You can't see it well here but the wizard is shooting little bits of lightning that become the credits:
Then we get to the story... Hey! Where's King Graham?
Vital Info:
(large enough for you to read)
Released October 1, 1986 for MS-DOS, Apple II, Apple IIGS, Amiga, Atari ST, Mac, and Tandy Color Computer 3 computers.
The game came originally on 3 5 1/4" disks or 2 3 1/2" disks
Despite having disc based copy protection KQ3 required the player to transcribe lengthy bits of the manual into the game, under a time restraint, from a manual that had numerous spelling errors.
KQ3 was not as well received by the press and gamers as it's forebearers. People were advised to purchase KQ1 instead because it was substantially easier than KQ3.
Just so you know what we're getting into here.
Gwydion only spent a moment standing in the foyer before his master shows up and orders him to one of the five unpleasant tasks the boy must do over and over and over (the others are feeding chickens, feeding Mannanan, sweeping the kitchen, and dusting the study). I know how you guys love reading paragraphs of description text, so I made extra sure to include it in this LP!
After taking in the foyer as much as possible Gwydion heads up stairs. (I tried to look at the portrait but PARSER wouldn't let me!)
Pink? Bad ass wizard and decks his own room out in pink? Methinks the wizard is hiding something... Anyway Gwydion cleans out the chamber pot and heads back into the hall.
Real scary Mannanan, I know you slip on a pink 4-poster bed, surrounded by lacy pillows and your collection of my little ponies. Why was I ever afraid of you? Why are you hiding your true colors? (I bet the international league of evil wizards has a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy.) Gywdion checks the digs out in his own room before he heads up the final set of stairs:
The first item we pick up in the game is a pair of fly wings folks! One person's trash is another man's treasure... I suppose?
Manannan doesn't like Gwydion to possess anything so he heads back to his room, on the way encountering the wizard's cat. Gwydion grabs it, eventually, tears some of it's hair off (the pc speaker sound effect is great, really) and then heads into his room to hide his stash under the bed, just like you did as a kid!
Okay, Gwydion show us the rest of this hell-hole:
The study, dining room, and kitchen
A journey to one of SF's greatest gay bars, Badlands, you mean? Be FIERCE Mannanana-man! With Gywdion's repressed master out of the way, he know has the opportunity that ever great hero indulges in: pilfering other people's things! Gwydion head's straight up to the ol' bear's bedroom and starts riffling through his things. Next time: More stealing and getting out of the House!
First, This is what happens if Manannan finds Gwydion carrying certain items, here it was the fly wings:
Looks like the old man doesn't like Gwydion getting his hands on certain components that might be useful for something, who knows? Wizards are weird and creepy. We last left Gwydion looting his master's personal bedroom after finding every possible item of value therein he heads down to the study and resume looting:
But, wait! What's this?
A grisly death (by cat)! But, also a secret chamber of some sorts. We'll come back to it later. Let's pretend that never happened. Except for the Kitchen Mannanan's house is pretty much stripped clean. Gwydion's lust for other people's property knows no bounds! So, he heads outside:
(That part where you go behind that big rock in the center of the screen? It always had me on needles and pins. I imagine the path is as wide as the boulder but you don't know that. You've just got to trust yourself and hold down and then right hoping you didn't mess up.)
Check it out! Looks like that faded old useless map isn't as useless as we thought! let's do some exploring, Gwydion heads west (or left) then south (or down):
Okay so we've uncovered that part of the map let's head back to Manannan's mountain and head south (down):
Awh, how cute! It's the three bears! Goldilock's aint't here so it'll be up to Gwydion to wreck these poor bear's shit up:
Back to exploring:
At this point. I think Gwydion has uncovered at least a third of the land of Llewdor but isn't any closer to freeing himself from Mannanan. Hrm... Guess he'll have to keep exploring and stealing other people's things!
kay, Gwydion is on a roll! It won't be long til he's free of...
