King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow is a point-and-click adventure game, released in 1992 as the sixth installment in the King's Quest series produced by Sierra On-Line. The game was 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, created by Kronos Digital Entertainment, and its professional voice acting. Actor Robby Benson provided the voice for Prince Alexander, the game's protagonist. 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.
The name of this sequel is a pun on the common phrase "here today, gone tomorrow". This pun is related to the abrupt departure of Prince Alexander after the events of King's Quest V, where he was just rescued by King Graham along with Princess Cassima, who asked Alexander to come visit her at the end of that game.
Gameplay
King's Quest VI is a 2D graphic adventure game with a point-and-click interface. The player is given an icon-based toolbar at the top of the screen of selectable functions: walk, look (provides a description from the narrator of the object targeted), action and talk, respectively. It also includes the item inventory (the last selected item can be picked right away) and a game options menu. This is the second game in the series to feature this interface, which was introduced in its immediate predecessor King's Quest V as a new feature of the SCI1 version of Sierra's Creative Interpreter engine; previous titles in the series featured a text parser where players had to type commands and actions instead of selecting them on the screen.
Gameplay involves solving puzzles. Those include logic puzzles and interacting with characters either by dialogue or usage of collected items. One of the puzzles requires consulting the booklet "Guidebook to the Land of the Green Isles", which is included in the game's package. Aside from providing additional background to the game's setting, this booklet serves as part of the game's copy-protection. The player will not be able to pass the puzzles on the Cliffs of Logic that guard the Isle of the Sacred Mountain without information from the booklet. The booklet also includes a poem encoding the solution to one of the puzzles in the labyrinth on the island. In the re-released edition, the guide is part of the manual released on the game CD.
Solving the puzzles in the game usually requires traveling between the islands that make up the game world, which is accomplished by means of a magic map. Although a magic map had been used in earlier games of the series (such as King's Quest III), its implementation in King's Quest VI was different from earlier games in that it was only used for travel between islands, which could not be reached using the walking interface.
Plot Setting The game takes place in the kingdom of the Land of the Green Isles, which consists of several islands. These are: the Isle of the Crown, inspired by the Arabian Nights folktales; the Isle of Wonder, inspired by Alice in Wonderland; the Isle of the Sacred Mountain, inspired by Classical mythology; the Isle of the Beast, inspired by Beauty and the Beast; and the Isle of the Mists, inspired by druid mythology. The game's story also takes player into the Underworld, the land of the dead, which is also inspired by Classical mythology.
Story A few months after his family were rescued from the evil wizard Mordack by his father, King Graham, Prince Alexander is unable to live a normal life. He confesses to his mother, Queen Valanice, that he has been haunted by the memory of Princess Cassima - a young woman from the Land of the Green Isles, whom Graham rescued from Mordack. One day, whilst lost in his thoughts in the throne room, Alexander is shown a vision of Cassima in the Magic Mirror, including a pattern of stars. Excited to finally know the way to her homeland, Alexander informs his mother of his intentions to travel to the Green Isles and reunite with Cassima.
The journey by ship is uneventful, until a storm and hidden reefs shipwreck Alexander on the beach of a large island. Acquring his bearings, he discovers himself on the Isle of the Crown, home to Cassima and her family, who rule over the Green Isles. Seeking an audience with her, he is met by the royal family's vizier, Abdul Alhazred, who reveals Cassima is currently in mourning, after her parents died in her absence, and cannot be visited. After the meeting, Alexander decides to explore his surrounding; unaware Abdul wishes to be rid of him, assigning his genie, Shamir Shamazel, to the task and spreading lies Alexander is a foreign assassin to the other islands in the kingdom.
Exploring the Isle of the Crown, Alexander meets court jester Jollo, who admires Cassima and fears Abdul has dark plans for her. Acquiring a magic map, he begins searching the other islands, discovering their inhabitants believe each other responsible for stealing a precious treasure of theirs. On the Isle of the Sacred Mountain, after securing a meeting with its oracle, he learns that Adbul plans to marry Cassima against her will, and that her parents' deaths were not natural; he is advised to seek out the druids on the Isle of the Mists to learn how to enter the Underworld. Visiting the druids, he narrowly avoids being burned alive by them through a magic spell he created. With their help, he locates and charms a flying black horse to take him to the Underworld.
