AGI was capable of running animated, color adventure games with music and sound effects. The player controls the game with a keyboard and, optionally, a joystick.
After the launch of King's Quest, Sierra continued to develop and improve the Adventure Game Interpreter. They employed it in 14 of their games between 1984 and 1989, before replacing it with a more sophisticated engine, Sierra's Creative Interpreter.
History
In late 1982, IBM began work on the PCjr, a lower-priced variant of the IBM Personal Computer with improved graphics and sound. The PCjr's Video Gate Arrayvideo adapter could display up to 16 colors at a time—a major improvement over the Color Graphics Adapter's four-color limit. The new sound chip, too, could output a wider range of tones than the PC speaker.
IBM commissioned Sierra to produce a game that could showcase these new capabilities.[1][2] They discussed some requirements for the game, and IBM supplied Sierra with a PCjr prototype.[1] They both agreed that the game should be animated—a first for Sierra.[citation needed] A team of six designers and developers, led by designer Roberta Williams, worked on the game that was eventually titled King's Quest.[1] Among the developers were Chuck Tingley and Ken MacNeill (later releases[which?] also credit Chris Iden. An Apple II version credits Arthur Abraham).[citation needed]
IBM premiered the PCjr in 1984; it did not sell well and, therefore, neither did King's Quest. However, later that year Tandy Corporation released the Tandy 1000, an IBM PC compatible that succeeded where the PCjr failed.[2]King's Quest caused a sensation in the burgeoning market of PC-compatible computers, and Sierra sold more than half a million copies.[citation needed] They ported it to other computing platforms, including the Apple II, Apple IIGS, Macintosh, Amiga, and Atari ST, but the PC remained the primary platform for their games.
In 1988, with the release of King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella, Sierra debuted a more sophisticated game engine: Sierra's Creative Interpreter, or SCI. Since the SCI engine required a more powerful home computer, Sierra released an AGI version of the game at the same time. However, Sierra overestimated consumer demand for the lesser version, and ceased production.
The following year, Sierra published its final AGI-based title, Manhunter 2: San Francisco, then focused exclusively on SCI for new adventure game development. Among SCI's enhancements were a more versatile scripting system, an object-oriented programming model, higher-resolution graphics (320×200 rather than 160×200), a point-and-click interface, and support for additional sound card hardware.
Like Sierra's earlier adventure titles, such as Wizard and the Princess (1980), AGI games used vector graphics. The PCjr accepted floppy disks with a capacity of 360 kilobytes, and raster graphics would have consumed an excessive amount of disk space.[1] Instead, King's Quest drew polygons on the screen, and then colored them.[1] Beginning with AGI version 2, the game engine drew graphics in an off-screen data buffer, then blitted them into video memory. This approach was not just to economize use of system resources; it also prevented the game from revealing hidden objects while it drew the screen.
↑ Donald Duck's Playground was released for the Apple II and Tandy Color Computer platforms but did not use the AGI engine for those ports, nor did the game's release for the Commodore 64
A sound card is an internal expansion card that provides input and output of audio signals to and from a computer under the control of computer programs. The term sound card is also applied to external audio interfaces used for professional audio applications.
Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion (SCUMM) is a video game engine developed at Lucasfilm Games, later renamed LucasArts, to ease development on their graphic adventure game Maniac Mansion (1987). It was subsequently used as the engine for later LucasArts adventure games and Humongous Entertainment games.
The Tandy 1000 is the first in a line of IBM PC compatible home computer systems produced by the Tandy Corporation for sale in its Radio Shack and Radio Shack Computer Center chains of stores. Introduced in 1984, the product line was aimed at providing affordable but capable systems for home computing or education, with some of its Tandy specific features like graphics, sound and joystick port making it more appealing for home use.
Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion Virtual Machine (ScummVM) is a set of game engine recreations. Originally designed to play LucasArts adventure games that use the SCUMM system, it also supports a variety of non-SCUMM games by companies like Revolution Software and Adventure Soft. It was originally written by Ludvig Strigeus. ScummVM is free software that is released under the terms of the GNU General Public License.
The IBM PCjr was a home computer produced and marketed by IBM from March 1984 to May 1985, intended as a lower-cost variant of the IBM PC with hardware capabilities better suited for video games, in order to compete more directly with other home computers such as the Apple II and Commodore 64.
The Color Graphics Adapter (CGA), originally also called the Color/Graphics Adapter or IBM Color/Graphics Monitor Adapter, introduced in 1981, was IBM's first color graphics card for the IBM PC and established a de facto computer display standard.
