King's Quest III: To Heir is Human (AGI)

Released: 1986
Published by: Sierra On-Line, Inc.
Developed by: Sierra On-Line, Inc.
Credits: Roberta Williams, Ken Williams.

VGA/MCGA is an option, but it just runs the same as EGA, with 16 colours

 

Introduction

King's Quest III: To Heir Is Human is the third installment in the King's Quest series, though unlike its predecessor the storyline is not based around Graham, King of Daventry. Instead you play as a young slave boy working for an evil wizard, Mannanan. As a prisoner in Mannanan's house high up a mountain, you must explore and pick up useful items in order to escape, all the while having to do chores set by the wizard.

The game does eventually tie-in with the first two King's Quest titles, but upon release fans of the earlier two games were outraged by this apparent move away from the original storyline, and because hint books were not written at the time, it could take months for the game's fanbase to reach the point in the story to see the connection.

King's Quest III was the second largest adventure game written by Sierra, with Time Zone being the largest.

As with the previous two titles, KQ3 used Sierra's Adventure Game Interpreter (AGI), but this used the second version of it, called AGI2. This added a dropdown menu bar and the ability to adjust the speed of your character's movement.

 

System Requirements

System Requirements	8088 or 8086 and compatibles. 256K RAM required. DOS 2.11 or later. Hercules monochrome/CGA/EGA/VGA graphics supported. Audio support for PC speaker or Tandy only. Supports a joystick. *An unofficial "experimental" patch allows 3-voice music to be played from an MPU-401 interface*
Original Media	Three 5.25" 360 KB (DD) disks (original version 1.01 and 2.00 version), or two 3.5" 720 KB (DD) disks (version 2.14).
Installed Size	1 to 1.5 MB of hard disk space.

 

From where can it be run?

From the original floppy disks only. There is no hard disk install option provided.

 

Game Audio/Video

AGIMIDI is after patching the PC speaker driver using the AGIMIDI utility to produce 3-voice sound.

PC Speaker Intro  Tandy 1000 (emulated) Intro  AGIMIDI 3-voice Intro

 

Copy Protection

All versions of King's Quest III (in fact all AGI2 titles from Sierra) were supplied with the first disk being a "Key" disk - an early copy protection method. Key disks used a track on the disk (usually track 0) that had a checksum error or used a non-standard sector size on that track. The main executable file (SIERRA.COM) would make a check for this non-standard track, and if found would read a decryption key from it and decrypt the real executable file, which is "AGI". This protection was called "SuperLok 3.2".

 

How to Setup

The game does not come with a setup program like later Sierra titles. All versions check the BIOS for an ID string that matches an IBM PCjr or Tandy 1000 and will initialise those systems' 3-voice PCG sound data and also load those graphics drivers. However, there are some command-line options to force the graphics mode. Simple run SIERRA.COM with:

• -c Forces CGA Composite colour mode
• -r Forces CGA RGB colour mode
• -h Forces Hercules (HGC) mono mode for TTL monitors
• -e Forces EGA mode
• -v Forces MCGA/VGA mode
• -t Forces Tandy 1000 graphics and/or sound
• -p Forces "PC" mode (assumed to tell it you're running a PC not a PCjr or Tandy)
• -s An unknown flag - not sure what this does
  
  

My version of this game has AGI interpreter version 2.936 (the most up-to-date interpreter released for this game), and by default it runs in EGA graphics mode. Running with the -c option worked well. -h wasn't tested as it requires a TTL (digital signal) monitor. -v I hoped would work but displayed corrupted EGA graphics.

The game doesn't require any extended memory (XMS) or expanded memory (EMS) drivers to be loaded.

Problems

Issue: Corrupted graphics or garbled text, unreadable.
Cause: This can occur if running the game with a modern graphics card under Windows 95, 98 or ME.
Resolution: Either run it on period-correct hardware (including the graphics card) or run it in DOSBox. There are also several third-party AGI interpreters that fix many bugs when running on more modern computers - try ScummVM or NAGI. There was another called Sarien but that has since merged with ScummVM.

 

To Quit the Game

Simply type the word "QUIT" and hit enter. Then either hit ENTER again to confirm or ESC to cancel.

Supporting Documents

Here are the original documents that came with the game:

• User Manual (original)

• User Manual (VGA re-release)

And here are some aftermarket links:

• SierraHelp.com

Save Games

The location of save game files is entirely up to you! When you type the word "SAVE" you will be prompted for a directory where you wish the save game file to be stored. By default this will be the same directory in which the executable file was run.

Once you've chosen the location you are shown 12 'slots' in which save games can be stored. Any slots that have a save game already stored will display their description. Once the slot has been chosen, you are prompted to give a description for the save game. Once completed, the save game will be stored in a file called kq3sg.x where x is the slot number from 1 to 12.

This is actually a great way of storing save games, as you are not limited to 12 slots - if you need more you can create a directory anywhere and use that to store a further 12 save games.

 

Additional Files, Drivers and Utilities

This section includes any additional files, updated drivers (original and third-party) or utilities that help make the game a better experience.

• Tandy 3-voice patch for V2.14 - Forces Tandy 3-voice sound on a non-Tandy/PCjr machine. This of course is to be used with a Tandy compatible sound adapter on your regular IBM PC/XT/AT

 

Versions of the game known to exist

Version	Date	Comments
1.01	8th November 1986	5.25" 360 KB version. Comes with AGI2 intepreter v2.272. This version of the game only supports CGA, Hercules, and Tandy/PCjr graphics.
2.00	25th May 1987	5.25" 360 KB version. Comes with AGI3 interpreter v2.435. Like game version 1.01, this version only supports CGA, Hercules, and Tandy/PCjr graphics.
2.14	15th March 1988	The first version released on 3.5" floppy disks (two). It added MCGA graphics support. It came with AGI interpreter version 2.936. This makes it able to support the third-party AGIMIDI.EXE patch that allows 3-voice sound via your MPU-401 interface.
Redux	2011	AGD Interactive released their faithful remake of King's Quest III: To Heir Is Human. It runs on Windows XP, Vista or 7, and requires a Pentium 300 or higher processor, 64 MB RAM, 32-bit SVGA card with 16 MB of video memory, DirectX 5.0 or above, and 345 MB of free disk space. You can download the 240 MB installer for free here.