Part 4: Alexander Pulls Out His Magic Map

IV - Alexander Pulls Out His Magic Map



Jollo

Hello everyone and welcome back! This update actually starts in the past. When I went to record the next bit of the game, I realized that while I hadn't actually screwed myself over, I had done things very slightly out of order. King's Quest VI is a kind game. In fact, there's only a small handful of dead man walking scenarios, and I'm pretty sure most of them only pop up in the long ending path.

As you might see from the screenshot above, and with the new music, we have a new friend to meet here. This is Jollo, and this is the absolute earliest that you're able to meet him in the game - as soon as you finish talking to Hassan the Ferryman.

Good day, sir. Is there anything you can tell me about the Land of the Green Isles?
I'm sorry, but I've no time for idle conversation. I'm too worried about the princess.
Excuse me again, sir. You mentioned the princess...
I told you I'm not interested in talking to strangers!

The reason I bring up that this is the earliest you can meet Jollo here is because we need a way to introduce ourself to him, thus why I mentioned the update was in the past. I had to reload a previous save in order to make this meeting happen now. There's no bonus or great hurry for doing so, but it's one less thing I have to worry about when recording.



Determined to learn more about the strange man's relationship with the princess, Alexander shows the man his insignia ring and formally introduces himself.
I'm sorry to insist, but my name is Alexander of Daventry and....
I appreciate the offer of the ring, Alexander, but I'm afraid I'm already spoken.... Daventry? Where have I heard of Daventry? Flying flitmice! You must be Prince Alexander! Cassima told me about you when she arrived home! How came you here?

In the previous update, Hakim mentioned that if we found something equally valuable as the ring, we could trade back for it. So we just have to keep our eyes open. If you haven't found the item by the second time that Jollo shows up, then I'm fairly sure you've entered an unwinnable state. It requires playing through the entire game to check, though, so I'm not exactly keen to try. It's not unwinnable, but you can't get anything approaching "a good ending" let alone "maximum points."

Why, by a ship, now wrecked upon the sand! But--you know Cassima? She truly spoke of me?
Yes, yes. I saw her briefly when she first returned home. She mentioned a prince to me, Prince Alexander of Daventry. I'm afraid that was before she was told about her parents' deaths. You see, she arrived home a few weeks too late. The king and queen thought they'd never see her again. It is said they died of heartbreak. I'm afraid she's blamed herself.
What a terrible homecoming! If we had only known....
<sniff> Terrible indeed, poor thing. Everyone in the kingdom seems to despair with her these days. The streets are silent
Where is she now?
The princess is sequestered in mourning. It's a rather dated tradition, and not required, but the vizier says she insisted out of respect.
I see. You've yet to say who you are, and how you know the princess.
I? Oh, pardon me! My name is Jollo. I am clown to the royal court and have been since the marriage of Cassima's parents, King Caliphim and Queen Allaria. Ah, those were happy days! The pair of them were so full of joy and life! So in love!
And Cassima's birth.... It would be hard to explain how long they had waited, how they had hoped for a child. She was such a charming little thing, smart as a whip, kind and sweet. She means everything to this kingdom, Alexander, and to me. I am so terribly worried about her.
About her grief over her parents, you mean?
Grief over losing one's parents is only natural, Alexander. The truth is, I do not trust the vizier, nor his plans for Cassima. I'm still living at the Castle of the Crown as court clown, HIS clown, but it is more to keep my ear to the ground than out of loyalty.
You don't trust the vizier?
Have you met the man? He doesn't exactly engender trust with the way he's been acting ever since he showed up.
That is a fair point. He was in an awfully big hurry to get me out of the castle when I spoke with him earlier.
I wish I knew what the princess thinks these days. <sigh> If only I could find Sing Sing, Cassima's pet nightingale, I might be able to send the princess a message. As it is, I must wait for the end of her seclusion. Now, I'm afraid I must hurry back to the castle. I'll try to return to the book shop again later.
Thank you for speaking with me, Jollo. I hope we meet again soon.

KQ6 is a very wordy game. Though I'm pretty sure that 4 updates in, you've guessed that by now. Also we get to watch Jollo strut out of the book store like he owns the place. No really. We can't move until he's done sauntering along. We're going to follow him!





