King's Quest II: Romancing the Throne is the second part of the King's Quest series of graphic adventure games made by Sierra On-Line. It was first released in 1985 for PC DOS and PCjr, and later released for Apple II, IIGS, Atari ST, and Amiga. The game uses the same AGI game engine as King's Quest I: Quest for the Crown. The main character in the game is King Graham. The title is a spoof of the 1984 film Romancing the Stone.

Gameplay

King's Quest II looks and feels similar to King's Quest I. Like the first game, the world in King's Quest II "loops around," letting players move endlessly north or south. A guidebook explains that the western side of Kolyma connects back to the north and south, making it possible to return to the starting point. This was the first King's Quest game to include an introduction scene after the credits. It is also the first game in the series with a story that follows a set path. As the story progresses, the game world changes: new characters appear, and some areas become accessible while others are closed off.

Puzzles require players to trade or use items to gain new items or overcome obstacles. The game encourages non-violent solutions, which earn more points. Many puzzles have multiple solutions, but only one is the best way to earn the most points. Other solutions may earn fewer points or even cause the player to lose points. For example, using violent methods, like killing or stealing, may lead to dead ends or failure.

All puzzles are solved using a system that understands typed commands. Players can type phrases like "Look at" or "Pick up." The system recognizes many verbs and responds with messages, even to strange commands. For example, typing "dig" or "dig the beach" might result in a message saying digging is pointless. Sometimes, odd verb/noun combinations lead to unique replies, such as "Pick up horse" causing a message about a flying horse being too fast to catch. This system lets players collect items using "pick up" and store them in an inventory. Each item has a close-up picture, which helps players identify it or provides clues. In rare cases, items can be manipulated in some way.

Plot

After retrieving the three stolen treasures of Daventry, Sir Graham became the new king of Daventry. A mirror shows him a vision of a young woman named Valanice, who is trapped inside a tall ivory crystal tower. King Graham is drawn to her and travels to the world of Kolyma to save Valanice. There, he must journey across the sea, through the air, and even face death to obtain the keys needed to unlock three doors leading to a magical island where the witch Hagatha has imprisoned Valanice. Along the way, he meets famous characters such as Neptune, Little Red Riding Hood, and Count Dracula. King Graham successfully rescues Valanice. At the end of the story, they are married in a ceremony attended by many of Graham's friends and several of his former enemies.

Development

Limited floppy disk space could have limited the game's design. However, Sierra On-Line had been using line drawings and solid colors to compress images, which helped save space. The original version for PC DOS/PCjr did not support sound cards or mice, as these devices were not available when the game was released. This method continued until King's Quest IV. This sequel to the original King's Quest not only explored King (formerly Sir) Graham of Daventry's life again but also started a tradition of using King's Quest to train new game designers. Future Space Quest series designers Scott Murphy and Mark Crowe joined the development team. They helped make the game even more successful.

According to the series' main designer and writer, Roberta Williams: King's Quest II has 14 musical tracks, including Tchaikovsky's love theme from Romeo and Juliet. Other tracks include Greensleeves on the title screen, Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor in Dracula's castle, and the opening bars of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" when encountering ghosts outside the castle entrance (only the beginning of the last track was used to avoid paying royalties for the song). The music for the game was created by video game designer and programmer Al Lowe, who is also a skilled jazz musician.

Release

The game was first released in 1985 on a disk that started automatically and worked with CGA, PCjr, and Tandy graphic cards. Unlike King's Quest I, which had separate versions for each card, this version worked on all three. Sierra made changes to the AGI engine to work with the IBM AT and EGA cards, which were introduced after King's Quest I was released. The copy protection used in King's Quest I did not work with the AT BIOS, so a new method was used. Color settings in CGA mode were changed to use the BIOS instead of adjusting the palette register directly. The game engine was also updated to use the PC's timer chip instead of a CPU-based speed loop, which caused the game to run too fast on the AT.

The game was re-released in 1987 with support for EGA and Hercules cards to run under DOS. It was also released for the Apple IIGS with better sound effects and music. Sierra's hint book for the game was written by Al Lowe, the game's composer and creator of the Leisure Suit Larry series.

The manual includes a short story by Annette Childs. The story describes Graham being told by the spirit of the former King Edward in a magic mirror that he must find a wife or face the same fate as the kingdom. Graham asks his prime minister, Gerwain, to hold a feast and invite all the ladies in the land. None interest him, and he feels sad. The magic mirror then tells him about a young maiden named Valanice trapped in a tower by an evil witch named Hagatha. He is told he must travel to the land of Kolyma to find a magic doorway leading to an enchanted realm.

A novelization of the game is included in The King's Quest Companion, which expands the story. It is written from the perspective of Gerwain, the prime minister of Daventry (mentioned in the KQ2 manual). The first and second editions of the Companion also included articles in An Encyclopedia of Daventry (Abridged), which provided background stories for characters and locations in the game. More details about Kolyma are found in the chapter "The World of Daventry" in all editions.

• 1.0W: AGI1 version
• 1.1H: AGI1 version (1985): A version for PCjr, Tandy, and PC.
• 2.1 (04-10-1987): This version is included in most copies of the King's Quest Collection. It removes disk-based copy protection and uses AGI2.
• 2.2 (05-07-1987): This version is linked to the Amiga release. It has two sub-versions: one uses interpreter 2.426, and the other uses 2.917. It uses AGI2.

Reception

King's Quest was praised when it was first released, including a very high score of 39 out of 40 from ASM. Neil Shapiro from II Computing wrote: "The artists who helped bring the vision of designer Roberta Williams and story author Annette Childs to life should be recognized. The artwork and animation are similar to the quality seen in Disney's work."

Remakes

In 1990, Sierra redesigned King's Quest with a new interface and modern technology. The goal was to remake King's Quest II, but after poor sales of the 1990 version of King's Quest I, the plan to officially remake and release King's Quest II was canceled.

In 2002, AGD Interactive, then called Tierra Entertainment, released an unofficial version of King's Quest II with permission from Vivendi. This version was titled King's Quest II: Romancing the Stones. In 2009, AGD Interactive released version 3.0, which included redesigned backgrounds, updated dialogue images, improved voice acting, and changes based on fan suggestions.

The remake uses a point-and-click interface similar to advanced SCI game engines, VGA graphics, and digital sound, including full speech for all characters. Notably, the game’s main character, King Graham, is voiced by Josh Mandel, who also voiced King Graham in Sierra’s official CD-ROM versions of King's Quest V and VI. Unlike the group’s remake of King's Quest I, which was a visual upgrade with the same content, King's Quest II+ redesigned the original game. It includes a rewritten story that expands on the 1985 version (though some plot points differ, such as Dracula being a good character and the Monk being a bad character, with some characters removed), new puzzles, additional characters, new locations like a town, and references to later King's Quest games.

In 2015, the third chapter of King's Quest, titled Once Upon a Climb, retells the story of King Graham rescuing Valanice from Hagatha’s tower, which originally appeared in King's Quest II.