King's Quest: Mask of Eternity | |
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Developer(s) | Sierra Studios |
Publisher(s) | Sierra Studios |
Director(s) | Mark Seibert |
Producer(s) | Craig Alexander |
Designer(s) | Mark Seibert Roberta Williams |
Artist(s) | Jason Piel |
Writer(s) | Roberta Williams |
Composer(s) | Ben Houge Kevin Manthei Mark Seibert |
Series | King's Quest |
Platform(s) | Microsoft Windows |
Release | |
Genre(s) | Action-adventure game |
Mode(s) | Single-player |
King's Quest: Mask of Eternity (also known as King's Quest VIII: Mask of Eternity [2] [3] ) is a hybrid point-and-click adventure and action-adventure video game developed and published by Sierra Studios in 1998. It was the eighth official game in the King's Quest series, the first and only game in the main series where the main character is neither King Graham nor a member of his family, as well as the first in the series to use a full 3D engine as opposed to the 2D cartoon or pixel style of the earlier games [4] and the first to omit the sequel numbering system on box artwork and title screen.
The game combines a point-and-click single multipurpose context-sensitive cursor from King's Quest VII , and a variation of the standard adventure game item inventory along the top. It also includes information about total mask pieces collected and total gold coins. A menu along the bottom of the screen includes information concerning level, character experience, curative items, potions offering different abilities, the two current weapons, and armor. On the right side of the menu is the interface for the grappling hook item and rocks.
The cursor is dynamic, and can change into four different types depending on actions. The primary cursor is the Play Cursor, which functions much like the cursor in King's Quest VII. It is used to look, take, talk and do. Like in King's Quest VII, picking up an item from inventory switches the game to an Inventory Cursor. This cursor shows an image of the item picked up, and allows the player to click it on something else. Next is the Sword Cursor, much like the one seen at the end of King's Quest VI (during the Alhazred sword battle). It is used for combat in the game. The final cursor is the Arrow Cursor, which lets the player click on enemies from a distance, and fire projectiles.
The game was designed primarily to be played in third person mode, but also offers a first person mode. The first person mode was primarily put into the game to allow players to better look around or get closeups of things the screen. But it can be used to play the game, except during character interactions. [5] There are three difficulty levels for combat (Easy, Normal, and Hard).
The story begins in Castle Daventry with King Graham and his minister talking about the every day affairs of running the country, when the Magic Mirror activates in front of them showing them a bad omen. They witness Lucreto the archarchon of the Realm of the Sun destroy the Mask of Eternity and releasing a wave of energy. The mirror goes on to show the kingdom's only hope, the lowly peasant and knight, Connor of Daventry from a nearby village. He is shown chatting with his neighbor Sarah, when a storm arises and a piece of the mask falls at his feet. He picks it up, and turns around to find Sarah had been turned to stone. The unleashed magic energy turned all mortals in the world to stone, including King Graham with the Mask piece apparently shielding Connor from sharing this fate. With that the Mirror ends its vision.
Early on in the game, the half-stone wizard that Connor encounters tells him about the Mask of Eternity, Connor's destiny, and conjures for him a magic map that shows all explored areas and allows Connor to teleport between lands once the teleportation sites in each land (except for the Realm of the Sun) have been discovered. With knowledge of his Quest, Connor made his way to Castle Daventry to check on his liege and the royal family, finding Graham and the rest of the inhabitants of the castle turned to stone. He vowed that he would save King Graham and Queen Valanice, their family, and the rest of the inhabitants of Daventry, or die trying.
Connor escapes Daventry through the Realm of Death, where he learns about the resting place of the Mask of Eternity, the realm of the sun. He journeys across several realms, helping its denizens against the forces of darkness, vanquishing several powerful beasts such as the Swamp Witch, the Dragon Wyrm, and even a Two-Headed Dragon. While recovering a mask piece from the barrens, he learns the name of Lucreto from one of his henchmen. Eventually, Connor reaches Paradise Lost and transports into the Realm of the Sun. From there, he fights his way to the Mask's altar room, and confronts the fallen archarchon. He defeats Lucreto by putting the mask pieces together and pushing him into the void portal.
The game ends with Connor rising to the top of the Realm of the Sun with the restored Mask. A beam of blue light shines on the Mask, seeming to restore its power and it sends out a wave of energy that restores everything including the Kingdom of Daventry to life. Sarah is restored. King Graham, newly restored, looks on proudly at his hero in the Magic Mirror. The game ends with the Archons being released from their stone prisons and joining Connor who triumphantly lifts his sword into the air.
