King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella is a graphic adventure game created by Sierra On-Line for computers such as MS-DOS, Amiga, Apple II, Apple IIGS, and Atari ST. It was released in 1988. In the game, the player controls Princess Rosella, the daughter of King Graham of Daventry (King's Quest I and King's Quest II) and the twin sister of Gwydion/Alexander (King's Quest III). Her goal is to rescue her father and a kind fairy while defeating an evil witch. The game received high praise from critics and was one of the first games for IBM PC computers to use a sound card.
Gameplay
King's Quest IV uses the Adventure Game Interpreter (AGI) and Sierra's Creative Interpreter (SCI) systems. This is the only game in the King's Quest series where events happen in real time and must be completed within 24 hours. Some tasks must be done during the day, while others can only be solved at night. Nighttime in the game starts either at 9 p.m. or when a specific event happens in the story. The overall high difficulty of King's Quest III was reduced in King's Quest IV.
Plot
After King Graham gives his children his adventure cap in King's Quest III: To Heir Is Human, he has a heart attack and lies on his death bed. Princess Rosella, deeply sad, is contacted by the Magic Mirror and speaks with the good fairy Genesta from the distant land of Tamir. Genesta explains that a magic fruit can save King Graham, but only if Rosella helps her. Rosella agrees and is sent to Tamir. Queen Genesta tells Rosella that her enemy, the evil fairy Lolotte, has stolen Genesta’s talisman. Without the talisman, Genesta will die in 24 hours, and she cannot return Rosella to Daventry. Rosella agrees to find both the talisman and the magic fruit. She travels to Tamir disguised as a peasant girl.
Rosella finds the magic fruit after crossing a dangerous underground tunnel and a swamp. However, she is captured by Lolotte in the mountains and locked in her castle. Lolotte forces Rosella to complete three tasks: capture a unicorn, steal a golden hen, and retrieve Pandora’s Box. Rosella completes these tasks, but Lolotte plans to use the items to grow stronger. Lolotte also reveals that her deformed son, Edgar, is in love with Rosella and wants them to marry. This would trap Rosella and cause King Graham and Genesta to die. Edgar, however, secretly helps Rosella escape. She uses Cupid’s bow to defeat Lolotte, recovers the talisman, the hen, and Pandora’s Box, and saves the unicorn. To prevent the box from being used for evil, Rosella returns it to its hidden tomb and seals the entrance.
Rosella gives the talisman and the hen back to Genesta, saving her life. As a reward, Genesta turns Edgar into a handsome young man. Rosella refuses Edgar’s marriage proposal but hopes to see him again. She is sent back to Daventry, where the magic fruit heals King Graham, bringing joy to his family.
Although Rosella’s main goal is to find the magic fruit to save King Graham, players can return to Daventry without completing this task. This leads to a sad ending where Rosella arrives too late to save her father. Another ending occurs if Rosella is caught after escaping her room, forcing her to marry Edgar and stay in Tamir forever. While winning the game resolves the main story, other plotlines remain unfinished and are addressed in later games.
Development and release
Sierra used the SCI engine to stop using copy protection that relied on disks. Instead, players had to type a word from the manual because new games were designed to run from a hard disk. King's Quest IV was the first game for IBM PC compatibles to use sound cards instead of just the standard built-in speaker. It could work with PC speaker, Tandy sound, AdLib, Disney Sound Source, IBM Music Feature Card, or Roland boards. The SCI engine let designers add full musical scores and more detailed sound effects, which was not possible before. Composer William Goldstein created over 75 short music pieces to make the soundtrack feel more immersive.
Roberta Williams, the series' author, wrote in the King's Quest Collection Series notes: "Before King's Quest IV was released, rumors said Graham might die from a heart attack. Fans were upset and asked to save him. I wanted the game to have a time limit, set over 24 hours, so players would explore during the day and face nighttime scenes, which looked spooky." The game featured a female main character and more colorful graphics than earlier games, aiming to attract more female players. Williams said: "I like the heroine, Rosella. She represents a part of me. She is strong, knows what she wants, and is brave. It was fun to create a female character."
The game was made and published using both the AGI and SCI engines. AGI was used for earlier Sierra games, while SCI was used for later ones. SCI supported better graphics (320×200 resolution vs. 160×200), smoother animation, mouse support, and sound cards. Features like CGA composite mode and PCjr support were removed. SCI games needed twice as much memory as AGI games (512 KiB vs. 256 KiB). The SCI engine was built for newer IBM-compatible computers (286 or 386 machines with EGA or VGA graphics and a hard disk) and did not work well on older 8086 computers. The game was shown at the Consumer Electronics Show on June 4, 1988.
King's Quest IV was the only SCI game that also had an AGI version. This was done as a backup because SCI was new and untested, and to support users with older 8086 machines. However, few copies were sold, and the AGI version was stopped after a few months. The game played the same in both versions, except the SCI version had extra responses in the game’s dialogue. The AGI version 2.0 included a hidden feature called "beam me," which transported Rosella to a Star Trek-like room with the development team. This feature was not in any SCI version. A version similar to the AGI one was released for the Apple IIGS with better music and effects. The IIGS version did not use the SCI engine for performance reasons.
Reception
King's Quest IV sold 100,000 copies in its first two weeks. Sierra On-Line reported that total sales of the King's Quest series reached more than 3.8 million units by the end of March 1996. By November 2000, PC Data stated that King's Quest IV sold between 300,000 and 400,000 copies in the United States alone. GameSpot noted that the game showed a big increase in the series' commercial success. Another source said the game sold 800,000 copies within a year.
King's Quest IV received strong praise from the trade press. It earned review scores of 309/400 from ACE, 79% from Amiga Action, 81% from Amiga Computing, 85% from Commodore User / CU Amiga, 91% from Computer & Video Games, 9/10 from Datormagazin, 90% from The Games Machine (Italia), 13/15 from Tilt, and 79% from Zzap!. The Software Publishers Association named it "Best Adventure Game of 1988."
Scorpia of Computer Gaming World wrote that the game had beautiful graphics but ran slowly during animations. She said the puzzles were uneven but praised the cinematic quality of the presentation. David Stanton of Compute! highlighted the graphics and sound of the IBM PC version, including support for VGA and sound cards like AdLib and Roland MT-32. He said, "King's Quest IV sets a gaming standard others will be hard-pressed to match, much less surpass," and called the soundtrack "40 minutes of the best sound available on any computer disk anywhere." John Sweeney of Page 6 called the game "undoubtedly excellent" but said he preferred King's Quest III.
In 2009, Atomic named King's Quest IV one of the "50 Games to Play Before You Die." The magazine's Ben Hardwidge called it "a classic." In 2014, IGN's Kosta Andreadis wrote, "The Perils of Rosella stands the test of time despite its shortcomings (and you can buy it on GOG.com), for above all providing a memorable and at times thrilling adventure, on top of being one of the first games ever to feature both a female protagonist as well as sound card support."