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For the better part of the last two decades the adventure game genre was thought dead. Or at least comatose. But in these past few years it's finally returning. And how diverse a return it's been! In one corner, we've had Telltale's streamlined, linear take on interactive storytelling. In another, we've got Double Fine remixing old templates with modern tech and style with Broken Age. And then there's Maniac Mansion creators Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick successfully Kickstarting their faux 1987 throwback Thimbleweed Park. So how will The Odd Gentlemen, the LA studio behind The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom and Wayward Manor, handle reprising King's Quest? The answer is a mix of all of the above in a way that's distinctly its own.From the early press demo I see at GDC, King's Quest seeks to combine Telltale's episodic structure with Double Fine's lofty production values while staying true to the classic Sierra games with their penchant for comic deaths and multiple endings. This may be billed as a "reboot," but it's not the sort of modern update that fills vintage fans with dread. You won't be mashing buttons to fend off dragons, nor will you clumsily push blocks around to solve those popular "physics puzzles" that are all the rage these days. Instead, you'll be using your noggin to suss out the solution to many of King Graham's most entertaining problems. Or die trying (incidentally, you'll do that a lot).
That isn't to suggest that The Odd Gentlemen have simply followed Sierra's blueprint to a T. Like J.J. Abrams did with Star Trek, The Odd Gentlemen has come up with a clever narrative device that makes its King's Quest adventure simultaneously a re-imagining while remaining canon.
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