By Audrey Wells

In preparation for her article on the creation of the King's Quest remake and Royal Quest Audrey Wells interviewed not only the members of the Royal Quest development team, but also Roberta Williams, the founder of Sierra and creator of the original King's Quest; Josh Mandel, renowned for his work on Freddie Pharkas and Callahan's Crosstime Saloon, among others, and who lent his voice talents not only to Royal Quest but also to the original King's Quest games; and Stuart Feldhamer, a Just Adventure reader who played a surprising role in the development of the King's Quest remake.

Royal Quest Team

Tell me a little bit about each of yourselves. Where are you from? What do you do when you're not working on Royal Quest or the KQ remake? How did you meet and decide to create the Royal Quest project? How do you divide up the game creation work?

We don't want too much recognition, or for us to be the emphasis of the project. The purpose of our project is to revive the spirit of adventure gaming, and we are just doing what any adventure lover would do. We feel that people knowing our true identities is not really important, it's the fact that the game is remade at all. We want people to care more about the games than the people behind them and to remember the real game makers of the past, like the Williams and the Coles. Consider it our little voluntary contribution to the gaming community.

Each of us is from a different continent, North America, Europe, and Australia. The countries we
reside in are Germany (AGD1, although she is an American), Australia (AGD2), and the United States (AGD3).

Anonymous Game Developer #1 is passionate about art. She has won several awards, displayed her work in numerous shows, and has made a small business of selling commissioned art and, soon, prints. Most of #1's time is spent working at a small Internet start-up company that she cofounded or off drinking chais at the local Balzac Coffee Shop. She also enjoys writing, traveling the world, foreign languages and sciences (both of which she studied in college), and also donating her time to running an online support group. Additionally, she's been a vegetarian for half of her life and is an avid animal lover (which you wouldn't assume after playing RQ), having previously owned an aviary and a 200-pound dog, and she barrel-raced horses in rodeos (although she's by no means a cowgirl; just a hobby). She aspires to either start up a gaming or animation company or work for an existing one as an artist/animator in both 2D and 3D, and bring a little more female blood into the gaming industry.

Outside of game development, Anonymous Game Developer #2 is an actor who has been in several TV series and films (both Australian and international) and has also previously done some other work for Sierra. His interests include art, film, theater, game creation, traveling, graphic design, spontaneous adventures, and he also holds a healthy fascination with almost anything to do with the 1980s (besides mullets)! He aspires to "do a little of everything," rather than settle down to any particular 9-to-5 job. He also dreams of creating adventure games, with the goal of bringing original concepts to them.

Anonymous Game Developer #3 graduated from college with honors in both Politics and German. He is currently in graduate school on a scholarship, and he has future aspirations of making adventure games with quality 3D graphics and even better storylines.

AGD1 and AGD2 actually met as members on another fan-made project, which, although fun, we felt was moving too slowly for our liking. We wanted more creative output, and were ready to get up and work on a new, more rewarding project if we had the chance. AGD3 was an old college friend of AGD2 and shared an interest in making games, although he had no interest in joining the aforementioned fan project. He wanted to start a simple game, to learn the tricks of the trade, since he had no previous game-making experience. He had always planned on making a KQ1 parody once he figured out how. Since AGD1 and AGD2 were both looking for something a bit more challenging, and something that we could really see coming together (and additionally wanted to gain more experience), we accepted the challenge of making Royal Quest. We always had the dream of working as adventure game makers at Sierra, so it was kind of like our own little homemade internship (since the old Sierra, as we knew it, no longer exists). If we could recreate a classic game, we were working our way up the ladder in the footsteps of the great game creators of our time. Since Royal Quest draws from many of the original KQ situations, we saw the opportunity to make two games--one unoriginal (KQV1GA) and one original (RQ). Initially, the games were meant to be a small project kept between the three of us and never released to the public. But after months of dedicating time to them, and seeing that they were turning out better than we expected, we decided to offer our games to others. We wanted to bring the past up to the present, so what better way to reestablish the spirit of adventure gaming than to update the very first adventure game ever made?

Basically, each of us works on a certain part of the game. AGD3 writes the dialogs for Royal Quest, while AGD1 and AGD2 color the backgrounds and animate the characters. AGD1 also made and manages the website and public relations, while AGD2 scripts the game and handles music and sound effects. Sometimes when one of us is busy, we take turns at different jobs, but this situation works very well without us stepping on each other's toes. We only have one person scripting the game so as not to cause confusion. We wanted only as many workers as we needed so that we could keep track of what had to be done, keep good communication with one another, and get things finished in a timely fashion. Having a large team creates too many opposing opinions and slows progress down. We feel that this kind of organization is the key to a successful fan project.

