King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella
| {{{Image}}} | |
| Release Date: | September 1988 |
|---|---|
| Project Status: | N/A |
| Latest Version: | {{{ReleaseVersion}}} |
| Developer(s): | Sierra |
| Publisher: | Sierra |
| Designer(s): | Template:Roberta Williams |
| Source Available: | No |
| Category: | Full Release |
| Type: | {{{Type}}} |
| Genre: | Adventure |
| Theme(s): | {{{Theme}}} |
| Engine: | SCI0 |
| CP Scheme: | {{{CopyProtection}}} |
| ESRB Rating: | {{{ESRBRating}}} |
| Platform: | Template:MS-DOS, Amiga, Template:Apple IIGS, Template:Atari ST |
| Localization: | English |
| Website: | www.sierra.com |
King's Quest IV is the first SCI game. To showcase their new SCI engine, Sierra chose its flagship series, King's Quest, to be first to have its next installment to be developed in SCI.
Description
King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella featured SCI's higher resolution graphics as well as AdLib and Roland MT-32 music with a "full soundtrack" by William Goldstein. An AGI version of King's Quest IV was co-developed for customers who could not meet the high hardware requirements of Sierra's new SCI engine. A customer who purchased the game that could not run the game was able to send in his SCI disks in for replacement with the AGI version.
In 1984 Sierra introduced the original King's Quest: Quest for the Crown to showcase the expanded abilities of IBM's new computer, the PCjr. In fact, the first couple of releases were published by IBM. The Adventure Game Interpreter (AGI) was developed as the new engine for this task. AGI's graphics were 160px x 200px by 16 colors (quadrupedal that of CGA's 4 colors) using vector graphics backgrounds. It also had three voice with noise channel sound. This was quite a technological advancement and even cutting edge at the time. AGI was designed for portability (easy to port to other platforms.) It became Sierra's main game engine until the advent of Sierra's next engine, SCI. Most of Sierra's famous series began in the AGI era.
Hardware began to advance beyond what AGI could utilize, so Sierra began development on its next engine, SCript Interpreter or later Sierra Creative Interpreter (SCI). The previous year before the last official AGI game, Manhunter 2: San Francisco in 1989, Sierra released the first SCI (SCI0) game, King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella in 1988. In keeping with Moore's Law, SCI could take advantage of the constantly increasing capabilities of the new hardware. As with AGI in its day, SCI was a big leap forward in technology. The higher resolution allowed for better graphics. Even though 200px x 320px may not seem that much over AGI's 160px x 200px, it is very noticeable. While still just 16 colors, but SCI0 introduced dithering, which mixed pixels of different colors into the same fill areas that gave the effect of more than 16 colors.
KQ4AGI Fisherman's Shack
KQ4SCI Fisherman's Shack
support for the new sound cards. With SCI, music became an inseparable part of Sierra games. Even though the first exposure most had was with AdLib's hoots and honks, it also supported the MPU-401, which allowed Sierra's composers to create some amazing Roland MT-32 sound tracks. KQ4's MT-32 track gave a quality to the game's music that at the time was unsurpassed.
File:KQ4AGI Intro.ogg File:KQ4 Intro.ogg File:KQ4AGI Dwarves Mine.ogg File:KQ4 Dwarves Mine.ogg
Versions
There have been a number of releases of the SCI version of the game, with interpreter versions ranging from 0.000.247 to 0.000.502. In addition to revisions of the PC version, there were ports for other platforms. These ports often had different features based on what the abilities of the target platform. The Amiga port had digital sound effects for environmental sounds, which was missing from the PC version.
Note that the first version(s?) of the game did not recognize resources outside of the resource archive. This made patching the game more difficult as new resource patches cannot simply be dropped into the game's folder. To be accessible to the game the patch needs to be packed and mapped in the game's resource archive to be accessible to the game.
SCI0 (early)
Game Game version Interpreter version Date Notes King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella Unknown 0.000.253 Interpreter does not support patch files King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella 1.000.106 0.000.274 1988-09-19 Interpreter does not support patch files King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella 1.000.111 0.000.274 1988-09-23 Interpreter does not support patch files
SCI0 (late)
Game Game version Interpreter version Date Notes King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella 1.003.006 0.000.409 1988-12-19 Requires KQ4FIX patch King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella 1.006.003 0.000.502 1989-06-12 King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella 1.006.004 0.000.502 1989-08-07 Ego walks faster diagonally Amiga
Game Game version Interpreter version Date Notes King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella 1.023 Environmental and other incidental sound effects Atari ST
Game Game version Interpreter version Date Notes King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella 1.003.006 1.001.008 Conversion by Template:Corey Cole PC version 1.000.106 and 1.000.111 are the only ones with the original detailed graphics. For 1.003.006 and later versions, Sierra simplified the background graphics to make the game fit on one 5.25 inch disk less, removing background detail and separate night pictures.
The KQ4FIX patch dated 1989-02-15 addresses error message "0x80/653 not found" at DOSBox cycle settings above 1500 when entering the screen with the waterfall. This patch only applies to version 1.003.006. This problem was corrected in the later version 1.006.003 and is not needed in versions 1.006.003 or 1.006.004.
PC version 1.006.004 is the latest PC version and has the main character walking faster diagonally. It also changes the arrangement for the Fisherman's theme (for the better) and replaces "Lolotte's death" music with a completely different one. This is the version used for the King's Quest Collector's Edition, King's Quest Collection Series, Roberta Williams Anthology, King's Quest Collection (2006), GOG King's Quest 4+5+6 Collection.
Screenshots
There are two main releases of the SCI version of this game, 1.000.111 and 1.006.004. What is notable is the second release has more refined PICs or background images. Also, the first release used completely new PIC resources for all of the night scenes. The second release used PICs that were night sky overlays that were displayed over the daytime PIC.
 version 1.000.111 Pool Screen |
 version 1.006.004 Pool Screen |
 version 1.000.111 Ogre's House |
 version 1.006.004 Ogre's House |
 version 1.000.111 Witches' Cave |
 version 1.006.004 Witches' Cave |
 version 1.000.111 Night Pool Screen |
 version 1.006.004 Night Pool Screen |
Story
About
Downloads
GOG
New Installers
SHP New King's Quest 4 DOSBox Installer Setup File [742 KB]
- Requires files from the original distribution media. Works with all versions of the game.
- This new installer includes a Munt enabled build of DOSBox for MT-32 sound. It requires that the "MT32_CONTROL.ROM" and "MT32_PCM.ROM" ROMs be present on installation. Requires files from the original distribution media.
- This installer not only includes the Munt enabled build of DOSBox for MT-32 sound, but also adds sounds from the Amiga versions with a patch by NewRisingSun. Requires files from the original distribution media.
Demos
Patches
- File:ZIP.PNG Official KQ4FIX Patch ZIP File [2.74 KB]
Fixes:
- Lockups or errors at the waterfall scene (for version 1.003.006 only)