Now, I know that can't be Cedric cause he's actually being helpful. Mannanan's errands never last more or less than 25 minutes exactly. There isn't anything in the game to tell you this. You just have to pay attention to when he leaves and comes back. If he gets back before you get back home or have divested yourself of your items its "ZAP." Anyway, back to Gwydion's exploration of Llewdor:
As I, and others mentioned before, * appear next to items in your inventory that will drive Mannanan to murder you. Gwydion could just hide those items under his bed but typing the command to do so with every item is a pain. It is just easier to hide it all and take it all whenever it is necessary to do so.
Well, I think that is the eastern (right) edge of the map. Gwydion goes to explore the western edge:
Wherein Medusa: resides
If you don't look at her she can't kill you, til she touches you:
Gwydion, though, is a keen reading of Greek myths and knows a little something about Medusa's and their weaknesses. With a little help from Mannanan's vanity mirror he puts an end to her predations:
And, our map is full! So what can we do with this map anyway? Why teleport of course! Gwydion need merely pick an explored spot on the map and he is miraculously whisked away to it:
Gwydion puts dew in the thimble because it is important to do so! Stop asking stupid questions. He then entered and exited the Three Bear's home until porridge magically appeared.
He then did some other seemingly random things before finding the bandit's hideout (they sometimes appear randomly in Llwedor, I haven't run into them yet. If I do and they steal stuff from me I'll can always return to their hideout to take it back. I had to exit and enter the upper tree screen repeatedly until the bandit fell asleep too. Gywdion hasn't need coin yet but he's sure to soon. Now I have something a little embarrassing to admit. In the midst of doing some save-scrumming (scrubbing) I accidently copied over my latest save with a insta-kill save. So, I've got to replay up to here before we continue. Thankfully, this really only takes 30-45 minutes. See, even people who have been playing these games for years can still learn from Sierra's number one rule: Save early, save often, and use numerous save files!
Okay, so after catching back up to where I was before I saved over my game on a kill screen...you can push those F5 and F7 buttons too fast... Gwydion is back in the game collecting random items from around the Llewdorian countryside. Now that the young lad has some money he returns to the town to see if he can spend it on anything:
"I'll take one of everything!"
Gwydion then wanders into the Tavern:
and right back out... Those folks don't look friendly. Using the spoon he took from Manannan's kitchen he gets a heaping spoonful of mud, you never know when that will come in handy!
After catching a fallen eagle feather (you can just see the quill there behind the rock) Gwydion check his watch and heads back up the mountain. Checking the manual that came with his copy of King's Quest III: To Heir is Human, Gywdion sees that he has the ingredients he needs to cast some magic:
Here it is folks! Roberta William's and King's Quest Teaches Typing! Please type out the sentences found in your manual exactly as you see them there into the game!
The game will let you know when you've made a typing error! Don't forget you're being timed!
PS - I noticed I missed taking a screencap of what I typed to add the fish oil. For those of you who must know the correct sentence is: put two spoons of fish oil in the bowl
Gywdion has time to cook up one more spell before he goes:
I'm sorry that is incorrect! You forgot a comma:
(The game will let you ignore punctuation and capitalization, it isn't a very good type teaching program.) Now with all that magicking done, Gywdion better clean this place up before Mannanan gets back from the Gay Pride Celebration in neighboring Green Isles.
Then to poison Manannan's next meal:
And to stash all his goods, sans the porridge:
Gwydion goes down to the dining room to wait for his master's arrival, and grab a little something for himself:
"Oh, yes master! I have something prepared for you right here!"
With Mannanan out of the way Gwydion is free to sleep in the master bedroom and stay up past 9 PM. This is going to be great guys! But first!
Wait, no that can't be right. I'm sure Gwydion's life didn't end when a giant spider ate him... hrm, let me try that again:
Gwydion uses his new magic essence to turn himself into an eagle and kills the spider. That eagle is smaller than Gwydion and the spider, how is it able to do this?