Mask of Eternity went through two or three main development phases, in which Roberta Williams' ideas changed, the engine was finalized, and the graphics were finalized. In Fall 1996, Williams showed off some of her first screenshots of the game's levels, a few enemies, and the placeholder for Connor. Video showing the level development of this version of the game was included in the Roberta Williams' Anthology. There are scenes for two or three levels that were cut from the final game (including an undersea area, and a green forested area with a village).[ citation needed ] By July 1997, the game had gone into its final phase, and appeared much like it does in the final product. The first gameplay footage of this version appeared in the King's Quest Collection II. This version was not completed until December 1998.
Williams' team was forced to build the engine from an earlier version of 3Space (as Dynamix was behind schedule finishing the updated Red Baron II version of the 3Space engine for their own games).[ citation needed ] 3Space had been designed for running flight simulators, and so was inappropriate for a 3D adventure game in several respects: it could not effectively display texture-mapped terrain up close, it could not animate 3D objects, and it had no means of streaming voice clips. [4] Modifying the engine to serve the purposes of Mask of Eternity took nearly a year. [4] Producer Mark Seibert explained that this was necessary because 3Space was the only game engine that could run both 3D terrain and interiors, thus enabling characters inside buildings to view and interact with characters and objects that are outside the building. [4]
Buildings and other structures were constructed with a proprietary object editor called ZED, while terrain was created with another editor, called TED. [4]
Roberta Williams classified Mask of Eternity as either 'Adventure' or within a possible new genre, a '3D Adventure'. [6] As a '3D Adventure' it retained a point-and-click puzzle system of traditional adventure games, but also included action-adventure elements (such as avoiding traps and rolling boulders). Williams wanted to break away from the drawn-out animations and lengthy cutscenes typical of adventure games, which lead to the player spending a great deal of their time sitting and watching. [4] In particular, she had just finished making Phantasmagoria , which she acknowledged emphasized story at the frequent expense of interactivity, and felt compelled to create a game which went in the opposite direction. [7] The game includes many actions and puzzles that could only be done in 3D, many based on physics, rock tossing, jumping, climbing, or 3D combat. For example, cutting down a tree to block a river from turning the wheel on a mill, [7] or killing an enemy so that it falls and depresses a pressure plate (alternatively a rock could be used). The team decided against enabling multiple solutions to puzzles after their researches uncovered that the overwhelming majority of people who buy a given adventure game never finish it, much less replay it. [7]
3D also allowed the team to expand on and focus on the exploration element which was one of the main highlights of previous King's Quest games. Other puzzles included the more traditional variety of point-and-click inventory-based puzzles seen in previous games of the series. This change or 'evolution' in the direction of adventure games was part of Roberta and Ken Williams' attempts to innovate the genre and prevent it from becoming stagnant and 'mediocre'. [8]
The game's new interface was inspired by recent role-playing video games such as Daggerfall and Diablo . [4] Williams commented that the collaboration between her and Seibert during the game's development involved balancing her particular affinity for adventure games with his particular affinity for RPGs: "I like to take something that could be a complex idea and bring out its strong points, but break it down into something that's more accessible to people. And so Mark will explain how, for example, the whole character creation system works in a lot of role-playing games, and I'll say how that sounds way too complicated and ask how we can make this more accessible. On the other hand, I'll want to put in all these adventure game elements, and he'll stop me when I start to put in something that's just more point and click. So it's really been a good back and forth kind of thing ..." [7]
This was the second King's Quest game (after the original King's Quest: Quest for the Crown (AGI release)) to not have a numeral in the title upon initial release. But it followed a pattern in several previous Sierra games that were released without numerals but were intended to be continuations of a series. References to it being the eighth game appear in the file structure and manual, and the game was marketed as King's Quest 8 on the official website. [9] The updated 'gamecard/boxart' for digital release lists the game as King's Quest VIII: Mask of Eternity.