In the Underworld, Alexander meets the spirits of Cassima's parents, King Caliphim and Queen Allaria, the latter revealing that Abdul murdered them. Vowing to bring them back to life, Alexander ventures into the Underworld to meet its ruler, Death, and challenge him for their resurrection. Succeeding at a task Death issues him, Alexander returns with them to the Isle of the Crown; whereupon Caliphim and Allaria seek out allies for the upcoming confrontation with Abdul. Finding the wedding the vizier planned will not proceed whilst he is still alive, Alexander fakes his suicide, ensuring Shamir witnesses the scene; Abdul soon commences with his plans, assigning Shamir to a special task.
After gaining entry into the palace, Alexander meets up with Jollo, who offers to help him acquire Shamir's lamp after being provided a replica to swap it with. Finding a secret passage, Alexander finds Cassima, who is delighted to see him; he later provides her a dagger for her protection. Searching the passage more, Alexander finds his way into Abdul's room, and retrieves a letter incriminating him in the royal couple's murder. Providing this to the captain of the guard, Alexander manages to disrupt the wedding ceremony, only for Cassima to coldly order his execution. However, Caliphim and Allaria arrive with supporters, and expose Cassima as Shamir in disguise, forcing Abdul to flee.
Evading the genie, Alexander pursues Abdul into a tower where Cassima had been sent to. Just as Shamir arrives and is ordered to kill him, Alexander receives his lamp from Jollo, delighting the genie who despised working for the vizier. Infuriated, Abdul fights with Alexander, but is defeated by him with Cassima's help. After the pair share a kiss, they decide to marry, with a proper wedding ceremony attended by everyone in the Green Isles, as well as Alexander's family. As the pair are wed, Alexander finds Graham proud of him, believing he will make a fine ruler, as their guests celebrate their union.
An alternate ending sees Alexander not going to the Underworld, but instead ensuring the wedding ceremony proceeds as planned, and using some clothes he gets to gain entry into the palace, whereupon he defeats Abdul, but is married to Cassima in a private ceremony not attended by others, including his family.
Development
King's Quest creator and designer Roberta Williams first met with Sierra newcomer and co-designer Jane Jensen (who would go on to create the Gabriel Knight series) in May 1991 to discuss the design for the upcoming sixth title in the series. Williams began preliminary work on King's Quest VI in June, "laying out the basic story" and worked alongside Jensen throughout July and August on coming up with design ideas; after five months, Williams and Jensen finished the documentation for the design. Two key goals of the writers were to keep the game's tone consistent with its predecessors' while still making it a distinct title, and to make players connect emotionally with the game; Williams wrote the love story of Prince Alexander and Cassima specifically for this emotional attachment.
Storyboards and character sketches were created by co-director and project manager Bill Skirvin and the artist team. John Shroades sketched 80 background paintings. Motion capture transcribed the movement of real-life actors shot on video to the more than 2,000 character actions on computer. Williams and Skirvin chose the actors and costumes for the shootings, and Michael Hutchinson led the animation team that integrated the footage into Shroades's backgrounds. Chris Braymen composed the MIDI music and produced the sound effects. The 3D-animated introduction was produced by Stanley Liu of Kronos Digital Entertainment, a company that did special effects for such films as Batman Returns and The Lawnmower Man. This sequence is present with different edits and narrations in each of the MS-DOS, Windows, Amiga, and Mac versions.
Jensen scripted the game, defining for programmers the game's responses for the player's actions and the more than 6,000 lines of written messages. Robert Lindsley served as the game's lead programmer. The game was coded on an updated version of the proprietary Sierra Creative Interpreter engine named "SCI1". Robin Bradley served as the quality assurance tester; throughout July 1992 the game went through constant testing. Development wrapped in September, when Sierra's marketing and distribution departments began promoting and releasing the game. In an interview with The New York Times, Williams estimated the budget to have been about and stated that the crew included more than 20 people working for 14 months.
King's Quest VI was initially scheduled for release in September 1992, then delayed until mid-October. It was then shipped on October 6 and launched on October 13 on nine floppy disks for MS-DOS and Clasic Mac OS. The Amiga version was ported by Revolution Software. Sierra, which itself converted its games for the Amiga prior to King's Quest VI, announced in early 1993 that it would cease releasing games for the platform; however, Revolution co-founder Charles Cecil offered his company to make the Amiga conversion instead. The port began development in March 1993 and was released for the Amiga in December. It uses Revolution's Virtual Theatre engine instead of SCI1 due to better performance on the platform.