I want you to appreciate my forbearance here. I could have made four different gifs of Jollo very slowly walking around. But I didn't.



Are you following me, Alexander?
Er, no. We're just coincidentally going the same way.

He's on this screen for 18 seconds. I know because I made the gif and realized that would be way too long. What's that? I made ones even longer during King's Quest IV? Désolé, je ne parle pas anglais.



Good day, Jollo.
Greetings, my fine-furred friends!



Well, Jollo's story checks out insofar as he's not lying about working at the castle. We can't follow him, so let's just move on.

left



There's not much we can do over here. This is a screen that has a purpose, but not for pretty much the entire game. So just bear it in mind for the distant future I suppose. And now that we've met Jollo we can go buy the map. So I'll fast forward through all that and we can meet on the other end.



right



While it doesn't appear that anything has changed, there's now music playing on this screen that was previously devoid of anything! There's also a bird hopping around on the top branch.

King's Quest VI - Song of the Nightingale

bird

A nightingale perches on a high branch of the tree. She sings the most beautiful song Alexander has ever heard.
Hello, nightingale! What a lovely tune you sing!
The nightingale only looks at Alexander suspiciously and continues to sing.

This bird only appeared once we talked to Jollo, and because there's no coincidences in this game, this must be Sing Sing, Princess Cassima's pet bird. There's several puzzles associated with her, and you can do them in pretty much any order. But we're going for maximum points and the best ending, so we'll just leave her alone for now.

back into town



pot

Alexander sorts through the odds and ends that the pawn shop owner dumped into the pot. Magic exploding gum wrappers.... A shattered crystal ball.... A cracked wand.... A fake thumb.... Hmmm.... Near the bottom, Alexander finds a little glass bottle labeled "ink." It appears to be empty, but Alexander decides to take it anyway. You never know when a small bottle will come in handy.

Alexander shakes the bottle and imagines he hears a faint swishing sound, but decides he is mistaken.
Alexander's carrying a little ink bottle. It appears to be empty.

Hmm... I have an idea!



Alexander decides to open the empty ink bottle.
<Urg!> It's stuck... it's...



Why, the ink bottle isn't empty at all...it's full of INVISIBLE ink!

There's a "hole" on Alex's torso.



Using items on Alexander is a great way to render the game unwinnable. So while there is unique dialogue for doing it for pretty much every item in the game, I'm not really gonna bother with it outside of certain unique circumstances.

to the beach





Alexander pulls out his magic map.



The Map Opens



This is the the meat of the game. We spend time hopping around to the various islands and solving problems which gets us items that lets us progress on another island.

The map bears the title, "The Land of the Green Isles."

Handy. Let's look around.

The "Isle of the Crown" lies at the south of the map.
A large island named the "Isle of the Sacred Mountain" dominates the north of the Land of the Green Isles.
According to the magic map, the "Isle of Wonder" is a comma-shaped island poised in the sea to the west.
There's a small island labeled "Isle of the Beast" on the east side of Alexander's map.
Heavy mists shroud an area to the southeast on the magic map.

If we click on any of the islands, we'll be taken right there. But if we click somewhere else...

Nothing happens. Apparently, the map won't teleport its user anywhere except the other islands. It's a good thing, too! Alexander has had enough of ocean swimming lately!

Earlier titles in the series would have happily let us not only teleport into the middle of nowhere, but would have had a number of screens of ocean to let us "explore" before randomly killing us after a couple. They did it all the time.

Anyway, let's...

Isle of the Sacred Mountain

Alexander feels a strange pulling sensation...



Map Selection

We actually get a nice shot of the topography of the island when we go there. Sacred Mountain is indeed pretty big. So it by rights should be dominating the northern horizon. Hard to miss something the height of Mt. Everest!



Alexander Poofs



Well that was fun! I'm gonna call it there for now.

NEXT TIME: We'll prepare for and then do the first exam puzzle! I'll explain more then.

List of Points

+4 - Jollo the Clown
+1 - Alexander's Disappearing Ink Act
+1 - Alexander feels a strange pulling sensation...

Total Points: 31/231

Register of Deaths

None this time!