This demake of King's Quest 6 has been 18 years in the making

GamesAdventureThis demake of King’s Quest 6 has been 18 years in the makingWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

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(Image credit: Brandon Kouri)

Standing on a beach in the AGI demake of KQ6

There’s definitely a different vibe to each era of the adventure game. When I replay Quest for Glory: So You Want to Be a Hero I’m as likely to go back to the EGA original as the VGA remake—not just for the simpler graphics, but for the increased options a parser interface gives over more modern pointing and clicking. Trying to figure out the right phrase to type to perform an action makes you feel more present and engaged than clicking on everything you can see until something happens.

“Of course I did not work every day solid for 18 years on this,” Kouri says. “There were times where I would work feverishly for an extended period, and other times where it would lay dormant. Progress was slow and time-consuming. Often, I could not find motivation to work on it. I would become tired of the low-resolution graphics, and the typing interface. Trying to figure out all the things a player would type gave me fits. KQ6 is really not suited for the AGI system, so the strain on the memory was a major obstacle.”

(Image credit: Brandon Kouri)

Walking across the throne room in the AGI demake of KQ6

Whenever Kouri’s motivation flagged, he went back to his favorite AGI game, Mixed-Up Mother Goose, which does for nursery rhymes what King’s Quest 6 does for stories like the Arabian Nights, Alice in Wonderland, and Beauty and The Beast—mashing them up in a modern retelling. “I think [Roberta] Williams' voice shines clearly and beautifully throughout it. I just think it’s absolutely gorgeous, and a beautiful piece of AGI engineering.”

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At the time, his work was on “a disassembled computer in a closet 1,500 miles away from me.” But those ardent YouTube commenters inspired him to dig it out, and then continue his work during the pandemic. In 2024, 18 years after he began, he finally finished and released it as a free download onkq6agi.com. It quickly began doing the rounds on forums, YouTube, and Reddit. “I’m not connected to the gaming world or retrogamers,” Kouri says. “Within a couple days of releasing the game, I have seen people playing it on the Nintendo DSi, Game Boy Advance, old Tandy computers, and Hercules monochrome displays. I had absolutely no idea this community existed.”

(Image credit: Brandon Kouri)

Standing on the prow of a ship in the AGI demake of KQ6

The King’s Quest 6 demake is a glimpse into an alternate timeline where Roberta Williams and Jane Jensen made the highlight of the King’s Quest series with a quarter of the pixels, no voice acting, a soundtrack of bleeps, and a text parser. It’s a fascinating artifact, letting fans of the original see it again with new eyes.

“I guess a personal ‘pie in the sky’ dream of mine would be that the Williams' and Jane Jensen knew about this game,” Kouri says. “However, I would hope that they would appreciate it. I feel a little weird making something based on someone else’s intellectual property. I am reminded of a scene from Julie & Julia, where Julia Child is upset at Julie Powell for making all the recipes in her cookbook.”

So what would Kouri say if he could tell the creators of King’s Quest 6 about his love letter to their work? “I would say this: ‘Thank you for my childhood. Thank you for the emotions of joy and wonder that continue to stir my imagination to this day. I present this game to you as a gift. It is my gift to you.'”

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