventurer that he once was, but a more mature figure, at least when it comes to his looks.