Why did you choose Adventure Game Studio as your engine? Did you look at any alternative adventure engines, or was it always AGS?

Even before we had decided on a project to make, we were determined to use AGS. In our opinion, it's simply the best engine for the job. It made no sense to spend valuable time creating our own engine when an excellent premade (free) one already existed. Besides, making our own engine and perfecting it would have only been the very beginning. We would have then still needed to spend all those months scripting the game after that. AGS was a huge time-saver, though, and it has tons of cool features and is constantly being updated with user suggestions. Plus, once you've learned the basics of the scripting language, it's easy to use. Chris Jones has done an excellent job, and we applaud him for making such a useful engine.

Why did you decide to make Royal Quest a distorted parody of the original KQ series? Was it primarily to avoid copyright laws, or are there other reasons?

No, copyright issues have just become a recent concern, since we originally planned on making the games only for ourselves. In fact, Royal Quest was actually the first game that we decided on making, and we had no plans of making another game. The King's Quest VGA remake was done because we knew a lot of people would enjoy it, and it was not much extra work since Royal Quest, being a parody, takes place in the same land and includes most of the same characters. We also decided that if we could entirely recreate King's Quest 1, then our parody would be more faithful to it and include even the tiniest details that most people would miss. Also, by finishing KQ first, people will be able to play that and then better understand the jokes in Royal Quest. It's a shame how copyright issues have come up with the King's Quest VGA game, because mainly we're just making it to please the fans of the series and to renew an interest in adventure gaming. We're getting nothing from this. No credit, no money, nothing. Just the satisfaction that people can reexperience, or even experience for the first time, the old Sierra adventure games.

Do you think Royal Quest and the KQ remake are safe from being shut down due to copyright laws, or do you worry about Sierra stepping in?

At first, we had some fears about this, because seemingly many people were spamming our forums, telling us that we'd be shut down by Sierra. But after an IP check, we found out that all of these spammers were in fact one person (a guy from another fan-made project) and that every other person has basically supported the project (including some big industry names) and feel that there is no real reason why Sierra would want to shut us down. Royal Quest is pretty safe from being stopped, because it conforms to the legal standards of a parody. The King's Quest remake is on shakier grounds, both sides being able to come up with arguments as to why it could or couldn't be released. We've done our research, though, and we know that Sierra won't be making another King's Quest 1 game anytime soon. (Please check out our website's FAQ section for detailed reasons as to why we think Sierra won't intervene. It's under the question, "Aren't you violating any copyright laws?) Additionally, there are so many other fan-made projects that are being made, some being completed, and Sierra hasn't shut them down yet. I don't think they'd want to disappoint so many fans if they could somehow avoid it, and a King's Quest 1 remake isn't going to be losing them any sort of money, so we think it's safe. We've given full credit in our games to the real creators of King's Quest and made it clear that Sierra is the company responsible for the KQ series. In the KQ1VGA remake, we only credit our own company with the "conversion" of the game. But if Sierra did decide to shut us down, we've still learned an awful lot from making this project; so we wouldn't be going away empty-handed.

How did you feel when Josh Mandel agreed to do some of the voices for the remake? Is he also participating in the Royal Quest parody?

We felt honored! The idea to contact Josh actually came from a visitor to our site. He suggested that Josh would probably be interested in our project and that we should contact him for the voice of Graham! Originally, we didn't plan to include voices in the KQ game, but with this new possibility of having the genuine voice of Graham, we were forced to rethink our stance! We pondered for a week or so, trying to figure the best way to ask Josh if he would be willing to help us. Then we noticed that he'd also had some input on Space Quest: The Lost Chapter. And we realized that he must still love the old Sierra nostalgia as much as we do! So we emailed him and he wrote back very quickly, saying that he would be glad to do some voices for the game. He even offered to provide the voice of Graham in Royal Quest! But since Royal Quest will contain language and issues that some people might find offensive, we decided to keep the "official Graham" voice away from this game out of respect for the original KQ series and the fact that having the real voice of Graham cussing might somehow affect the way people see his character in the official KQ games. In other words, the "RQ Graham" is supposed to be interpreted differently by the player from the "KQ Graham." And having the same Graham voice for both characters probably wouldn't help that.

