#kqiii

It was pirate ship time in which I learned that main character Gwydion may be, but defier of gravity not so much.

I didn't mean to fall. The ladder just seemed to come to an abrupt end when I thought it'd lead into the crow's nest.

Anyhoo, with this pirate ship you have to avoid the crew members and the captain. If you're caught you'll be thrown back in the hold and have your inventory taken again. If you're caught again, you'll be made to walk the plank and die. Naturally I did so.

As an adventure game you would think there would be puzzles to solve. Things to do. Ways to help yourself. Nope. The grand solution is to wait for the ship to reach land which can take several minutes.

After a little wandering around and looking at things I finally just went back down to the hold so I wouldn't get caught. And waited. And looked at my magic map which does have a neat little detail of moving the ship to a different tile along its course as time moves on.

When I first looked the ship was in the second, I think, tile from the left along that red line.

I also went back to the mice and listened to them chatter about wondering what would happen to Gwydion. They figured the pirates would make him a cabin boy. The last one got fed to sharks for sport. They also gossiped about treasure that could be found on the land we're heading to so I made note of that. I attempted to talk to them but "The little mice totally ignore your attempted conversation."

Finally I heard the call of "land ho!" For points, I cast the sleeping spell which also helps in avoiding capture. If you do it before seeing land there's no one to control the ship and you die.

With the crew asleep I checked out a room that kept getting blocked off by a crew member before and got me a shovel. Then I jumped off the ship and swam to shore, nearly being eaten by a shark on the way.

I found the treasure the mice gossiped about for points. It was a chest of gold ingots and gems and stuff.

Then I found myself more windy mountain paths.

I reckon this sums up my feelings on that.

More walking along narrow paths and I did some teleporting with the spell. Ultimately I ended up at the top of a snowy peak with a cave.

Hmmmm indeed.

What could be in there? What could be around?

Ah. But of course the abominable snowman. And a rather brutal death...

Yikes.

After reloading I explored around and got grabbed again a time or two. There's a spot around the peak where you can leave, but the abominable snowman shows up constantly. I'm not sure if that's always the case or if it was bad RNG. Either way I had to deal with him. I used the teleport stone and it confused him. He wandered off I was luckily teleported to the exact same spot. Maybe that's always the case in that particular situation or I just got lucky. Not sure. Anyway, from there there's a path down to a rock face.

First step was to get to that platform below but I fell a few times. I tried the other side and it went even worse.

The deaths started getting snarkier in this half of the game and I have to say I appreciate it. At least make my deaths entertaining.

I did manage to make my way down and out to Daventry! Where I promptly fell down another cliff.

I continued on after that added death to my ever growing count and found a gnome sitting out in front of his home.

He welcomes Gwydion home and we learn Gwydion's real name is actually Alexander. He tells him Daventry has been suffering for years now since that despicable dragon came. We learn again that Princess Rosella is the next sacrifice. The King and Queen are suffering such grief they've locked themselves in the castle.

From there we can go to the castle and see it in poor shape with tattered banners and crumbling statue work. The moat is drained; what happened to the moat gators? The doors are bolted and unmovable and no one answers when shouting.

There's nowhere else to go so it's back to where we came out. There's a cave entrance that takes us to long stairs going up. They're the same stairs from the first game that you use to get down from dealing with the giant. Or use to get up if you don't get the magic beanstalk.

At the top is another screen and then dragon time!

I walked right on in there and you can probably imagine how that went. One roasted Gwydion, sorry, Prince Alexander, coming up.

I tried entering again, this time after using the invisibility spell. All is well until I tried untying Rosella.

Two royals, crispy fried.

So the real solution is to go invisible and put our final unused spell to use. It's brewing a storm time! Lightning bolts strike the dragon and it dies.

Boom crispy fried dragon.

Untie Rosella and he proudly tells her he's her long-lost brother, Prince Alexander to which she is understandably doubtful. Alexander says he'll explain everything later but for now "Let's go meet the folks!" which is a line that cracks me up for how out of place it feels.

If you look at her much awkwardness ensues...

Moving on!

To more awkwardness when coming right after that. I tried talking to her again.

I ended up talking to her more and it turns out she has a lot to say which I didn't know so I'm glad I did so.

I'm keeping the above screenshot for Reasons I can't get into until King's Quest V.

More pleasantries are exchanged and Alexander finds her to be 'not only beautiful, but very strong-willed and brave.' 'Admires that in a woman.'