"yeah, thanks... Guess it was too much to ask you to help a guy out sometime in the last 17 years or so... It's cool I understand you've got a cave to live in... I was just a slave, no biggy, please go on! PS - If for some reason Gywdion was compelled to eat the porridge that he knows is poisoned, he would find out that it wouldn't turn him into a cat!? No, for some reason he'd just choke to death on it:
PPS - Merus, I waited around outside the castle after the 25 minutes. As soon as Mannanan shows up the game locks the board so you can't move or type. In this example I had no items on me so he just zaps me back to the house (I wasn't going to wait another 25+ minutes to see what he'd do the next time.) If I have items he just ZOTS me like he does at home...
This is all so much! If the AGI system could have handled it I'm sure Gwydion would be swooning!
"Damn, 17 years as a slave to a closeted gay magician and now I've got to find some way to get home and save my sister from a three-headed dragon. Worst life ever!"
A piece of amber? Thanks for nothing, Oracle. Gwydion noticed in the spellbook, and I can plainly see here in the manual that there are more spells to cast so he heads back to the basement to do some magicking.
Okay, that's just disgusting
From this point onward. I'm not going to show the long sentences I had to type out for each step in the spells. You get the idea by now. It takes a lot of typing and it is easy to make mistakes...
Almost done everyone I swear! Then we can leave Llewdor for ever!
This is the last spell, I promise:
Oh wait... No, this is the last spell!
Now it's all over! Gywdion decides to see if this hairy, scaly, downy dough in his ears (so GROSS, why couldn't he just eat some white snake?) really does work:
I suppose if you hadn't seen the oracle yet these comments would have tipped you off that you were something quite different than you thought you were. Though you'd still have to defeat that spider to find it out... I don't know how they thought that was a clear puzzle either... I didn't mention this last post cause we weren't there yet... After killing the spider and speaking to the Oracle things are a little different in town:
How fortuitous! Just when Gwydion needed to leave a ship shows up, Gwydion speaks to the Captain, they "agree" on a price and like that Gywdion is traveling first class to... where is it these guys are going?
"Not first class either?!"
Bastards robbed us too!
Oh, I guess the rats have something to say? Is it good news?
"Ouch!" Gwydion's got to get out of here. He grabs the small crate and takes it back to where he woke up. Maybe he can use it to jump onto the larger crate? (Sierra: abusing crates decades before anyone else was!)
Now that Gywdion is safely out of Llewdor and entrapped on a ship... Let me show you the rest of the spell mishaps: How to understand animal spell mistake:
Slumber spell mishap:
Storm spell hijinks:
Misteleportation:
Click in next time to see if Gywdion can escape the ship!
Gywdion stacks those crates high and then leaps for the rope ladder. How dumb do these pirates/slavers (?) have to be to leave a strapping young lad in a room full of various sized crates with a rope ladder just hanging there, begging to be reached and climbed? Pretty dumb I'm guessing
(Why is the ship's wheel below decks? Is that normal?) Who knows? Gwydion is no sailor (a point he will prove once again three King's Quests hence!) Despite never knowing any heroes, Gwydion easily assumes their loose moral code and immediatly begins rooting through the Captain's stuff... Yes, he did take our money and then throw us in the ship's hold, but it doesn't really matter this could be a Saint's room and Gwydion would do the same thing.
Good thing he did too, cause now he has all his items back! After exploring this part of this level of the ship Gwydion heads in the opposite direction. He picks up the shovel and then heads back. Uh-oh the captain's seen him. No worries he'll just duck back down into the hold. The captain will assume he's trapped down there (WHY?!) and leave him alone. (any sailor you see here can be avoided by just leaving the screen...)
With nothing else to do and no clear direction,Gwydion decides to hang out with the rats:
That could be useful if we can ever get off this ship. Gwydion thinks the Captain probably isn't hanging around the rope ladder anymore (and the fool is too dumb to remove it) so he heads back up deck:
Then I went left the computer for about 10 minutes (check the game's clock) knowing that there wasn't anything else to do until someone said "land ho." Someone eventually did and after I had made myself a nice sandwich and ate it I came back to resume the game. A little magic will help Gwydion deal with the sailors, putting them to sleep seems like the best action
Ah, they look so innocent when they're asleep... Too bad we can't smother them. With land near and everyone asleep Gywdion dives in and heads east (you missed the crazy cook and the crow's nest pirate (you aren't missing anything)):
I could pretend that the shark is hard to avoid but I'd be lying. Once on land Gwydion notices that "lone palm" the rats mentioned and investigates further (by that I mean he takes five steps east and digs):
(I'm sure the chest fits comfortably in his pocket. Now let's go climb a mountain! With a chest of gold. With our bare hands)
Yup, Gwydion just scaled that sheer cliff face with nothing but his hands and a chest full of treasure. What do you mean you can't do that? You some kind of pussy?
