Obscure King’s Quest 1 Glitch

While awaiting the release of the Quest for Glory II VGA remake, I’d figure that play the original version^* of King’s Quest 1 for the PC.  There are two versions of King’s Quest 1 for the PC, and most nostalgic copies of King’s Quest floating out there on the internet are the later version released in 1987.  The copy that I played as a child was the first version released in 1984 as there are distinct differences them.

1984 version:

• Released on a bootable floppy disc.
• Played a trumpet sound at the title screen.
• Allowed switching to RGB CGA mode at the title screen.
• Played an annoying tune repeatedly throughout the beginning of the game.

1987 version:

• Released on a non-bootable floppy.
• Played Greensleeves at the title screen.
• Featured an in-game menu system by pressing ESC.

DOSBox is an application that will play ancient computer games on modern computers.  Specially for the 1984 version of King’s Quest 1, you’ll need to change the machine type to cga to render the graphics correctly.  This can be done by editing the DOSBox preferences file, changing machine=vga to machine=cga.

In DOSBOX, you can boot from a disc image by typing the following command:

boot location of image file

For me, I typed boot ~/Desktop/KQ1.IMG and the game loaded.

More notably there are a large number of bugs in the 1984 version.  One that I distinctly remember is a bug that allowed you to walk in any area of King Edward’s throne room.  You wanted to walk all over the king, on the walls, along the seats?  It could be done.  This is not present in the 1987 version as you can’t walk on the throne, are unable to crouch down, and have to be a certain distance away from the king before you can bow to him.

To reproduce this glitch present in the older 1984 version, follow these steps.

First, get behind the first step on the king’s thrown and walk towards the bottom of the screen.  This allows the character to climb onto the first step.  Press the left arrow key (4) and walk into King Edward.

Now, press the minus sign key (-) to crouch down.

Next, type bow king and press enter.

After your character bows and stand up, he’ll be pushed into the king, allowing you to walk all over the room.

Moving to the edges of the left and top parts of the screen, moves the character to the beginning of the game.

^*Note, the IBM PCjr version of King’s Quest 1 was released before the PC version but in the same year.