King's Quest IV: Game Guide, Developer and Facts

King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella is an adventure game developed by Sierra On-Line and published originally for PCs and home computers in 1988 as the fourth entry in the King's Quest series. The game follows Rosella, princess of Daventry, as she journeys through the pseudo-medieval fairy tale-inspired fantasy realm of Tamir, on a quest to find a magic fruit that can heal her father King Graham. It is presented as an interconnected set of locations, or flip-screens, with a pseudo-3D art style. The player interacts with locations and items using text commands, and must avoid numerous hazards and obstacles in their quest. King's Quest IV was developed by Sierra using two game engines: an expanded version of the engine that was originally developed for King's Quest I (1984), the Adventure Game Interpreter, and a new engine that was capable of better animation and sound but could not run on older computers, the Sierra Creative Interpreter. It was designed by Sierra co-founder Roberta Williams as a blend of common fairy tales and fantasy tropes, and she believed that having a woman protagonist would attract female players without having an impact on the male playerbase. She added a strict in-game time limit to give players a sense of urgency in completing the quest. To showcase the sound capabilities of the new engine, Sierra hired composer William Goldstein to write 40 minutes of music for the game. The game sold 100,000 copies in its first two weeks, and 800,000 copies within a year, a large increase over the sales of the previous three games. Critics praised the advances in graphics and animation over prior adventure games, though opinions were mixed on the gameplay, with some reviewers praising them while others found some puzzles to be obtuse or tedious. The game won "Best Adventure or Fantasy/Role-Playing Program" at the 1989 Software Publishers Association awards, and Rosella has been considered one of the first "major female protagonists" in a video game. It has been included in several compilation releases, and unofficial remakes were released in 2021 and 2025 for modern systems. The King's Quest series, which includes a further four games by Sierra, has been termed its flagship series.

Quick facts about King's Quest IV

• Title: King's Quest IV
• Developer: Sierra Entertainment
• Released: 1988
• Type: Video game
• Wikidata ID: Q1552491

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