Games PC KING S QUEST VIII-MASK OF ETERNITY User Manual

King’s Quest I :
Quest For The Crown (1984)

Originally commisioned by IBM as a
showpiece for their ill-fated IBM PCjr, Roberta
Williams’ King’s Quest would only become an
industry bestseller the following year when it
was released for the IBM PC and new Tandy
1000 computers. Being the first game to fully
support the newly introduced EGA color card,
King’s Quest clearly demonstrated the superior
16-color capabilities of the then $400 optional
video card. The player directs game action by
way of text-based commands (example:
“OPEN DOOR”) and use of the keyboard
arrow keys to control the hero’s onscreen
movements.

This original King’s Quest game was released
later in an updated version as King’s Quest 1:
Quest for the Crown. The new version (a
contemporary of King’s Quest IV), allowed the
use of icons rather than a text parser interface,
and had updated graphics and sound to keep
up with the games of that time.

Synopsis:

The King of Daventry is nearing the end of his
life. Tragically, he has no heir to carry on the
royal line, and he worries that his kingdom will
be left without a leader. Daventry is already a
shadow of its former glory, as the three
treasures of the realm have been lost to the
ages. And so the king summons his bravest
knight, Sir Graham, and sets him on this quest
— return all three of the lost treasures, and the
throne will be his. Not an easy task, but the
recovery of the Mirror, the Chest of Gold, and
the Shield will take Sir Graham through
mythical perils and magical dangers, and forge

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a new kingdom from the ruins of the old!

King’s Quest II :
Romancing The Throne (1985)

This sequel to the original King’s Quest
provided not just a second look at the life of
King (formerly Sir) Graham of Daventry, it also
began a tradition of using King’s Quest as a
training ground for future designers. Future
Space Quest series designers Scott Murphy
and Mark Crowe joined the development team,
making this game an even bigger hit than the
original.

Synopsis:

Sir Graham is now King Graham, inheritor of
the Daventry throne. But he is a king without a
queen, and his subjects fear the heirless fate
which befell his predecessor. Until the day
when Graham beholds a dreadful sight in the
magic Mirror — a beautiful woman held captive
in a secret tower! Smitten, the king vows to
release her. His search for three magical keys
will lead him to an enchanted land on the other
side of the world. To claim his future bride,
Graham must explore underground caverns,
eerie towers, and ocean wonderlands; ride
flying carpets; and meet and mingle with
legendary characters like King Neptune and
Count Dracula!

King’s Quest III :
To Heir Is Human (1986)

The release of this product in 1986 was quickly
met with loud protests from gamers claiming
that this King’s Quest wasn’t really a King’s
quest at all. Because it focused on a young
slave named Gwydion and his attempts to
escape his evil master, players didn’t grasp the
connection between Gwydion and King
Graham of Daventry until they finished the
game some months later. (This was before

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Sierra began offering hint books or a hint line.)
It was here that a programmer named Al
Lowe, the future designer of the Leisure Suit

Larry series, learned the internals of adventure
game programming. An exciting feature of
King’s Quest III was “automagic mapping”.
This feature was widely promoted on King’s
Quest III’s introduction... however, it was not
included in future King’s Quest games, since
players’ feedback indicated that it reduced the
challenge. This mapping feature was later built
into Roberta Williams’ Mixed-Up Mother
Goose adventure game for children, where it
was better appreciated.

Synopsis:

Step into the tattered shoes of Gwydion, a
young slave whose existance has been spent
serving the powerful and evil wizard
Manannan. But now your usefulness to him is
ending, and a landmark birthday approaches
— you are certain that Manannan will choose
to end your miserable life that day. W ith
nothing left to lose, you must finally dare to
learn the wizard’s magic spells, explore the
world outside the tower you’ve called home,
and finally challenge the wizard himself to save
your own skin, and discover the awesome
secret of your own past!

King’s Quest IV :
The Perils of Rosella (1988)

This innovative epic invited players to step not
into the boots of the now familiar adventure
hero King Graham, but instead into the soft
slippers of his young daughter Rosella - a bold
step for 1988, when the audience for
computer games was almost exclusively male.
Designer Roberta Williams’ move to attract

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more female players to adventure gaming was

a success, and King’s Quest IV went on to be
one of the most successful games of the year.
From a technical standpoint, King’s Quest IV
also scored big as the first commercial
entertainment product to support optional
music cards. Hollywood composer William
Goldstein (Fame) provided the stereo
soundtrack, adding new dimensions and
motion to the presentation. King’s Quest IV
was the first 3-D Animated Adventure to use
Sierra’s improved graphics system, and
allowed the player to use a mouse to move
their character around the landscape.

Synopsis:

King Graham is hanging up his adventurer’s
cap for good! With his beautiful queen at his
side and his kingdom momentarily at peace,
he prepares to pass that symbol of his
questing youth to one of his two children. But
before he can speak, he collapses, struck
down by a fell magical disease! Now his fate
lies in the hands of his daughter Rosella, who
must journey to a faraway land on a frantic
search for the one item that can save your
father from certain death. But when Good and
Evil vye for the throne of Faerie, you can bet
that no task is as simple as it seems. Soon,
the ailing Faerie Queen has Rosella on a quest
of her own, to stop an evil sorceress from
taking over. Only by saving the Faeries can
Rosella save her father — but who’s going to
save Rosella from ogres, witches, and ghosts?