Everything going well, except not. Because I got literally stuck. There's a transition part way down the stairs to the next flight of stairs. After transitioning to the next flight it would stick Rosella aright in front of me and because the stairs are so narrow I couldn't get past her. You can see it in the above screencap. I left and came back, I reloaded, tried using the mouse, I reloaded an earlier save and fought the dragon all over again. Nothing. After some searching around I found a bug submitted to ScummVM about and that the only way to get down was to use the numpad to go diagonally. I didn't know you could do that, but that worked. It would've been nice to have known that before for other spots too. So, it worked out, but I was getting immensely frustrated and worried I wouldn't be able to quite finish the game when the end was right there. Some kind of ScummVM issue anyway it seems and not really the game's fault.

Anyway, with that last trial done it was time to go home. We met back up with the gnome who excitedly ran ahead to inform everyone of the good news. We got to the castle and were able to enter now and find King Graham and Queen Valanice in the throne room.

Much joy and hugs were exchanged.

Graham explains that the magic mirror has been clouded since Alexander disappeared. Now as they stand there, the mirror clears! And the future looks bright for all.

Graham decides that his old adventurer's cap needs a new companion and throws it to his children. Rosella and Alexander both reach up for it and The End.

And so ends King's Quest III with a family reunited and the kingdom of Daventry saved once again.

Final Points: 202/210 I know at least one spot I missed points. Not sure about the rest

Deaths: 63 New record. I died a lot on that mountain...

Time: 3:41

Final Thoughts:

This game has got its ups and downs for sure. I quite enjoyed the first part up to the pirate ship (aside from the key on the closet). I was a little overly nervous of the time limit, so I wish I'd taken my time a little more at points--mainly the time before Manannan left. I didn't really end up having much happen with him.

That aside it's fun gathering all the ingredients and casting the spells. The understanding animals spell in particular is an extra bit of delight ripe for all the exploration.

Then you get to the pirate ship and things slide. Having to just wait for upwards of like ten minutes--the amount of time seems to vary?--is realistic but not fun. It's an adventure game. You do things. You solve things. Waiting that long is not only boring, it goes against its own patterns. And the ship just isn't that big. There's not a lot to do to spend that time and if you're not careful you could get killed and then have to wait part of that time all over again depending on your last save.

After that there aren't many puzzles left. Basically there's optional treasure to find, the abominable snowman to avoid, and the dragon to beat and that's it. You spend a lot more time with walking narrow paths and climbing things and trying not to fall. Sierra "platforming" and the game's not exactly good or elegant at it.

And the whole Graham and Valanice letting Daventry fall just feels kind of contrived knowing past actions and the general heroism! feel of the games

Here we go.

Now Gwydion is Manannan's slave and has no idea where he came from, who he really is or how he came here and of course Manannan ain't about to tell him.

So we begin with Manannan (doot dooo doodoodoot) yelling at him to get back to work and it's time to look around and ultimately find a way to escape from Manannan.

I explored around the house and this game is very mean to Manannan's cat. Maybe the cat is a jerk; sure liked getting in my way on the stairs, but. Cat. Maybe I was in its way, huh?

I did some chores such as sweeping the kitchen.

You can also empty his chamber pot, dust his desk and feed the chickens outside. There are chances Manannan can catch you doing things you shouldn't be like trying to leave, and punish you through things like temporarily hanging you upside down from the ceiling in the kitchen but I managed to, somewhat unfortunately, avoid that.

I did however find a secret lever in his study and he showed up and killed me oops. If he catches you doing anything related to magic like that lever or finding certain ingredients he'll kill you.

After poking around for a bit, I'm not sure what triggers it or if it's a time thing, he'll pop up and say he's going on a journey. This came up pretty quickly for me, which is a bit unfortunate as I didn't get to go bug him in his study or anything like that. Let me bug the foul tempered evil wizard!

There's a time limit for how long he'll be gone based on the in-game timer. The timer doesn't go up when messages are displayed, so that's a way to pause for a moment if you need to think.

With him gone, we're free to explore both the house and the surrounding region. I used the aforementioned lever to open a passageway down to Manannan's lab. Here, you find his spellbook and several ingredients.

There are a few different spells you'll need to cast eventually and they're all listed in the manual along with the steps needed to cast them. This was apparently a form of copy protection.

The spells we have available are:

Understanding the Language of Creatures

Flying like an Eagle or a Fly

Teleportation at Random

Causing a Deep Sleep

Transforming another into a Cat

Brewing a Storm

Becoming Invisible

All the spells will have a use but we'll first need Transforming another into a Cat.

If you mess up any step in the spell you'll get a game over with some amusing result from having messed up. I fully intend to deliberately screw up each one, and of the two I've done, I have messed up ...entirely accidentally.

