King's Quest V
Released: 1990
Published by: Sierra On-Line
Developed by: Sierra On-Line
Author(s): Roberta Williams, Chris Iden, Oliver Brelsford, Juan Carlos Escobar, Doug Oldfield, Chris Hoyt, Raoul Said, Robert W Lindsley, Deena Benz, Ernie Chan, Mark Seibert, Ken Allen, Jeff Crowe, Andy Hoyos.
256-colour VGA graphics (320 x 200 resolution)
System Requirements
| System Requirements | Intel 80286 or 80386 CPU, 640 KB RAM Graphics support for EGA and MCGA/VGA only (sold separately). - Best resolution is 320 x 200 in 256 colours. Audio support for Game Blaster, Ad Lib, Sound Blaster, Roland MT-32 Keyboard and Mouse supported. |
|---|---|
| Original Media | 5.25" 1.2 MB DS/HD floppy disks. |
| Installed Size (MB) | 8.65 MB |
Introduction
King's Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder was the first Sierra game to use the second iteration of their SCI interface, SCI1. This added 256-colour VGA graphics (still at 320 x 200 resolution) and digital audio drivers to cater for speech. Like King's Quest IV, an AGI version of the game was also released for lower-powered PCs offering EGA and Tandy graphics. It would be the last release from Sierra to support these graphics options.
Did You Know?
King's Quest V was the first Sierra game to sell over 500,000 copies.King Graham's castle has been mysteriously whisked away by the evil wizard Mordack. With the help of an owl, Cedric, you fly to Serenia to meet the good wizard Crispin, who gives Graham his old wand and the ability to speak with animals. As the adventure unfolds, King Graham collects useful items and magic spells before meeting Mordack on his island for a final showdown.
A later release on CD-ROM arrived in 1992, adding voice acting to the game. Various changes in the script were made to accommodate this, as well as a number of graphical additions.
From where can it be run?
The game must be installed to your hard disk.
Copy Protection
The floppy disk version (EGA and VGA) has manual copy protection. When King Graham casts a spell, the game manual is used as a form of copy protection to make the spell work. The CD-ROM version released in 1992 omitted this copy protection.
How to Setup
Unofficial General MIDI Patch
Ravi Iyengar created a General MIDI driver for Sierra's SCI01 and SCI1 games. He says: "Sierra was still producing patches and drivers on a per-synth basis while making SCI01 and SCI1 games. Some time later they released a sound driver that works with some games to remap instruments to the General MIDI layout. This driver does the same thing, but works with a different set of games.". The supported games for this driver are Quest for Glory II, Mixed Up Mother Goose, Sierra's 1996 Christmas Card, King's Quest V, Space Quest IV, Police Quest 3, and The Castle of Dr. Brain.
Problems
Symptom: I'm playing the game in Roland MT-32 mode, but some of the audio is really 'off' sounding.
Cause: The Roland MT-32 audio was written with the MT-32 "Old" - the newer MT-32 "New" (the one with the headphone jack on the rear) had some instruments mapped differently.
Resolution: Play the game using an MT-32 "Old".
To Quit the Game
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Supporting Documents
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Save Games
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Versions of the game known to exist
| Version | Date | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Initial public release. |
Original Floppy Disk Contents
The three floppy disks have no specific volume label. Here are each disk's contents:
Disk 1 (5.25" 1.2 MB DS/HD):
Directory of A:\ |
|
Disk 2 (5.25" 1.2 MB DS/HD):
Directory of A:\ |
 |
Disk 3 (5.25" 1.2 MB DS/HD):
Directory of A:\ |
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Installed Directory Contents
Once installed, the following directory structure exists in the game directory:
Full Install chosen
Directory of C:\GAMES\KQ5 |