King's Quest II: Romancing the Throne is an adventure game developed by Sierra On-Line and published originally for home computers in 1985 as the second entry in the King's Quest series. The game follows the young King Graham as he journeys through the pseudo-medieval fairy tale-inspired fantasy realm of Kolyma, on a quest to find three keys to an enchanted isle and rescue the fair maiden Valanice from the tower in which she is imprisoned. 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 II was developed by Sierra as a continuation of King's Quest I (1984), reusing and enhancing its game engine, the Adventure Game Interpreter. The game was designed by Sierra co-founder Roberta Williams as a blend of common fairy tales and fantasy tropes, with Graham's quest to rescue a maiden setting up a family of characters that could be used in following games. Several developers of the game, including Scott Murphy, Mark Crowe, and composer Al Lowe, went on to develop future games for Sierra.

The first three King's Quest games collectively sold over 500,000 copies by 1987. Critics praised the advances in gameplay over the first game, as well as the quality and variety of graphical animations. The game has been included in several compilation releases, and an unofficial remake was released in 2002 for modern systems. The King's Quest series, which includes a further six games by Sierra, has been termed its flagship series.

Gameplay

thumb|right|Gameplay screenshot; the player has entered "open mailbox" into the text input parser|alt=Graham standing in front of a house

King's Quest II is an adventure game set in the pseudo-medieval fairy tale-inspired fantasy realm of Kolyma, in which the player controls the character King Graham to complete a quest for three keys to rescue the imprisoned Valanice. The game world is divided into dozens of locations, or flip-screens, with one location visible at a time. These locations are presented in pseudo-3D as if viewed from the side, with the player moving Graham around the screen in front of and behind other elements of the location.

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Sources

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  • King's Quest II Technical Help at the Sierra Help Pages