Aggregator | Score |
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GameRankings | 71% [10] |
Publication | Score |
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Adventure Gamers | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
AllGame | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
CNET Gamecenter | 9/10 [13] |
Computer Games Strategy Plus | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Computer Gaming World | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
EP Daily | 7/10 [16] |
GameRevolution | B [17] |
GameSpot | 7.6/10 [18] |
IGN | 7.8/10 [19] |
Next Generation | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
PC Accelerator | 8/10 [21] |
PC Gamer (US) | 66% [22] |
The game received above-average reviews according to the review aggregation website GameRankings. [10] Next Generation said, "Overall, King's Quest fans will be interested because Mask of Eternity does carry on the mythology set out in earlier games, but the switch to 3D hasn't really enhanced the basic puzzle-solving element that is the cornerstone of this and earlier titles. That may be good enough for the series' legion of fans, but it doesn't really break new ground in the adventure genre or offer anything you can't find in similar titles like Redguard ." [20]
Roberta Williams claimed in 1999 that the game was among the best selling adventures of 1998, and outsold Grim Fandango 2-to-1, and that each game in the series outsold each previous game in the series [23] (but she also noted that she was not privy to exact sales numbers at that time due to changes in management). [24] [25] However, according to GameSpot , the game's sales in the United States by November 2000 were "only a fraction" of the 300,000-400,000 units sold in the region by each of its immediate predecessors. [26] During the year 2001 alone, it sold 69,976 units in North America (this estimation did not include online sales). [27] In 2002, Louis Castle of Westwood Studios estimated total sales of 750,000 units for the game. [28]
The game was a finalist for Computer Gaming World 's 1998 "Best Adventure" prize, which ultimately went to Grim Fandango and Sanitarium (tie). [29] It was likewise nominated by CNET Gamecenter , GameSpot, Computer Games Strategy Plus and the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS) for PC Adventure Game of the Year, but lost all of these awards to Grim Fandango. [30] [31] [32] [33] AIAS also nominated it for "Computer Entertainment Title of the Year" and "Outstanding Achievement in Character or Story Development" at the 2nd Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, but lost the awards to Half-Life and Pokémon Red and Blue, respectively. [34] The game won RPG Vault's "Outstanding Technical Achievement" award, [35] and earned Adventure Game of the Year at Digital Entertainment On-line. [36]
King's Quest: Mask of Eternity inspired a 12-minute musical "sequel" suite, called Daventry Suite by Donald M. Wilson, Professor Emeritus at Bowling Green State University. The multi-movement work for wind ensemble was divided into three pieces, "Sarah's Song", "Connor's Triumphal Return to Daventry", and "Celebration with Ringing Peal". Wilson's piece was featured by Sierra On-Line as "the first musical work of extended scope to be inspired by a computer game". [37] [38]
Originally released in retail in 1998, the game has been digitally re-released by Activision as part of the King's Quest 7+8 pack through GOG.com (September 2010) and patched to work on Windows Vista and Windows 7. Although this release was a digital download only, it has a bug and will not run unless an optical drive is present on the computer or by using of virtual drive from Daemon Tools. [39] A fan patch was available for retail copies of the game that would allow it to run on computers without optical drives, and it fixed several cutscene lockups (it was incompatible with the GoG release). [40]
Director of 2015's reimagined King's Quest , Matt Korba, said Mask of Eternity is canon: "King's Quest VIII exists. We're not doing a lot with Connor – we might have a cameo fit into it – but we're focused on the core family". [41] Ultimately Connor did not make it into the game, but elements of King's Quest 8 did make it into the game including references to at least ice orcs and spriggans.
Sierra Entertainment, Inc. was an American video game developer and publisher founded in 1979 by Ken and Roberta Williams. The company is known for pioneering the graphic adventure game genre, including the first such game, Mystery House. It is known for its graphical adventure game series King's Quest, Space Quest, Police Quest, Gabriel Knight, Leisure Suit Larry, and Quest for Glory, and as the original publisher of Valve's Half-Life series.
King's Quest is a graphic adventure game series, released between 1980 and 2016 and created by the American software company Sierra Entertainment. It is widely considered a classic series from the golden era of adventure games. Following the success of its first installments, the series was primarily responsible for building the reputation of Sierra. Roberta Williams, co-founder and former co-owner of Sierra, designed all of the King's Quest games until the series' reboot in 2015.
Roberta Lynn Williams is an American video game designer and writer, who co-founded Sierra On-Line with her husband, game developer Ken Williams. In 1980, her first game, Mystery House, became a modest commercial success; it is credited as the first graphic adventure game. She is also known for creating and maintaining the King's Quest series, as well as designing the full motion video game Phantasmagoria in 1995.
Kenneth A. Williams is an American businessman and game programmer who co-founded On-Line Systems together with his wife Roberta Williams. On-Line Systems eventually became Sierra On-Line and was ultimately renamed Sierra Entertainment. The couple were leading figures in the development of graphical adventure games. At its height, Sierra employed nearly 1,000 people prior to its acquisition in 1996.