The Virtual Theatre is a computer game engine designed by Revolution Software to produce adventure games for computer platforms. The engine allowed their team to script events, and move animated sprites against a drawn background with moving elements using a point-and-click style interface. Upon its first release, it rivaled competing engines like LucasArts' SCUMM and Sierra's Creative Interpreter, due to its then high level of artificial intelligence. The engine was first proposed in 1989, while the first game to use it, Lure of the Temptress, was released in 1992, followed by Beneath a Steel Sky (1994), Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars (1996) and Broken Sword II: The Smoking Mirror (1997).
King's Quest: Quest for the Crown is an adventure game developed by Sierra On-Line and published originally for the IBM PCjr in 1984 and later for several other systems between 1984 and 1989. The game was originally titled King's Quest; the subtitle was added to the games box art in the 1987 re-release, but did not appear in the game.
King's Quest II: Romancing the Throne is the second installment in the King's Quest series of graphic adventure games by Sierra On-Line. It was originally released in 1985 for PC DOS/PCjr, and later made available for the Apple II/IIGS, Atari ST, and Amiga. It uses the same AGI game engine as King's Quest I: Quest for the Crown and features King Graham as the player character. The title is a spoof of the 1984 film Romancing the Stone.
King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella is a graphic adventure game developed and released by Sierra On-Line for the MS-DOS, Amiga, Apple II, Apple IIGS, and Atari ST computers in 1988. The player takes on the role of Princess Rosella, daughter of King Graham of Daventry and the twin sister of Gwydion/Alexander, who must save her father and a good fairy and destroy an evil witch. Critically acclaimed, it was one of the first PC games to support a sound card.
Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards is a graphic adventure game, developed by Sierra On-Line, and published in 1987. It was developed for the PC, DOS, and the Apple II and later ported to other platforms, such as the Amiga, Atari ST, Apple IIGS, Macintosh, and Tandy Color Computer 3. It utilizes the Adventure Game Interpreter (AGI) engine. In 1991, Sierra released a remake titled Leisure Suit Larry 1: In the Land of the Lounge Lizards for PC DOS, Apple Macintosh, and Amiga. This version used the Sierra's Creative Interpreter (SCI) engine, featuring 256 colors and a point-and-click, icon-driven user interface.
Space Quest: Chapter I – The Sarien Encounter is a graphic adventure game, created by Scott Murphy and Mark Crowe, and released in October 1986 by Sierra On-Line. It is the first game in the Space Quest series, and sees players assume the role of a lowly janitor on a research ship, who becomes involved in stopping an alien race using a new form of technology for evil purposes.
The IBM JX was a personal computer released in 1984 into the Japanese, Australian and New Zealand markets. Designed in Japan, it was based on the technology of the IBM PCjr and was designated the IBM 5511. It was targeted in the Australasian market towards the public education sector rather than at consumers, and was sold in three levels: JX (64 KiB), JX2 (128 KiB) and JX3 (256 KiB). Upgrades were available to both 384 KiB and 512 KiB. The JX was the first IBM PC to use 3.5" floppy drives.
Wizard and the Princess is a graphic adventure game written for the Apple II and published in 1980 by On-Line Systems. It was the second title released in the Hi-Res Adventures series after Mystery House. While Mystery House used monochrome drawings, Wizard and the Princess added color. Ports for the Atari 8-bit family and Commodore 64 were released in 1982 and 1984 respectively. The 1982 self-booting version for IBM PC compatibles was renamed Adventure in Serenia.
Police Quest: In Pursuit of the Death Angel is a 1987 police procedural adventure video game developed and published by Jim Walls and Sierra On-Line. Police Quest follows police officer Sonny Bonds as he investigates a drug cartel in the town of Lytton, California.
Home computers were a class of microcomputers that entered the market in 1977 and became common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, for the first time, were intended for the use of a single, non-technical user. These computers were a distinct market segment that typically cost much less than business, scientific, or engineering-oriented computers of the time, such as those running CP/M or the IBM PC, and were generally less powerful in terms of memory and expandability. However, a home computer often had better graphics and sound than contemporary business computers. Their most common uses were word processing, playing video games, and programming.
Tandy Graphics Adapter is a computer display standard for the Tandy 1000 series of IBM PC compatibles, which has compatibility with the video subsystem of the IBM PCjr but became a standard in its own right.
Composite artifact colors is a designation commonly used to address several graphic modes of some 1970s and 1980s home computers. With some machines, when connected to an NTSC TV or monitor over composite video outputs, the video signal encoding allowed for extra colors to be displayed, by manipulating the pixel position on screen, not being limited by each machine's hardware color palette.
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