King's Quest III: To Heir is Human is an adventure game developed by Sierra On-Line and published originally for home computers in 1986 as the third entry in the King's Quest series. The game follows Gwydion, slave to the wizard Manannan, as he journeys through the pseudo-medieval fairy tale-inspired fantasy realm of Llewdor, on a quest to free himself and find his family. 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 III was developed by Sierra using an expanded version of the game engine that was originally developed for King's Quest I (1984), the Adventure Game Interpreter. It was designed by Sierra co-founder Roberta Williams as a blend of common fairy tales and fantasy tropes, with a more complex and mature story than its predecessors made possible by the increased capabilities of home computers. Several developers of the game, including artist Mark Crowe and programmer Al Lowe, would go on to develop future games for Sierra.

King's Quest III sold 250,000 copies by February 1993, and the first three King's Quest games collectively sold over 500,000 copies by 1987. Critics praised the advances in gameplay over the first two games, as well as the quality and variety of graphical animation, though some found elements of the game unfairly difficult. The game has been included in several compilation releases, and unofficial remakes were released in 2006 and 2011 for modern systems. The King's Quest series, which includes a further five games by Sierra, has been termed its flagship series.

Gameplay

thumb|right|alt=Screenshot showing a pixelated character standing outside a house|Gameplay screenshot; the player has entered "open gate" into the text input parser and the game time is at 15 minutes and 35 seconds.

King's Quest III is an adventure game set in the pseudo-medieval fairy tale-inspired fantasy realm of Llewdor, in which the player controls the character Gwydion to escape his enslavement to the wizard Manannan and find his family. 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 Gwydion 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 III Technical Help at the Sierra Help Pages