Jim Walls is an American video game designer. He is notable for having designed the successful Police Quest series of adventure games for Sierra On-Line.
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 III: To Heir Is Human is the third installment in the King's Quest series of graphic adventure games developed and released by Sierra On-Line in 1986. The game was originally released for the Apple II and PC DOS, and later ported to several other computer systems. It was the first title game in the series not to feature King Graham as the player character.
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.
King's Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder! is a 1990 graphic adventure game by Sierra On-Line. Originally released in November 1990, it featured a significant improvement in graphics. It was also the first King's Quest installment to replace the typing user interface with a point-and-click user interface. The title is a spoof on the proverb "Absence makes the heart grow fonder".
King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow is a point-and-click adventure game, first released in 1992 as the sixth installment in the King's Quest series produced by Sierra On-Line. Written by Roberta Williams and Jane Jensen, King's Quest VI is widely recognized as the high point in the series for its landmark 3D graphic introduction movie and professional voice acting. King's Quest VI was programmed in Sierra's Creative Interpreter and was the last King's Quest game to be released on floppy disk. A CD-ROM version of the game was released in 1993, including more character voices, a slightly different opening movie and more detailed artwork and animation.
King's Quest VII: The Princeless Bride is a graphic adventure game developed and published by Sierra On-Line for the MS-DOS, Microsoft Windows and Macintosh computers in 1994. It features high-resolution graphics in a style reminiscent of Disney animated films and is the only King's Quest game with multiple protagonists: Queen Valanice and Princess Rosella, who are both spirited away to the realm of Eldritch, and Rosella is transformed into a troll. They must find a way to return Rosella to normal and find her true love, get rid of a powerful evil force threatening this realm, and get back to their kingdom Daventry.
Roberta Williams' Mixed-Up Mother Goose is a computer game first released by Sierra On-Line in 1987. It is, in essence, an edutainment title, directed specifically at young gamers, as well as an adventure game. It was the first multimedia game released on CD-ROM in 1991. A second game in the series, Mixed-Up Fairy Tales, was released in 1991.
Quest for Glory V: Dragon Fire is the fifth and final game in the Quest for Glory computer game series by Sierra FX, a former "sub brand" of Sierra On-Line. Unlike the first four games, Dragon Fire is primarily an action role-playing game with some elements of graphical adventure.
The King's Quest Companion is a book by Peter Spear that serves as both hint book/walkthrough and contained complete novelization of each of the games in the King's Quest series by the original Sierra On-Line company. The first three editions were published by Silicon Valley Books, and fourth edition by Osborne/McGraw-Hill. The novelization for KQ6 was written by a guest writer, Eluki Bes Shahar.
Wizard and the Princess is a graphic adventure game written for the Apple II and published in 1980 by On-Line Systems. It is the second installment in the Hi-Res Adventures series after Mystery House. Unlike its predecessor, which featured monochrome drawings, Wizard and the Princess introduced color graphics. Ports for the Atari 8-bit computers and Commodore 64 were released in 1982 and 1984 respectively. The 1982 self-booting disk version for IBM PC compatibles was renamed Adventure in Serenia.
An adventure game is a video game genre in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story, driven by exploration and/or puzzle-solving. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based media, such as literature and film, encompassing a wide variety of genres. Most adventure games are designed for a single player, since the emphasis on story and character makes multiplayer design difficult. Colossal Cave Adventure is identified by Rick Adams as the first such adventure game, first released in 1976, while other notable adventure game series include Zork, King's Quest, Monkey Island, Syberia, and Myst.
King's Quest II: Romancing the Stones is a fangame reimagining/retelling of Sierra Entertainment's King's Quest II: Romancing the Throne by AGD Interactive produced through a fan license by Sierra Entertainment. It was followed up by King's Quest III: To Heir Is Human. In 2009, the version 3.0 Enhanced Edition was released, with improved graphics and full-speech narration. The game earned the AGS award for best music and game in 2002.
There have been several King's Quest fangames both original and retellings/remakes of the original games that have been released by various developers.
King's Quest is an episodic video game series developed by The Odd Gentlemen and published by Activision under the Sierra Entertainment brand name for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One. It is a new re-imagining of the long-running King's Quest series. While it is an adventure game like the previous games in the series, the interface is not fully point-and-click.
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