King’s Quest V :
Absence Makes the
Heart Go Yonder (1990)

A computer game on a CD? Unheard of! No
game since the original King’s Quest had the
impact of King’s Quest V, which redefined

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adventure gaming in game play, design and
overall presentation. It was Sierra’s first million­dollar-plus development effort. Designer
Roberta Williams assembled an unequaled
team of animators, artists, musicians, and
programmers to make the project a reality. A
new interface was designed to appeal to a
larger audience, and extra efforts were taken
to make the game an attractive entertainment
venture for every member of the family. No
more typing ‘open the door’ — now the player
could simply use their mouse to click a ‘hand’
cursor on the door.

Sales of King’s Quest V during its first year
shattered all known records for computer
games. Led by Emmy award-winning producer
Bill Davis, King’s Quest V made the leap in
graphics resolution to full 256-color VGA.
Animations and backgrounds advanced from
“computer art” to true handpainted, life-like
scenes inhabitied by life-like and fluid-animated
characters. Over fifty voice actors lent their
talents to the effort, making King’s Quest V the
most elaborate and cinematic game to date.

Synopsis:

A year has passed since Princess Rosella’s
journey to Tamir, and King Graham’s health has
been fully restored. The Royal Family of
Daventry is whole once more, and all is well
with the Kingdom. But unbeknownst to
Graham, his beloved family will soon be in
grave danger! Somewhere far away, a powerful
presence watches the castle of Daventry with
evil intent. Mordack, a wizard even more
powerful than the late Manannan, has
concocted a dreadful plan: to capture the
castle of Daventry, and the Royal Family within.

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He waits for the right moment to strike - when

King Graham will be helpless to stop him. On
that fateful day, King Graham will return home
to find that his castle and his family have
disappeared. Graham must don his
adventurer’s cap once again and find Mordack
before harm can come to Rosella, Alexander,
and Valanice. With Cedric the owl, his
relucatant guide, Graham journeys through
forests, across deserts, over mountains and
oceans in search of the evil wizard who holds
the Royal Family and the castle in his grasp.

King’s Quest VI :
Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow (1992)

From the opening sequence of the game, there
could be no doubt that if King’s Quest V
redefined what computer gaming actually was,
King’s Quest VI provided the quality standard
for the next generation. The state-of-the-art
“floating camera” sequence that opened the
game, featuring young Prince Alexander as he
sets out to find his “girl in the tower,” gave
computer gamers the world over a real view of
what the new age of multimedia computers
could bring to classic storytelling. The
character graphics were based on motion­captures of real actors, giving the game an
unprecedented ‘feel’ of reality.

The King’s Quest VI love song “Girl In the
Tower,” a soulful duet featuring the voices of
Bob Bergthold and Debbie Seibert, rivaled the
best motion picture anthems of the year.
Continuing in a long tradition, Jane Jensen,
who would go on to design the industry
bestselling Gabriel Knight”!: Sins of the
Fathers, assisted Roberta Williams in game
design of this epic.

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Synopsis:

Prince Alexander sits in the throne room of
Daventry, longing for the beautiful Cassima.
Suddenly, just as it had done a score of years
ago for his father, the magic Mirror sprang to
life to show him an image of his beloved. But
one look at her distraught face made it clear
that something terrible had happened to her!
Immediately, Alexander sets off by ship for her
home — the Kingdom of the Green Isles.

Rather unfortunately for Alexander, the Green
Isles are surrounded by rocks and reefs, and
he is shipwrecked. Washed up on the shore
with little more than his signet ring and a single
coin, he must unravel the twisted schemes of
an evil vizier, restore the kingdom to its rightful
rulers, and win back Cassima’s heart... before
she is married to someone else!

King’s Quest VII:
The Princeless Bride (1994)

King’s Quest VII featured an innovative chapter­based design, an intelligent bookmarking
system for saving games, and an easy point­and-click interface, making the game more
intuitive for the novice gamer, while still being
challenging for those who had enjoyed the
series for the past 10 years. This was the first
King’s Quest game which could not be
released on diskette, as the number of disks
which would be required to hold the files would
never fit in a game box, or even multiple game
boxes! The graphics were breathtaking in
scope, created by a team of animators who
drew individual images, cel-style, and then
digitally added color and sequenced the
images to produce motion. The resulting

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animation not only set new standards for game

graphics, but also rivaled or surpassed the
animation available on TV or film.

Synopsis:

Rosella of Daventry is reaching marriagable
age, and her mother Valanice hopes to find a
suitable match for her daughter. Unfortunately
Rosella has no interest, either in the men her
mother has chosen, or in marriage itself! As the
two of them walk in the woods, discussing this
very subject, Rosella sees a small dragon­sprite leap from a pond, leaving behind it an
image of a fantastic castle floating in the
clouds. Intrigued, and feeling mischevious,
Rosella dives into the pond and disappears.
Valanice leaps in after her, and the two find
themselves drawn into a vortex of magical
energy, and seperated.

