Couples who game together, stay together
The new release of King’s Quest is a great game to play as a couple, as it’s more about putting your heads together than control over the remote. Great for people both with or without gaming experience, the gameplay is easy, but the puzzles can be tricky.
King’s Quest, Chapter VII: The Princeless Bride
When George and I first moved in together, we found an old computer game I’d kept from my childhood.
It was the 1995 release of King’s Quest, Chapter VII: The Princeless Bride. The CD-ROM was given to me by my grandfather when I was only 7 or 8 years old. The cover, as you see to the left, is beautiful and exciting! I couldn’t wait to play! …But I could never get past the intro.
I told George about how I remembered the game starting with a princess in the desert, and a cave with a giant scorpion inside, and some kind of well… How I’d walked round and round in that desert but never figured out how to move on to the next level.
I was a smart kid, but this game was tough with a capital T. It had been the source of so much frustration for so long, which is probably why I kept it all that time, waiting for one day when I’d be old enough to kick its ass.
George spent the next few hours immersed in discovering how he could find a way to play the damn thing. Finally, he figured out that due to the operating system, it could only play on Windows ’95. But then he found the game on gog.com, which had converted it for Windows 10! I joined him on the sofa as we double-clicked the mouse to open the game.
It didn’t matter that over 20 years had passed… I was still stumped! And so was George. So we did what I couldn’t do back in the 90’s. We googled the gameplay. “What the…” I said under my breath as we watched the absurdly non-intuitive tricks to the game…
King’s Quest for Xbox
Nearly two decades on, Sierra has released a brand new 2015 version of King’s Quest on Xbox (also available on PlayStation). It’s not a remake of the old one, but rather it’s inspired by and based on it. And what a fantastic game it is! Beautiful Disney styled imagery, a heartwarming storyline, with fun, mind-twisting puzzles and riddles of varying degrees of difficulty.
The game is narrated by a nostalgic old King Graham, while Chapter 1 starts you off playing young Graham as he embarks on his journey towards becoming king. As the chapters unfold, we learn more about the King’s life, his family and adventures in Daventry. Each of the 5 chapters doesn’t take too long to complete. We typically finished a chapter over a weekend.
Check out the Trailer
Did you ever play King’s Quest?
While I appreciate it’s not everyone’s cup of tea – mostly aimed at the younger and non-violent crowd – let me know what you think of the game in the comments below!
Loved the new game. I’m actually looking forward to playing this with my nieces when they visit!
That’s an excellent idea! I’m sure they will love it 🙂