DOS Days

King's Quest V

Released: 1990
Published by: Sierra On-Line
Developed by: Sierra On-Line
Author(s): Roberta Williams, Chris Iden, Oliver Brelsford, Juan Carlos Escobar, Doug Oldfield, Chris Hoyt, Raoul Said, Robert W Lindsley, Deena Benz, Ernie Chan, Mark Seibert, Ken Allen, Jeff Crowe, Andy Hoyos.


256-colour VGA graphics (320 x 200 resolution)

 

System Requirements

System Requirements Intel 80286 or 80386 CPU, 640 KB RAM
Graphics support for EGA and MCGA/VGA only (sold separately).
- Best resolution is 320 x 200 in 256 colours.
Audio support for Game Blaster, Ad Lib, Sound Blaster, Roland MT-32
Keyboard and Mouse supported.
Original Media 5.25" 1.2 MB DS/HD floppy disks.
Installed Size (MB) 8.65 MB

Introduction

King's Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder was the first Sierra game to use the second iteration of their SCI interface, SCI1. This added 256-colour VGA graphics (still at 320 x 200 resolution) and digital audio drivers to cater for speech. Like King's Quest IV, an AGI version of the game was also released for lower-powered PCs offering EGA and Tandy graphics. It would be the last release from Sierra to support these graphics options.

Did You Know?

King's Quest V was the first Sierra game to sell over 500,000 copies.

King Graham's castle has been mysteriously whisked away by the evil wizard Mordack. With the help of an owl, Cedric, you fly to Serenia to meet the good wizard Crispin, who gives Graham his old wand and the ability to speak with animals. As the adventure unfolds, King Graham collects useful items and magic spells before meeting Mordack on his island for a final showdown.

A later release on CD-ROM arrived in 1992, adding voice acting to the game. Various changes in the script were made to accommodate this, as well as a number of graphical additions.

 

From where can it be run?

The game must be installed to your hard disk.

 

Copy Protection

The floppy disk version (EGA and VGA) has manual copy protection. When King Graham casts a spell, the game manual is used as a form of copy protection to make the spell work. The CD-ROM version released in 1992 omitted this copy protection.

 

How to Setup

 
Unofficial General MIDI Patch

Ravi Iyengar created a General MIDI driver for Sierra's SCI01 and SCI1 games. He says: "Sierra was still producing patches and drivers on a per-synth basis while making SCI01 and SCI1 games. Some time later they released a sound driver that works with some games to remap instruments to the General MIDI layout. This driver does the same thing, but works with a different set of games.". The supported games for this driver are Quest for Glory II, Mixed Up Mother Goose, Sierra's 1996 Christmas Card, King's Quest V, Space Quest IV, Police Quest 3, and The Castle of Dr. Brain.

 

 

Problems

Symptom: I'm playing the game in Roland MT-32 mode, but some of the audio is really 'off' sounding.
Cause: The Roland MT-32 audio was written with the MT-32 "Old" - the newer MT-32 "New" (the one with the headphone jack on the rear) had some instruments mapped differently.
Resolution: Play the game using an MT-32 "Old".

 

To Quit the Game

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Supporting Documents

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Save Games

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Versions of the game known to exist

Version Date Comments
    Initial public release.


Original Floppy Disk Contents

The three floppy disks have no specific volume label. Here are each disk's contents:

    Disk 1 (5.25" 1.2 MB DS/HD):

     
                    
    Directory of A:\

     

    Disk 2 (5.25" 1.2 MB DS/HD):

     
                    
    Directory of A:\

    Disk 3 (5.25" 1.2 MB DS/HD):

     
                    
    Directory of A:\
                                                 

 

Installed Directory Contents

Once installed, the following directory structure exists in the game directory:

    Full Install chosen

     
                    
    Directory of C:\GAMES\KQ5
    . <DIR> 10-16-20 2:41p
    .. <DIR> 10-16-20 2:41p
    IBMKBD DRV 449 07-06-90 2:48p
    CMS DRV 3,734 11-02-90 5:27p
    FONT 000 1,782 10-16-88 9:50p
    ADL DRV 7,976 11-02-90 5:27p
    IBMPS1 DRV 4,354 11-02-90 5:27p
    INSTALL BAT 43 12-27-90 11:06p
    INSTALL EXE 31,688 02-13-91 8:11a
    INSTALL HLP 6,665 01-30-91 10:25a
    INSTALL MSG 216 12-27-90 11:05p
    INSTALL SCR 3,778 02-20-91 12:41p
    JOYSTICK DRV 607 10-12-90 5:49p
    KQ5 BAT 79 11-05-90 12:08p
    KQ52 BAT 72 11-05-90 12:09p
    KQ53 BAT 89 11-05-90 12:09p
    KQ54 BAT 76 11-05-90 12:09p
    KQ55 BAT 69 11-05-90 12:10p
    KQ56 BAT 86 11-05-90 12:10p
    MT32 DRV 1,989 11-02-90 5:26p
    README 771 12-28-90 8:20p
    RESOURCE 000 276,351 01-30-91 5:48p
    RESOURCE 001 1,022,087 01-30-91 5:51p
    RESOURCE 002 1,307,211 01-30-91 5:55p
    RESOURCE 003 1,347,875 01-30-91 5:59p
    RESOURCE 004 1,239,689 01-30-91 6:07p
    RESOURCE 005 1,287,999 01-30-91 6:11p
    RESOURCE 006 1,172,619 01-30-91 6:15p
    RESOURCE 007 1,240,456 01-30-91 6:23p
    RESOURCE CFG 97 11-06-21 3:00p
    RESOURCE MAP 8,004 01-30-91 6:23p
    SIERRA EXE 57,899 11-09-90 6:51p
    SNDBLAST DRV 9,672 11-02-90 5:27p
    STD DRV 1,448 11-02-90 5:26p
    TANDY DRV 4,430 11-02-90 5:26p
    TANDY3V DRV 3,893 11-02-90 5:26p
    TANDYKBD DRV 476 07-06-90 2:48p
    VERSION 11 01-25-91 4:16p
    VGA320 DRV 4,528 12-26-90 1:09p
    WHAT EXE 2,156 10-25-90 10:09a
    VOCAB 913 2,449 08-01-90 10:57p
    VOCAB 994 112 01-30-91 4:44p
    VOCAB 995 609 08-11-88 2:18p
    VOCAB 996 354 01-30-91 4:52p
    VOCAB 997 4,384 01-30-91 4:41p
    VOCAB 998 1,229 08-09-88 9:37p
    VOCAB 999 1,113 06-27-90 5:45p
    47 file(s) 9,061,674 bytes