The first game
to get this cosmetic makeover was King's Quest: Quest for the Crown. Put
in charge of the production was Josh Mandel, a new
employee at
Sierra On-Line who would later make important contributions to many other
Sierra games. Roberta was very involved in other projects
at the time,
(including the upcoming King's Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder)
so she put Josh in charge of most of the design work of
the King's
Quest remake and merely stayed as a creative consultant. Josh rewrote most
of the text in the game, trying to make it more in the style
of King's
Quest IV and V. The puzzles in the game were slightly altered in a few
places (including the infamous name-guessing of the gnome), but
they basically
stayed the same as in the original version.
The graphics,
music and sound effects were completely remade, making it a completely
different feeling to play the new version than the original
although it
was basically the same game. The technological improvements and the polished
details were thought to greatly improve the experience
of playing
the game. The new version was named King's Quest I: Quest for the Crown
as there were now already many sequels to the first game.
Being the
first of the remade Sierra classics, this game was the only one to be made
in 16 colors. Debuting in King's Quest V: Absence Makes the
Heart Go Yonder,
SCI Version 1 allowed hand-painted 256-color backgrounds, and all of the
other remakes used that system instead.
The game was
first released in the same box as the 1987 version of the original game.
The only difference was that the new version had a sticker
on it, saying
that it had "enhanced graphics". It was soon realized that this was a bit
too confusing for the customers, thus hurting sales. The game was therefore
re-released later in a completely new box with redrawn art.
The five enhanced
games were thought to be a success, as new players who wouldn't touch the
original versions because of their outdated look
now could
experience them in a new way, while the old players who loved the originals
could re-discover the fun of playing them in these new,
improved versions.
But it turned out that Sierra had greatly miscalculated how the market
would receive these games. Every single one of them
flopped. It
turned out that the people who loved the original versions didn't like
the new ones because they didn't have the same feeling to them,
and the people
who had never played the originals weren't impressed by the old-style gameplay
and the simplicity in the storyline. They were
heavily critizised
in most reviews and many people compared the release of these games to
the coloring of classic black and white films: It was
simply not
an improvement at all, and it was much more rewarding to watch the original,
"accurate" version.