Nemo
RetroMuseum GateKeepeR
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- 9 Ιαν 2006
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I must say it feels good to be able to speak of this project in public again after 8 years. Yeah, thatʼs how long itʼs been since this project went underground. A lot has happened. I wager most people reading this are somewhat surprised by this projectʼs sudden announcement. Iʼm sure the question on most peopleʼs minds is: “why this game?” To be able to answer that, I want to make a quick attempt to review the history of this project and the rather unique way in which the project came to be.
The answer to the question: “why this game” is really quite simple. When the project was started, KQ3 was THE game most fans wished for if AGD Interactive (then Tierra Entertainment) were to do another remake besides QFG2. The poll and resulting discussion took place in this thread. It was posted some time before KQ2+ went live and the winning option was rather obvious. The choice was also not at all unpopular with the Tierra team itself. KQ2 writer Wookie had already written a basic screenplay for KQ3 prior to KQ2ʼs release and KQ3 itself was AGD1ʼs first Sierra game so it held dear personal memories for her. At the same time, development on both Al Emmo and QFG2VGA was more or less starting, so adding KQ3 to the busy schedule seemed overambitious.
What spawned KQ3 Redux was the post of Tierra forum regular Navynuke who had been messing around a bit with AGS a bit and as sort of a tutorial for himself scripted a few rooms from KQ3 in the engine. He then posted his mini-project in our public game making forum, where it received a fair bit of attention. You can read the topic itself here.
Iʼll summarize for those without the patience to read through the entire thread. Two other members (Muzlak…a programmer who also possessed artistic skills and our very own MusicallyInspired) offered him assistence. Believing Navynuke was serious, AGD2 eventually made an offer. Tierra would “adopt” the new KQ3 project, Navy would be given Wookieʼs basic screenplay to work with and heʼd be able to work on the project under the AGDsʼ guidance. The idea was for the KQ2 development team (AGD1, AGD2, Tom, Wookie) to play a largely supportive role on the side, focussing on QFG2VGA and Al Emmo while Navynuke would assemble his own team on our private forums. It was an experiment of sorts…an additional development team working under the same banner. Naturally, AGD2ʼs post caused quite a bit of commotion and we realized that since the KQ3 project was essentially an experiment that could succeed grandly or fail horribly, we decided to lock the thread and go underground. (the thread was later moved to our private forums after it started to fade from public memory) We figured that whether things would succeed or fail, it was most beneficial for the project to be developed away from public pressure. That all happened 8 years ago. (to this day)
So, did the experiment succeed? Yes and no. While the initial idea was to have two separate teams working on isolated projects, what actually ended up happening was that both teams essentially merged into one. Team members who became part of AGDIʼs development team through the secret KQ3 project (people like John Paul and Emily Selwood, Gronagor, Eriq, Cornjob and myself) ended up contributing to (and greatly adding to) multiple AGDI projects. The AGDsʼ role ended up being much more than merely sideline-stuff too. Saying KQ3 Redux was a sideproject for AGDI would be an exaggeration, because there have been many times when both QFG2VGA and KQ3 Redux were progressing actively simultanously, but as a rule, if we HAD to pick one project to focus on due to lack of time, that usually wasnʼt KQ3. As a result, KQ3ʼs development cycle has always been quite a bit less steady than QFG2VGAʼs. (longer times of inactivity, more INTENSE bursts of progress) KQ3 itself didnʼt even take THAT long to create, but the project received several MASSIVE visual facelifts over the years (like the other KQ remakes got) plus the making of a voice pack that wasnʼt planned at first. Ultimately, we knew we could take our time with this game to polish it up to perfection because there was no public pressure to have it released. (which we still stand behind)
The lack of public “accountability” has always been important to us. We knew from KQ2ʼs and QFG2VGAʼs release that constant requests for progress reports create extra stress and we wanted to avoid that with KQ3. And truth be told, it WAS very relaxing working on this project, knowing we only owed it to ourselves and nobody else to see it through. That did create one issue…what if someone else decided to start something similar? We were forced to take a position on that fairly soon. A few months after the start of our project, another developer announced a KQ3 remake on the AGS forums. (and was promptly lamblasted by a fan of KQ2+ for it) When that news reached us, we made a public statement about the matter. “If we want to do KQ3, weʼll do it. Weʼre not gonna stop other people from doing a remake, but they wonʼt stop us either if we decide to take a similar project up.” The thought behind this isolationist stance is twofold; first of all, we COULD contact him, tell him about the project and ask him to stop, but it wasnʼt really our place to tell him to stop remaking someone elseʼs game and besides, even if heʼd stop, someone else would soon follow in his footsteps, whoʼd we have to contact too, etc, etc. (and spread our secret over an increasingly large crowd) Secondly, if someone WOULD give up months of work for our sake, weʼd create a big obligation towards that person to finish our own project on a timely basis…which would defeat the whole idea being only accountable to ourselves. So ultimately, we kept quiet about this project throughout the years. Until now.
So what is it? And why call it Redux? We figured calling it KQ3VGA (after KQ1VGA) or KQ3+ (after KQ2+) wouldnʼt describe the game well, because the game lies somewhere in between both extremes. Itʼs not a 1:1 remake like KQ1VGA is, nor is it a major reworking like KQ2+ where many charactersʼ roles were spun around. The underlying plot remains the same, but many existing elements have been given more personality and polish. A few new elements were added, but not on KQ2ʼs scale. So we gave the game its own unique moniker.
So is it worth playing, even if youʼre already familiar with KQ3? Hell yeah, it is. While Iʼll always view QFG2VGA as AGDIʼs pinnacle point in the scripting department, KQ3 blows all the other projects out of the water in the presentation department. Itʼs filled with the lush and colorful graphics that makes it like a true interactive storybook. It contains a massive soundtrack filled with familiar and new tunes alike that easily rivals soundtracks like KQ5ʼs and KQ2+ʼs in quality and mood-setting ability. Its voicepack is of higher quality than any of our other remakes. Extensive QA has already made it stable and solid, so that heavenly suspension of disbelief won't be broken by sudden crashes. (crosses fingers and prays ) And of course there are some easter eggs here and there. The sheer amount of love and polish this game has received are guaranteed to give any KQ fan the nostalgica trip of a lifetime and any KQ3 fan the fangasm of several lifetimes. This is classic King's Quest fare through and through. AGDI's most polished project. And itʼs almost ready!
http://www.agdiforums.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=14848&sid=fe610cfc3d1d16500cdba7567b82286e
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