King's Quest - Geography

Geography

The region in which the first game takes place has no boundaries. Sir Graham can travel north, south, east, or west, but no matter what direction he goes, he will eventually loop back to the same screen where he began. This is the easiest way of programming a closed gamespace. King's Quest II, III, and parts of IV held on to this design, albeit in a more limited manner. The looping takes place only when the character goes north or south. Geographical barriers such as the sea, mountains, or deserts serve as boundaries to the east and west. The desert boundary in III was partially looped in one direction, one could continually travel west almost endlessly, until succumbing to dehydration. But travelling back east at any time, would always take the character back to the edge of the desert instantly.

In I-IV one could sometimes see elements of the next screen to the north in the distance. This gave the illusion that each location was connected to the next seamlessly despite the fact land was looping.

It was less defined in earlier games. In I the elements were the castle in the distance and some views of the rivers (most other areas were obscured by hills and trees). In II and IV this phenomenon was primarily seen along the beach (as trees and hills tended to block view inland). In IV one could see various elements scattered throughout various screens, such as the fisherman's shack, the pool, the old mansion, the ogre cottage, and river, in the distance in certain screens. For example, from the first screen the player begins the game they can see small cliffs to the north (the next screen is those cliffs). Traveling one screen north, one can see the Fisherman's shack in the distance (the next screen is the shack). One screen north of the fisherman's shack, one can see the river in the distance (the same river from the first screen). Heading east one screen from the back of the shack, one can see the pool in the distance (the pool is the next screen).

However, in III, it created an interesting situation. The magic map, for example, shows the topography for Llewdor. It showed the Village of Llewdor and Three Bear's house as being south of Manannan's house (which is also supported by some of the in-game descriptions of each screen). One can see the mountain to the north from the Three Bear's house, supporting the topography in the magic map. Yet from Manannan's mountain, one would see the both the village and Bear's house to the north of the mountain.

According to the manual for the King's Quest IBM, this phenomenon was described as such; "Daventry's world has a three-dimensional quality about it, places "wrap around" like countries on a globe. Imagine Daventry as a country so large it bends around the world."

The looping is also physically in the world's descriptions and artwork, as sections that connect to each other (such as the Raging River in KQ1) are often contain elements of the northern screen that can be seen in the distance (in KQ1 east and west edges had elements of next screen). For example in KQ2, areas such as the beach, the chasm, and the poisonous lake are made up of areas that take up several screens from north to south (visually connecting to each). Each of these areas when compared to each other are staggered with the beach lying somewhat north or south of the lake, and chasm screens lying both north and south of the lake. So no matter how someone may attempt to set boundaries, elements of the map will always be split in some way, with part of the landmark appearing in the north, and part of it appearing in the south. So if for instance boundaries included the chasm and poison lake, the beach is cut in half. If the boundaries include the beach and the poison lake, the chasm is cut in half. If the boundaries include the beach and the chasm, the poison lake is cut in half. In in another example KQ4, putting boundary edges near the definable boundaries south of Lolotte's Castle (a rocky wall), and north of the Skull Cave (another rocky wall), ends up splitting Genesta's Island in half.

The 'wrap around' has affected the drawn artwork maps and diagrams in strategy guides and hint books. For example, various maps were drawn for the King's Quest Companion's first three editions, which tried to portray the various lands of the first four games. The looping caused each artist to portray the edges of their maps differently, and thus locations were shown in different places on each map. The maps drawn for KQ3 more or less stuck to the geography defined by the magic map. The KQ1 maps show the most dramatic differences in interpretation. For example, the Door into Mountain being shown as being part of a mountain range in two of the maps, and as a central mountain in the third. The looping situation has been explained in The King's Quest Companion (retroactive continuity) by saying that the character is trapped in the region magically, magical law of "containment".

Beginning with KQ V, looping was eliminated and all game regions had boundaries in all four directions. Where physical boundaries didn't exist, expanses such as an endless desert or the ocean were used where the character would usually be killed or die if they traveled too far.