Overall, Josh has just been really supportive, offering advice and giving us tips along the way. Also, he never keeps us waiting and always accomplishes exactly what he says he'll do. A lot of people will offer help, and then when you give them even a tiny job, you'll never hear from them again. But Josh totally doesn't have to offer us even a minute of his time, yet he's been one of the most responsible people we've worked with. It's been a real pleasure and learning experience working with him.

Stuart Feldhamer

Can you tell us how you become involved with the Royal Quest team?

Basically, there's no real big story. I work as a web developer for CIBC World Markets, and I'm a big adventure game player and collector. I read the various adventure gaming web sites on a regular basis and used to be fairly active in the newsgroups. I heard about Royal Quest originally, I believe, from Just Adventure. I checked out their web page, and it all looked very interesting. I was reading the FAQ and saw some mention of why they wouldn't have speech in the game(s). First of all, it would make the game very large and hard to download, and second of all, it would be very hard to find a voice actor that people would be able to identify with as Graham.

I emailed the team and said that I didn't think the large file size would be such a big issue, as speech would greatly enhance most people's enjoyment of the game. I also reminded them of the little-known fact that Josh Mandel did the voice of Graham in both Kings Quest 5 and 6. I told them that Josh was a very nice guy who I have had the privilege and the pleasure of conversing with a bit via email in the past, and that he has been known to look favorably upon and even assist with fan projects (e.g., Space Quest: The Lost Chapter). I pointed them to his web site and suggested that they get in touch with him.

Anonymous Game Developer #1 responded to my email, asked me a few other questions, said the team thought it was a great idea and that they didn't realize that Josh did the voice of Graham, and the rest I suppose is history. Now the FAQ reads:

"Will your game include a voice pack?

"Originally, we did not plan on including voices in our game, as we did not feel that we could offer anything that would be professional quality. But, thanks to the tip of a helpful fan, we were able to recruit Josh Mandel, the original voice actor of Graham, to our team. Using a special program, we were able to have the rest of the lines read by a pair of actors, and touch them up to fit perfectly into our game. We are very proud of how the voice acting has turned out, and feel that the fans will have an enhanced gaming experience by providing this voice pack. We will include the voice pack as a separate download, so that you can choose whether you'd like it or not. That way, we can keep the file size of the game smaller."

That is the story in a nutshell. As you see, I didn't do all that much, but I thought Randy would appreciate knowing the story. Major credit must be given to Josh Mandel for agreeing to help out on this project, and of course to the developers of Royal Quest/Kings Quest 1 remake, whoever they may be. Josh Mandel is one of my favorite game developers of all time. Callahan's Crosstime Saloon is an awesome game.

Josh Mandel

To the amazement of the Royal Quest team and fans, you have agreed to supply voices for the King's Quest remake. Are there any personal reasons behind agreeing to this? Nostalgia or appreciation of the fans, perhaps?

There were several reasons. For one, doing voices is just plain fun, and I especially enjoy doing them for games (as opposed to commercials or industrials). For another, I think that the VGA remake is a great tribute to the original KQ series. And, lastly, because I was extremely flattered that they asked me to participate.

How has the "fan game" situation affected you personally? Obviously, you are not opposed to fans creating games based upon commercial series--why? How do you feel about potential copyright violations these games pose?

I'm all for fan games. The first adventure games--all of the first computer games, really--were not created for profit, but to explore the medium and test out possibilities. In many respects, they were like fan games. One of the first computer strategy games was, essentially, a fan game of Star Trek (this was the game that, many years later, was commercialized as Interstel's Star Fleet game and, later, the Wintrek shareware app). So the spirit that goes into creating fan games is the same spirit that created the industry.

It might appear that creators of fan games put too much emphasis on using other people's characters, situations, and even styles. But a lot of great artists and successful entrepreneurs started off by imitating others. So while I wouldn't want to see the Royal Quest team doing nothing but Sierra parodies or remakes, I don't think there's much danger of that. I hope and expect that these games, as with many fan games, are simply a way for new game developers to get their feet wet ... and to develop a "resume" that can give them a foot in the door and prove their potential.

No doubt Sierra will want to protect its copyrights, even if those copyrights are no longer in use. It would be nice to think that publishers would recognize that this kind of fan game will only help keep a comatose game series viable, but publishers are probably obliged to their stockholders to prevent infringement of even unused properties.