I just wanted to look at the book and tried the page for the cat spell. I didn't have any of what I needed, but I figured I could back out. Nope... You have to do something, so that was a mess and Gwydion was turned into a partial cat.

Oooops. And that's a game over.

Reloading, I was ready to go again. Now, knowing these spells exist and what their needs are, it's time collect both the ingredients and a magic wand.

The magic wand is in Manannan's study in a locked cabinet, so we need to find a key and it's kind of bullshit.

The key is in his bedroom. There's 0 indication it's in there at all let alone where it might be. Of course it has to be somewhere around, but there are already a few items in here.

In the drawers there's rose petal essence which is needed for one of the spells. There's a magic mirror in the drawer below the tall mirror. In the closet there's a magic map that will fill in as you explore and lets you teleport to any tile you've been. Yay, I don't have to map! But where's the key? It's nowhere around the bed or the mirror. You would think as you've already searched in the closet and already found something it wouldn't be in there either and you'd be right. No, it's on top of the closet that looks entirely out of Gwydion's reach and has nothing for a visual indicator.

Sigh. Thank you, let's play. Because they sure got stuck here and I sure as hell would have too.

Continuing on! I got the magic wand, grabbed a bowl and utensils from the kitchen and set out to explore.

Another piece of bullshit. Just follow the path you can't see behind the giant boulder. I didn't do too badly coming down here--only a few falls--but going back up I fell several times. Who needs a wizard to kill you when you have a winding mountain path? That point right in front of Gwydion where you essentially need to turn up but can't see is bad. It's not like Gwydion wouldn't be able to see. Bad design is bad.

I found a little dock area with a shop and a tavern.

Dog! Can't pet the mean cat, but can pet the dog and acquire a spell ingredient. There were things to buy all of which I'd need for the spells but I had no money yet.

I kept exploring and found the three bears' house.

Papa Bear wasn't thrilled with me.

And look! You can see the mountain in the background. You can actually see things that are on further off tiles. That improvement in technology.

I kept exploring, picking up a few ingredients on the way. I found a bandit lair up a tree. RNG was a killer here. There's a chance there'll be a bandit in the lair. There's only a narrow platform outside the tree house and so it's extremely easy to fall off when coming out of the place. I died here two or three times before entering to find a bandit asleep. I stole a pouch of money and carried on my merry way.

With money in hand I went back and bought several things. I also went back to the bears' house and this time they were all out but left their porridge on the table. As the standard thieving adventurer I took the porridge that was juuust right.

I had what I needed for the cat cookie and was getting a little worried about time, so I went back, and worried needlessly as it turned out. I still had plenty of time, so rather than waste that I reloaded and went back down to explore more, particularly the desert, as I figured I could at least find the cactus and reptile skin. I did so, but not without some difficulty.

There's a very high chance you'll run into a medusa who will turn you to stone. I had my speed set to fastest which made it next to impossible to react to her before being immediately petrified. You have to make sure not to face her and let her get close enough to show her the mirror. I lowered my speed back down to normal and took a couple tries but got her.

Unfortunately, I got lost in the desert and took too long to find the items, so by the time I got back to the mountain path I only got part way up before Manannan returned and murdered me.

Since I had a better idea of where things were, I reloaded that save and got my desert items much faster a second time.

I was able to make the cat cookie. And then you have to put everything back and hide your stuff before Manannan comes back. So close the secret door with the lever, put the book back, put the wand back and hide all your stuff under your bed as he never enters your room.

Y'know, for how controlling and paranoid he is you would think he would check on your room more, but if he ultimately just murders you anyway, I guess it might not matter that much.

Once he comes back he demands food. And boy do I have food for him! Mix that gross hairy cookie into the porridge and let him have at it.

Yum yum cat cookie porridge.

He makes a much cuter cat.

Now there's more room to breathe. I was going to cast the spells I could cast before leaving. It was a sound plan. I headed back down, started the spell for invisibility! And had nothing I needed so it immediately messed up.

Because I forgot to take all my stuff back.

I reloaded and got my stuff back. Tried again, made it through all the steps and...

realized I forgot to grab the wand back as well.

Then I stopped for the night because I was clearly getting too tired for this.

Now that's a healthy inventory for an adventurer.

I'm still missing mud, mistletoe and an eagle feather to finish all the spells, but I can do some of them at least, so I'll cast those I can do, hopefully without accidental dumb mistakes, before setting out to find my missing ingredients along with my next goal.

Death Counter: 24 (give or take a couple deaths I may have missed from falling or Medusa)

Time Played: 1:35