Roberta Williams’ King’s Quest series of adventure games were a defining part of my childhood. King’s Quest VI, especially, holds a hugely special place in my heart, it’s still one of my top favorite games of all time. Once I started drawing Fox and my characters in the Land of the Green Isles, I got a bit carried away and wanted to make this comic special!
Early adventure games are notorious for having very little hand-holding, and puzzles that can really challenge your creative problem-solving skills.
“THROW THE BRICK AT IT!”
I played Police Quest as a kid.
If you want to try these games out, GOG.com has King’s Quest I through VIII for very reasonable prices (and packaged to work on modern operating systems, no need for emulators/DOSBOX!)
There’s also the 2015 King’s Quest game. The modern game is much more forgiving than the earlier titles in terms of difficulty, but the storytelling is absolutely magical. It continues/expands on the stories of the Daventry royal family (although if you’re new to the series, you can jump in here and not be lost!) and I adored it!
GOG also has Police Quest, to provide context to Fox’s strip commentary.
Shame that ‘boot’ isn’t an inventory item.
Introduction to Adventure Games I ~ Why I always lug my favourite BRICK around =^,^=
You have a shield! Why would you throw a brick when you have a shield? Shields are excellent throwing weapons. I was once playing DnD with a guy playing a dwarf, who beat up a guy with his shield, before the guy ran away, then threw the shield at the running guy, knocking him out.
Because bricks are easier to replace
I haven’t played any of this series, but I’ve got to admit that Fox’s approach has me sold on the idea. ^_^
This reminds me of when I played the adventure game “Deja Vu” ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Déjà_Vu_(video_game) )on my NES when a kid. At least half of the actions I took involved hitting or shooting everything in sight. Often, it did not end well…
Of course, we all know what would really happen in most of these situations:
The minotaur, now angered your brick, grabs you and proceeds to stuff you inside your own hat. Along with finding this treatment extremely uncomfortable, you do not survive it.
That’s no way to make friends Roger… I mean… Fox.
[Restore] [Restart] [ Quit ]
But don’t you just hate it when you desperately want to bash some idiot with a brick, but the game won’t let you ?
♫Another brick in the wall♫
Oooh, full colors! Also, Seley’s expression in that last panel is friggin hilarious.
It sounds like an interesting game. Will put it on my to-investigate list.
First humans in the comic!
Imaginary beasts in an imaginary game. Hardly realistic, humans.
Throw a Brick at it is the solution to 90% of all problems, the other 10%…usually causes more problems.
I had all those old Sierra games … King’s Quest, Space Quest, Police Quest, Hero’s Quest/Quest for Glory … I honestly believe that the point of those games wasn’t for you to complete them, but just to see how many interesting ways you could kill your character off. I mostly say this because there was always one puzzle where the thing you needed to complete it could be rendered unobtainable (I know, in one of the SQ games, if you missed picking up a certain item, the game would literally become unwinnable … and this item was early on in the game, so if you had to restore an old save …)
Just like Father Jack 😀
When you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail!
The solution to everything
Fox! Stop bricking the system!
Sorry had to say it. Wonderful comic Miss Seley
Mandy’s two horrified expressions are amazing
<3 this comic! Played both series as a youngster definitely starting throwing bricks at everything when stuck! LOL!
Some days I wish I could take Fox’s approach! XD. One of my favorites so far!
So Fox’s solution is “kill everything”?
Don’t be absurd. Many of the puzzles required you interact with inanimate objects, which can’t be killed.
So my solution was “Destroy everything.”
I can imagine immediately after getting hit, that Minotaur just being like ?”You did NOT…!!”?
Seriously… how did I just NOW find out about this comic?!?!?! (Is not ashamed that I binge read it)
Been meaning to ask (and thank you for the welcome) is your avatar the Commander from MGDMT???
Minotaur: i was just going to tell you the way forward was under construction and you need to wear a hard hat before continuing for your safety…*cries*
What kind of minotaur loses to a single brick? Or did Fox actually throw a buildings worth at him/her/it off-screen?
“Throw a brick at it!”
“It didn’t work!”
“Then you didn’t use enough bricks!”
Well throwing a brick at 90+ Mph & thowing one at 20 mph both count as throwing a brick. I suspect the former would be effective at at least rendering it unconscious for a coup de grace in a video game or pen and paper rpg
I remember introducing my dad to Pirates! on the c64. There were these side view dueling scenes where you would fence the enemy captain.
Well, my dad won the fencing battle, the enemy captain fell to his knees and surrendered… but my dad kept chopping at the guy, not realising he’d won. I didn’t even know you could do that…apparently you can just keep whacking the guy until he falls off the screen.
This comic reminded me of that 🙂 My dad was pretty unconvinced that computers had any merit, though, so his brick solution would be straight through the monitor.
Hiya, I just stumbled last friday over your comic and read through the archives.
I really like the artstyle an humor, you just got yourself another reader. ^_^
As for adventures, I think my first one was the first Monkey Island or Maniac Mansion, but I also have fond memories about the Sierra ones, especially Space Quest and Leisure Suit Larry.
I would just like to let you know that you kill me. Nearly literally. I should not have been eating a steak when I read this.