Funny that Brad mentioned Roberta Williams in his last column, as I'd stumbled upon the King's Quest 3 page and added it to my list of games that defined my childhood.

Looking back on the KQ series, how in God's name were you ever supposed to figure out how to beat these games?  There were no FAQ sites back in the day; you had to divine the designer's insane master plan by sheer brute force (or unbelievable luck).  How many times did I run out of the spell that could turn me into a fly or bird?  How long did it take me to figure out to stash everything under the bed?  How many times did I fall off of the cliff leading into town?  Why the hell did I love these games so much?

One of my most hated "puzzles" was in KQ5 - when you had to throw a boot at a cat that was chasing a mouse - you literally had about 2-3 seconds to get the boot from your inventory to throw it - if you missed it - they were gone.  There was no message - no FYI - no anything.  About an hour or so after that you found yourself tied up - and *IF* (and to my knowledge only if) you saved that mouse - he would come and chew your ropes to get you out of the predicament.

HOW COULD I THE GAMER HAVE POSSIBLY KNOWN THAT?!?!??!

Insane.........but I loved it....and still enjoy the thought of playing it today - (though I would never actually do so for reasons like the one listed above!)

I played the original KQ on Gametap about a year ago for about 15 minutes--then I stopped. I was like, "NO!" I've never played a game where I felt like the game personally hated me; Roberta personally hated me.

She was a remarkable game designer for the times.  Considering the technology that Sierra On-Line had available to it, they did an outstanding job creating worlds and characters to fit within.  Not all of the games stand up to the test of time, to be sure, but they have their place in the history of gaming as we know it.

hmmm i know this was much later, but i remember buying a sierra on-line hint guide for conquest of the longbow. It had a red viewer thing that you put over the page to reveal hints for each of the puzzles. i think i may have also had this for kq5

If you think Sierra games are unfair, your just too young and weak - that's the way games were in those days ;)
Nah, to be honest you can't judging her by todays standards. To understand the genius, you have to think back to the early days of  adventures. Text adventures. No pictures. Sierra changed that. Inventing it is quite a contribution to the genre of graphic adventures, isn't it ?
The difficulty can also be explained with these roots - in text adventures a large part of the fun was to find out what you are actually capable of doing. Sadly they sticked to that mechanic until KQ 7 ....

"If you think Sierra games are unfair, your just too young and weak - that's the way games were in those days ;)
Nah, to be honest you can't judging her by todays standards."

I loved playing the King's Quest series, and Dagger of Amon Ra too... by today's standards of game design they have many flaws in terms of dead ends, unfair deaths, etc but if a game is defined by how much you enjoyed playing it, they were still great games.

Phantasmagoria > All

Man, Sierra games were my favorites back in the day. I played them all! Oh how I wish those days would come around again!

@Thing2 said:

One of my most hated "puzzles" was in KQ5 - when you had to throw a boot at a cat that was chasing a mouse - you literally had about 2-3 seconds to get the boot from your inventory to throw it - if you missed it - they were gone. There was no message - no FYI - no anything. About an hour or so after that you found yourself tied up - and *IF* (and to my knowledge only if) you saved that mouse - he would come and chew your ropes to get you out of the predicament.HOW COULD I THE GAMER HAVE POSSIBLY KNOWN THAT?!?!??!

I don't know, man! But we somehow figured it out anyway. And we figured out that the only way to defeat the yeti was by throwing a pie in his face.

@ninjadodo said:

I loved playing the King's Quest series, and Dagger of Amon Ra too...

Hell yeah, Laura Bow 2! I recently convinced my friend to try it. He led Laura out of her office and into the street, where she was immediately run over by a car and killed. He stopped playing.