Look at that he can also scale waterfalls with nothing but the piss and vinegar flowing through his veins! I'm shocked he just didn't stare Mannanan to death. Astute readers will notice I have a command typed in and am just waiting for the right time to use it. Why would Gwydion need to turn in to an eagle you ask?
The Abominable blob of grey pixels has something to do with it.
Mountineer Gwydion continues to scale mountains no one has ever been able to, all while loaded down with large, heavy, clumsy items.
I hope Roberta et al. weren't thinking that was going to be a difficult puzzle to solve? It might be the easiest task in this entire game to accomplish. Anyway, Gwydion has no accomplished what no one else has ever done! Climbed over a mountain! He isn't one to rest on his laurels though, let's get down on the ground and see what's happening!
Ouch. Notice the stairs behind us? If you don't please to return to my LP of the first King's Quest. I'll wait... . . . . Okay, I'm bored so I'm going to go on ahead, you catch up when you can:
Things are not looking well... If we want to be polite. Also, where did that wall come from? When was the geography of Daventry radically shifted? Who knows what madness lurks in Roberta Williams? (She and her husband write books about their vacations and use a vanity press?! Madness I tell you! Madness!) INFO DUMP:
tl;dr Shit got real; you're a prince; your sister is food; your parents are useless; Daventry is less than ideal. Don't believe me?
Guess, there is nothing to do but rescue our sister, Rosella. Gywdio... I mean Alexander heads back to those stairs and climbs them:
Yes, I know we just fell off the outside of the mountain we are currently climbing the interior of. Yes, I know there was no magical cloud land in the middle of it. What you don't understand is: MAGIC. MAGIC answers every question! Stop asking them. Alexander doesn't like the looks of what he can just barely make out in the screen up ahead. It's big, it's green and there is fire involved. He quickly slathers himself in lard. Now he is invisible! or barred one of those!
Alexander tries to talk to the princess but that doesn't seem like a good idea and the dragons are beyond listening to reason... The teleportation spell is useless (as it has been the entire game) only one spell left! Let's brew up a storm:
(what you aren't seeing: tiny bolts of lightning zapping the dragon's heads) Alexander takes a moment to admire his handy work and then rushes to his sister's side!
Alexander! Why would you tell her you're her brother? Now you'll never get that kiss! Man, you're going to be a virgin forever...
Rosella doesn't recommend going that way, she informs you her Dad cut that beanstalk down years ago in the hopes of attracting land developers... Instead it just brought a dragon... He's not the best business man. A crack adventurer though! Alexander leads his sister back to the castle:
Well, he seemed excited! This is it! This game is almost over!
I'm so glad they kept the entirely superfluous interior shots of Daventry Castle...
Why is Graham still jaundiced? (I know why: he's about to have a heart attack!)
WHAT?! Are you telling me that they haven't seen their son in 17 years and they're just going to send him away like that to go adventuring again?! Doesn't he have a lot of catching up to do? You know on etiquette, internal politics of the kingdom, foreign relations, powerful factions? Pretty much an endless list of things he's going to have to know to take over the kingdom when his father dies? For those of you who have already popped over in the KQIV thread you'll know what I'm talking about. KQIV takes place right where III left off... Also, I'm having a hard time understanding why Alexander is so sad in KQIV, a stranger had a heartattack, why would that effect you? Even if you knew it was your father, there isn't any relationship there. Anyway, that's King's Quest III. I feel it's the worst of the lot and with it behind us we can now move on to much more awesome things! Namely, King's Quest IV