Part 2

Welcome back to King's Quest IV. With that long intro out of the way, let's get down to business. You may recall that we were left on the shore with no direction. So let's just aimlessly wander around and see what we can find.



This unicorn randomly appears on many of the otherwise empty screens in the game. It runs off if we get in the same zip code, so we'll just deal with it later.



I mentioned this in the OP, but the game now pauses while we type in commands. This will come in handy in a several situations. Even just typing a letter brings up this box, which will give you all the time in the world to think or type.

>look unicorn

: Rosella sees a beautiful, wild unicorn in the meadow. Its coat is dapple-grey, and its horn shines like gold. Sensing her approach, the unicorn shies and runs away.



Alright, hold on...



Here we go, a nice high quality map of Tamir. We started on the beach near the bottom left corner, and we're on the screen with the stump now. Screens in this game, as you can see, have a lot more variety between them so you don't really need a map. And I'm not really going to reference it past this point.



On the screen north of the stump, this little satyr will randomly show up.

>look satyr

: Rosella sees a lively creature who is, at the same time, both man and goat. This satyr, whose name is Pan, seems to be greatly enjoying his flute music.
: The tune somehow seemed familiar to Rosella...

>talk to pan
: Rosella attempts to speak to Pan, but he pays her no mind; he's too wrapped up in his flute music.

Pan is part of a future puzzle that we'll get to eventually.



Same with this screen. Though this screen being empty is admittedly more bad luck on my part than "we can't do this yet." It's a very nice looking screen, at least. A classical architecture pool just randomly out in the wilderness isn't something you're gonna see very often.



This screen is the first one we can potentially do something about. There's a small puzzle here that needs an item from a nearby screen.

>look

: Numerous water lillies float serenely upon the little pond nestled in the woods. Atop one of the bigger lily pads, Rosella notices a rather large frog... wearing a little gold crown!

However, if we get in the pond, the frog gets scared off. So how do we re-enact the obvious fairy tale staring us in the face?



The answer to the riddle lies one screen south. See if you can't figure out what to do just from looking at this image.

>look

: A gentle stream meanders its way through the trees. A rustic stone bridge crosses its path.

This was still 1980s Sierra. You have to be very specific about what you want to do.

>look under bridge

: Rosella kneels down and peers under the bridge. Aha! She finds a small golden ball that she takes with her.



Sadly there's no item descriptions that I've been able to find. Anyway, with the ball in hand we can finish reenacting this fairy tale.



>drop ball

: Rosella "accidentally" drops the golden ball into the pond. From atop a lily pad, a large green frog leaps into the water, and disappears from view. A moment later, the frog emerges with... YES!... her lost ball in its mouth. It seems as if the frog is kindly returning Rosella's ball to her.



If you look closely, you can see the frog and the small gold ball on the pond's northeastern shore. So let's

>get frog

: Scrunching up her nose in disgust, Rosella catches the large frog and holds it in her hand. It stares at her with its big bulgy eyes, and wobbles its throat.



Yep... that's a frog alright.

>kiss frog

: Rosella looks at the frog's green lips. Mmmmm. Good. She feels silly doing this, as she slowly puts her mouth against the frog's.



: Suddenly, the little green frog changes into a handsome prince!
: Who are you? I thought you were supposed to be a princess?! Why, you're nothing more than a PEASANT girl!
: Rosella blanches at the remark, but says nothing.
: Well, ta-ta. I'm off. Here, you may keep THIS!
: To her surprise, the prince tosses the little golden crown at her as he leaves.
: Good riddance...



We're now free to leave the ball on the edge of the pond, as we don't have any further use for it. But...

>get ball

It's our ball and we ain't giving that shit up.



Over to the east of the pond we find this creepy sight.

>look

: This run-down, gloomy cemetery gives Rosella the creeps! Many of the old tombstones have fallen over, and the entire place is overgrown with weeds.

There's nothing we can do here until much, much later in the game. In fact, this cemetery is one of the last locations we're going to visit before we're locked into the endgame.



Like the cemetery on either side of it, this manor is the setpiece for the last bit of the game. There's a few things we can do in it this early on, but for the most part it's all relegated to the late game.