Now each woman must pursue her own quest
— Rosella to save the Volcanix Underground
from the evil witch Malicia, and Valanice to find
her daughter. Before they can be reunited,
each must cross the land of Eldritch, face the
dangers of Ooga Booga, delve into the world
of spirits and legends, and finally confront
Malicia in the heart of an active volcano!

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History of the King’s Quest Series ........................2

Installation ..........................................................12

Main Menu..........................................................12

New....................................................................12

Load ..................................................................12

Save....................................................................12

Options ..............................................................12

Replay Intro ........................................................12

Quit ....................................................................12

Back to Game ....................................................12

Options Menu ....................................................12

Graphics Mode ..................................................13

Performance Issues ............................................14

Games Controls..................................................15

The Interface ......................................................15

Controlling Connor..............................................15

Controlling the Camera ......................................16

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First-Person/Third-person ..................................16

The Cursors........................................................17

Conversations ....................................................18

Pushing ..............................................................19

Jumping..............................................................19

The Rope and Hook............................................20

Rocks ................................................................20

Hand Weapons ..................................................21

Ranged Weapons ..............................................22

Armor ..................................................................23

The Magic Map and Teleporting..........................23

Gold....................................................................24

Inventory Items....................................................25

Health and Magic Items ......................................25

The Mask............................................................26

Health and Experience Meters ............................27

The Lands ..........................................................28

The Kingdom of Daventry....................................28

The Dimension of Death ......................................28

The Swamp ........................................................29

The Underground Realm of the Gnomes ............29

The Barren Region..............................................29

The Frozen Reaches ..........................................29

The Realm of the Sun ........................................29

The Monsters......................................................30

Hints ..................................................................37

Credits................................................................38

Team Mask ........................................................38

Additional Credits................................................38

Cast....................................................................39

Customer Services..............................................40

Limited warranty..................................................41

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Installation

Start Windows 95/98.
Insert the King’s Quest: Mask of Eternity disk into your
CD-ROM drive. If you have disabled AutoPlay, click on
the start button, select [Run].
Type “D:\SETUP” and press [ENTER].
(If your CD-ROM is not named “D:,” substitute its letter
instead.)

Main Menu

New

Click on this or press [ENTER] with the “Mask” icon next
to it to start a new game.

Load

Click on this or press [ENTER] with the “Mask” icon next
to it to go to the load game screen. Once there, you can
load a previously saved game.

Save

Click on this or press [ENTER] with the “Mask” icon next
to it to go to the save game screen. Once there, you will
be able to save your current game and/or multiple games.

Options

Click on this or press [ENTER] with the “Mask” icon next
to it to go to the options screen. Once there, you will be

able to set many of the game settings.

Replay Intro

Click on this or press [ENTER] with the “Mask” icon next
to it to watch the opening movie. Once the movie starts,
you can exit it by clicking or pressing [ESC].

Quit

Click on this or press [ENTER] with the “Mask” icon next
to it to quit the game.

Back to Game

Click on this or press [ENTER] with the “Mask” icon next
to it to return to a currently running game.

Options Menu

Here you can select a number of different game options.
When you first install the game, the install will attempt to
set all the options specifically for your machine based on
your hardware. Here’s what can be adjusted:
Graphics: This will take you to a new screen where you
can adjust your graphic options.

Graphics Mode

The three graphic modes available are Direct Draw, Direct
3D, and 3DFX. If you have a 3DFX card, Direct 3D will be
grayed out as you’ll want to run in 3DFX mode. If you don’t
have a 3D hardware accelerator then both 3DFX and Direct
3D will be grayed out.

(Note: Some 3D cards don’t support the full set of 3D
features required for King’s Quest: Mask of Eternity For
more information about this, check the readme file.)

Resolution: 640 x 480 is available in all modes. 800 x 600
is available ONLY to Direct 3D and 3DFX and then ONLY if
your card has at least 4 megs of available texture ram.

Dynamic Lighting: On/Off. This feature is suggested only
for Pentium II/266 or faster. This makes many of the lights
in the world dynamic, effecting the objects near them.

Connor Shadows: On/Off. Available in all modes, this
casts a shadow from Connor.

Monster Shadows: On/Off. This feature is ONLY
available if you are running in Direct 3D or 3DFX mode. Like
Connor’s shadow, this will cast a shadow from all monsters.

Character Shadows: On/Off. Available in all modes, this
casts a shadow from all characters.

Object Shadows: On/Off. This feature is ONLY available if
you are running in Direct 3D or 3DFX mode. Like Connor’s
shadow, this will cast a shadow from many of the objects in
the world.

Brightness: Allows you to set how bright the game looks
on screen. If this option is grayed out, then your card does
not support this kind of gamma control.

Keyboard: This will take you to a new screen that will allow
you to remap a number of the game key controls.

Sound Volume: Individually for music, sound effects, and
speech.

Subtitles: On/Off. Take a guess . . .

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