King's Quest VI - Heir Today Gone Tomorrow

When I look at King's Quest VI these days, what I remember most is staring at the screen like a plank, wondering what the hell I was supposed to try next — point the mouse at the left edge of the screen, or what? The game definitely isn't about turning you into a hero; it's about learning to think like a designer from 1992 who had a pretty peculiar idea of what "intuitive" means.

In King's Quest VI, you return to a fairy-tale world as Alexander and try to win over Rosella, who's imprisoned on the Island of Time. It all sounds like a classic fantasy adventure, and partly it is — you meet various characters, solve puzzles, and collect items. The graphics are pretty decent for the era, with colorful backdrops and animations that are sometimes worth just watching without pressing any buttons.

But that's where it starts to bite. The game is a point-and-click clicker where you sometimes hit a dead end, not because it's logical, but because the designers decided it would be. Item collecting is sometimes obvious, other times you're trying to find something you spotted two minutes ago but forgot about. Puzzles work, but they often just tell you "that's not right" on your first try, with no wit about it.

At the end of the eighties, this would've been a sensation. At the start of the nineties, it was just average work propped up by good graphics. King's Quest VI knows where the line is between game and daydream, but doesn't have the guts to cross it. Thinking this was some kind of peak mid-game milestone in video game history — that would be a real mistake.

These days I play it more out of nostalgia than courage. If you missed turn-based adventure games with a hint of guidance back in the nineties, King's Quest VI might be worth a shot. Otherwise it's more of an archive of how adventures were made when designers weren't afraid to frustrate you for a while — and they were pretty open about it.