It's, uh, also the ancestral home of the Wateley family, making this Whateley Manor. It's a creepy mansion surrounded by a creepy graveyard, named for the family from an HP Lovecraft story where the two children were sired by an elder god. No points for guessing that there's gonna be some spooky shit going down later.

>look house

: This is not a pleasant house; in fact, it's downright scary! It looks old and abandoned, and badly in need of tender-loving-care. To make matters worse, it sits right in the middle of an old cemetery.

Let's go in!



This needs a little mood music.

>look

: This is the entry room of the old house. Downstairs, Rosella can see two open doorways, and upstairs two additional doors. The room is cobwebbed and dusty, with wallpaper peeling from the walls.

>look clock

: An old grandfather clock sits in the corner. With each swing of its pendulum, time relentlessly marches on...

>read time

: The time is: 8:10 A.M.

Generally, time passes at a 1:1 ratio with the real world. Though I think the game fudges the details a little. The intro lasted 10 minutes by itself, and this is 3 minutes into the game proper. The game has a "strict" 24 hour time limit. That is to say, you have 24 real time hours to complete it or you get a nonstandard game over. Presumably.

The manual claims this is the case, and I've seen some rumblings on the Internet that it's true. I don't really have the time or patience to leave the game running for that long to check, and we'll see much later on that the developers learned from the... boat segment... of the previous game.

So while the game functionally has a time limit, even the slowest player on the slowest speed possible will win long before that point.



Moving on... the dining room is one of those rooms that you may never have to enter. There's no items to pick up in here, nor in the kitchen behind it. It also kind of reminds me of Mananarama's dining room, just without the picnic table in the middle of the room.

>look

: This old dining room has seen better days. The long table is littered with crumbs and dust, and against the wall, the empty hutch is covered with cobwebs.



The kitchen I mentioned before. Seriously, this reminds me of Manacannon's house.

>look

: The old kitchen is quite bare. The fireplace has been cold for years, and the dusty pantry is empty but for old crumbs.



This is on the west side of the entrance hall. This is the only room we really need to concern ourselves with for the moment.

>look

: Considering the disarray of the rest of the house, the parlor looks in relatively good order. However, the fireplace is cold and unsued, the bookshelves are almost bare, and the old furnishings are dusty.

Mr. Payne there mentioned that the bookshelves were almost bare. Maybe there's something on them.

>look bookshelf

: Rosella examines the few remaining books on the bookshelves. Only one catches her attention; it is entitled "The Compleat Works of William Shakespeare." She pulls it from the shelf and carries it with her.



That portrait hanging over the mantle also stands out.

>look portrait

: An interesting portrait of a young girl hangs over the firelace. Rosella gazes at it intently, and notices that her eyes seem to stare at the left wall of the parlor.

>look wall

: Rosella examines the left wall very closely and notices a little latch. She flips it and discoveres a secret door in the wall.





This shovel is something we won't need until the super late game, but having it means we won't have to come back later. There's also no point in climbing the stairs just yet. It's two screens tall, and all that's at the top is an old pipe organ.

Like most things in this part of the map, we'll be back much, much later in the game.

>get shovel



If you want a picture of hate and spite for this game, this is it. When the time comes, I'll cover exactly why. But for now, understand that this shovel is very much in the same boat as that bridge from King's Quest II.



Whateley Manor is behind us, and this screen is pretty much just for filling in space on the map. Though if you look, you can see a little bird pulling a worm out of the ground.



If you get close, the bird flies off and leaves the worm behind. We'll need this in the not too distant future, so...

>get worm

Does this mean that we walk with rhythm?





This cute little house under a tree is west of where we found the worm. The first screen with the cemetery is directly north, and the bridge where we found the golden ball is to the west.

Tamir is a very cozy little country. With the exception of a small handful of screens, we've seen pretty much everything there is to see.

NEXT TIME: Rosella the housekeeper

List of Points

+2 - A stray golden ball
+5 - Kissed a frog
+2 - Shakespeare Omnibus
+4 - Secret door
+2 - Shovel
+2 - The worm

Total: 17/230

Register of Deaths

None this time!