King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow is a point-and-click adventure game, released in 1992 as the sixth installment in the King's Quest series produced by Sierra On-Line. The game was written by Roberta Williams and Jane Jensen. King's Quest VI is widely recognized as the high point in the series for its landmark 3D graphic introduction movie, created by Kronos Digital Entertainment, and its professional voice acting. Actor Robby Benson provided the voice for Prince Alexander, the game's protagonist. King's Quest VI was programmed in Sierra's Creative Interpreter and was the last King's Quest game to be released on floppy disk. A CD-ROM version of the game was released in 1993, including more character voices, a slightly different opening movie and more detailed artwork and animation.
The name of this sequel is a pun on the common phrase "here today, gone tomorrow". This pun is related to the abrupt departure of Prince Alexander after the events of King's Quest V, where he was just rescued by King Graham along with Princess Cassima, who asked Alexander to come visit her at the end of that game.
Gameplay
thumb|left|Screenshot from the Windows version displaying the interface of the functions toolbar and inventory; on the left is the player character Prince Alexander
King's Quest VI is a 2D graphic adventure game with a point-and-click interface. The player is given an icon-based toolbar at the top of the screen of selectable functions: walk, look (provides a description from the narrator of the object targeted), action and talk, respectively. It also includes the item inventory (the last selected item can be picked right away) and a game options menu. This is the second game in the series to feature this interface, which was introduced in its immediate predecessor King's Quest V as a new feature of the SCI1 version of Sierra's Creative Interpreter engine; previous titles in the series featured a text parser where players had to type commands and actions instead of selecting them on the screen.
Solving the puzzles in the game usually requires traveling between the islands that make up the game world, which is accomplished by means of a magic map. Although a magic map had been used in earlier games of the series (such as King's Quest III), its implementation in King's Quest VI was different from earlier games in that it was only used for travel between islands, which could not be reached using the walking interface.
Plot
The game takes place almost entirely in a fictional kingdom called the Land of the Green Isles. The kingdom comprises several islands, and is described as being largely isolated from the outside world. The player can travel between different islands after obtaining a magic map.
The game's opening cutscene shows Prince Alexander is haunted by memories of Princess Cassima, whom he met at the end of King's Quest V when they were both rescued from the wizard Mordack. After seeing a vision of Cassima in the magical mirror that his father acquired in the first King's Quest, he sails to find her. At the beginning of the game he is shipwrecked on the shore of the Isle of the Crown, where he learns that the vizier Abdul Alhazred (named after the author of the fictional Necronomicon) has assumed control in Cassima's absence, and plans to force her to marry him. Alexander must explore the Land of the Green Isles in order to find and learn what he needs to rescue Cassima from the vizier.
Multiple endings
A significant aspect of the story and gameplay is the option for the player to receive different endings based on choices made during the course of the game. Partway through the game, the player has the option to pursue either the short path, or the long path with more puzzles and a more satisfying ending. Upon completing either path, the player is given a clue about what choices would have led to the other ending. Endings contain many minor variables based on optional tasks. in May 1991 to discuss the design for the upcoming sixth title in the series. Williams began preliminary work on King's Quest VI in June, "laying out the basic story" and worked alongside Jensen throughout July and August on coming up with design ideas; after five months, Williams and Jensen finished the documentation for the design. Two key goals of the writers were to keep the game's tone consistent with its predecessors' while still making it a distinct title, and to make players connect emotionally with the game; Williams wrote the love story of Prince Alexander and Cassima specifically for this emotional attachment. This sequence is present with different edits and narrations in each of the DOS, Windows, Amiga, and Macintosh versions.
Jensen scripted the game, defining for programmers the game's responses for the player's actions and the more than 6,000 lines of written messages. Robert Lindsley served as the game's lead programmer. The game was coded on an updated version of the proprietary Sierra Creative Interpreter engine named "SCI1". Robin Bradley served as the quality assurance tester; throughout July 1992 the game went through constant testing. Development wrapped in September, when Sierra's marketing and distribution departments began promoting and releasing the game. In an interview with The New York Times, Williams estimated the budget to have been about and stated that the crew included more than 20 people working for 14 months. It was then shipped on October 6 and launched on October 13 on nine floppy disks for DOS and Macintosh. The Amiga version was ported by Revolution Software. Sierra, which itself converted its games for the Amiga prior to King's Quest VI, announced in early 1993 that it would cease releasing games for the platform; however, Revolution co-founder Charles Cecil offered his company to make the Amiga conversion instead. The port began development in March 1993 and was released for the Amiga in December. It uses Revolution's Virtual Theatre engine instead of SCI1 due to better performance on the platform.
A CD-ROM version of King's Quest VI, released in 1993 for DOS and Microsoft Windows, features an extended version of the opening sequence, a full voiceover of every line of text in the game, and a revised soundtrack with a full version of the ballad "Girl in the Tower". The song was composed by Mark Seibert with lyrics by Jane Jensen and serves as the game's love theme, playing in the end credits. Sierra sent a CD with the song to various radio stations and bundled with the game a pamphlet listing these stations and suggested fans to call them and ask for the song to be played. This resulted in Sierra receiving legal threats from stations bothered by excessive requests from listeners. Sierra co-founder Ken Williams responded to the stations by jokingly stating that the stations "were the criminals for ignoring their customers — something I believe no business should ever do". The Windows version includes higher resolution character portraits in dialogue sequences.
Director Stuart M. Rosen directed the voice cast of King's Quest VI for the CD-ROM version, which includes actor Robby Benson (voice of the Beast in Disney's Beauty and the Beast), who voiced Prince Alexander.
The second King's Quest Collection has a number of editions in which the CD with King's Quest VI do not include the "Girl in the Tower" theme song audio CD track, so the Windows version simply crash during the credits and the DOS version plays the credits with no music. The King's Quest Collection release by Vivendi in 2006 includes the Windows version of the game, but is set up to run the MS-DOS version with text and speech in DOSBox.
Release
Sales
thumb|Sierra provided a 50% discount to previous King's Quest owners to promote the purchase of the CD-ROM version, a then-emerging technology platform.
According to Ken Williams, about 400,000 copies of King's Quest VI were sold in its first week of release The CD-ROM version was the 5th best-selling CD-ROM game in November 1993. According to Sierra On-Line, combined sales of the King's Quest series surpassed 3.8 million units by the end of March 1996. By November 2000, PC Data reported that King's Quest VIs sales in the United States alone had reached between 300,000 and 400,000 units.