Are you also supplying voices for the Royal Quest parody of King's Quest?

I've discussed it with the RQ team and currently have no plans to supply voices for the RQ parody. I think they were more interested in recreating Graham primarily for the KQ remake; for the parody, they want to redefine him.

You were pretty heavily involved with the King's Quest series--how do you feel about the Royal Quest parody and the vulgar humor and violence that it is reputed to contain? Would you play it?

From a marketing standpoint, Sierra would've been wise to do their own parody of King's Quest a long time ago--if not a direct parody, then at least a game that takes the same medieval fantasy setting and explores the farcical side of it. I could see such a series being every bit as popular as serious fantasy adventures. Bruce Balfour and I both proposed several such games to Sierra back in 1992 or 1993, but I think the prospect of self-parody was a little too frightening. They're lucky that nobody else came along and did it at the time.

I can't really comment on the vulgarity and violence in RQ. I've only seen a tiny portion of the script, and I just don't know how representative it is of the entire game. Obscenity isn't especially prevalent in adventures compared with most other genres (and it's almost nonexistent in the Sierra quest games), so over-the-top vulgarity would be, for me, gratuitous in a parody that focused specifically on adventure games or the KQ series in particular. Similarly, violence wasn't a big part of the King's Quest world (apart from KQ8), so again, I'm not sure I'd find it relevant in a KQ parody. But that would be my approach to parodying something--finding the flaws and exaggerating them--not necessarily somebody else's approach.

I definitely plan to play RQ. I can't wait to see what they do to Cedric!

Roberta Williams

In my experience, parodies have never been particularly compassionate toward their subject--though hilarious, I would certainly not like my hard work to be the butt of all the jokes this game will no doubt contain. How do you feel about Royal Quest in terms of your own work on the classic series?

I have never seen Royal Quest and do not know exactly what it is like; I suppose if there were direct insults toward me personally, then I would not be happy. However, one could also take parodies and/or spoofs of one's products as a compliment, because why would someone bother to parody a product that nobody ever heard of or cared about? Therefore, I guess I am torn on the issue of a parody being done on King's Quest. I will have to wait and see how it turns out before I can have an absolute opinion of it. Hopefully, I will eventually be able to play it and see for myself; is it a "mockery" or a "parody"? A parody is probably fine; a mockery is probably not.

Royal Quest is reputed to be a vulgar and violent comedic spoof--does this not, to some extent, belittle the original King's Quest series, even though the RQ team affirms otherwise? Or do you find it tolerable and take it as a compliment? Do you think you will play Royal Quest?

Sure, I would play Royal Quest. Why not? Also, how would I know whether I should be upset by it if I don't play it? As to whether it is vulgar and violent: again, since I haven't played it I can't really comment on it. You said it is "reputed" to be vulgar and violent. Has anyone really played it yet? Is this the opinion of many people who have played it or of a few? I would expect that with a parody of King's Quest--since King's Quest has more of a sweet, nonviolent reputation--there would be some sort of "opposite" of what King's Quest really is; otherwise, it wouldn't really be a parody. If it were the "same" as King's Quest, then it would be King's Quest. A parody would, as parodies do, poke fun at what it is, and, that would probably include adding in some violence since King's Quest was not about violence. I think that I, and everybody else, probably need to understand that and not take too much offense.

Did you know that Josh Mandel has agreed to provide voices for the KQ1 remake that the Royal Quest team is also creating? What do you think of that?

Well, I think that Josh will do a good job; after all, who besides me would know King's Quest so well? More power to him.

How has the "fan game" situation affected you personally? Are you opposed to fans creating games based upon commercial series? How do you feel about potential copyright violations these games pose?

I suppose if I were Sierra I would not be happy, as Sierra owns the copyrights to these games; I don't. This is a question which should be posed to the people at Sierra. I don't receive royalties anymore from King's Quest as Sierra doesn't really go out of its way to sell it. Therefore, these sort of "fan" games aren't affecting me as far as my pocketbook goes. In fact, it could be said that by "fans" producing these games that they are, in a way, keeping them alive. I kind of feel that, if Sierra isn't going to do it, then somebody should! I just hope they do a good job and portray these games in a good light so that people who have never experienced them will understand what they were all about. You never know, these "fan" games could be keeping the plate "warm" if I ever return with another game!