Holiday Update 2023

Greetings once again, fellow King’s Quest fans!
 
I’m sorry to report that our project was not completed by the end of this year after all, BUT…  I am happy to report that there has still been some significant progress since last year.  Most importantly, we’ve finally managed to get over the biggest hurdle in our way, and finish all of the character models that were missing from the game – thanks to the help of some highly talented artists, willing to assist us in helping honor Karen’s memory, by finishing the project she started.  We were also able to get some much-needed edits done on Valanice and Lolotte. 
 
Other assets for the game’s introduction and ending have been completed as well.  These include environmental animations for the introduction, animations for the witches in the skull cave, and some of Genesta and Rosella’s interactions on the beach – during both the intro and ending.  The introduction is also nearly completed, with just a few animations needing to be done. 
 
In addition to that, we were able to get lots of GUI completed for the game and inserted into it – all except for the death screen; which will be a bit reminiscent of the commentaries that Robin Hood or Sonny Bonds would face, when screwing up in their respective games.  Aside from that, all other GUIs are done.
 
One last thing I’ll tell you about, while trying not to spoil, is that some of the game’s scenes will be enhanced, such as a certain one in which Rosella does something she’s not supposed to.  Some of those enhanced scenes will also include interactive conversations, in which Rosella may need to heed the words of Johnny Rivers and be careful what she says, to avoid giving herself away, or else she may not live to see tomorrow.
 
That said, we do intend to take a break as usual, this holiday season.  But we expect work to resume in approximately early February.  I’m not going to promise that the game will be completed in 2024, but that is looking pretty likely so far.  Until then, we hope you’ll continue to bear with us and have a fabulous holiday as well.

Year Summary by Jack Stryker

Wrapping up 2021

Lots of progress at 2021

2021 was a year of progress to our game, our graphics department produced new models of Edgar, the ogress, Rosella in her royal gown, and a new better-looking mountain path leading to Lolotte’s castle.

Our Animators have produced animations for one of the bad endings, backgrounds for the introduction and ending, and new icons with animations.  We also have some new models for characters and inventory items that were previously missing from the game, and a new title screen!

Animations and models were quickly implemented into our script by our very talented scripters.

I want to use this opportunity to thank one of our very very talented model artist  which will be unable to continue with us moving forward due to some health issues 🙁
May god send him good health with long and happy years.

Please don’t be a stranger and pop into our forums to say hello, many people visit our site, but most don’t bother to write in our forums which look abandoned, although development of the game most assuredly isn’t!

And if you are an artist, well, it seems that a spot is free for an aspiring artist to try her/his hand by contributing to this project, just say hello in the forums and state you know your art and our forum admins will be happy to talk to you.

Merry Year Everyone

Changed the Site Look

As part of the site and forum upgrades, the look of the site had to change.

The previous look (theme) of the site was custom made by one of our fans back in 2012 and although beautiful, it was limited and doesn’t fit the site needs anymore.

One of the parts where the old look was lacking was that it wasn’t responsive which means that it didn’t present the site well to mobile devices, many of our fans use mobile devices thus the site look had to change to accommodate all of the users which want to see our project.

I will put here a part of the theme which was previously used just for good old times sake.

Bye, beautiful dedicated site theme

Holiday update 2019

Greetings again, King’s Quest fans.

Jack Stryker here to wish you all a happy holiday and to reassure you all once again, that we have not given up on the King’s Quest IV 3D remake project.

Firstly, as you may have noticed already, our forum administrator has made some much-needed updates and fixes to the forum.

In addition to that though, our composer has continued to wow us with his incredible music and sound effects that are sure to make you stare at your bare feet and wonder where your socks went.  These include a certain tune that fans of a certain other Sierra series; who listen carefully, are bound to be amused by.

Regrettably, our artist is once again going to be unavoidably detained for the month of December, but he has done some amazing animations as usual, including some of the ways that Rosella can meet an untimely demise.  Of course, the pictures that would accompany the messages that follow these demises are VERY low on our priorities list, since we’re doing our darndest to get the animations done first.  Also, some of said animations that have been made still need to be implemented in our current game build, but we do have the entirety of Tamir traverseable (Although Rosella does have to perform certain puzzles, in order to reach certain destinations) and we believe it won’t be long until Rosella will be able to complete her secondary objective.

One last point I want to bring up, is that we are aware of how… unpleasant Rosella’s talking portrait has appeared in the demo we released.  Knowing this to be the case, we would like to assure you all that while our animations are priority #1, our characters’ talking portraits will be improved upon as soon as possible.  (We initially decided to hold off on this until the polishing phase of the game, but it looks like we may have some help with it pretty soon.) 

Here is a link to how she currently looks:  https://i.imgur.com/JIgBXoE.jpg

With that, I hope you all have the most wonderful of holidays, and I assure you that we will continue to work on this 3D remake and hopefully have it released before too much more time has passed.

This update was first written on our forums by our project manager – Jack Styker

Which graphical style of kq4 would you like to see ?

The question in the title (About the graphical style of the remake) was polled on the site for quite some time now.

It seems most users prefer having a remake done in two dimensions rather than a 3d remake, while 10% of the voters prefer not having any remake, just having the good old agi/sci version.

The majority prefers a nice 2d remake which means the same quest as the original just with more colors and resolution, I totally dig that, it will be beautiful to see kq4 more vibrantly, I also hope someone will pick up the wand, and create a nice 2d remake.

Actually, two groups did, Magic Mirror (which stopped dev on it and the project got killed), and also Westend Studios, which might still work on it (I hope), although no other details can be found about that project, still, there is their beautiful video they published in youtube

But we took the 3d path which is our personal calling.

I am closing the poll, as it did its job, thank you all for participating.

Site Maintenance

UnicornTales site is currently undergoing major maintenance.

This post will probably be interesting for technology geeks more than regular fans.

Our site is based on the wordpress platform which powers about 30% of all sites in the wide world web.

Our wordpress version is outdated which opens us to many security attacks, we also use many plugins, most of which are outdated.

Every plugin might open us to an attack, especially if it is not the most updated version.

So, in order to update the site, I will first take a backup of the current state (So if something fails, we would be able to easily revert to the last working state), I will then continue to update the wordpress version, then I will remove plugins which are not necessary as I take the approach of minimalism as “Less is more”, then I will update the plugins which we do need.

Lastly I will install a good security plugin for the site as well as harden the server’s security.
Finally, I will update the site’s communication security to use ssl/https so your browser won’t scream that this site is not secure.

After this site is updated to my full satisfaction, I will be able to look into updating our forum platform, but that is a post for an other day.

Fixed the Image Galleries

Hi,

 

Now that flash is officially being dis-supported by all major web browsers, it is high time we changed our image galleries.

 

This site began with the idea to be a platform for those image galleries – they were the reason for creating this site, I browsed the adventure game studio forums and found Karen’s art, I was so flabbergasted that I PMed Karen and asked her where I can find her image galleries, when she told me she had none, I volunteered to build a site for the image galleries as such art shouldn’t be abandoned.

 

Since then we decided to create the whole King’s Quest IV remake and the rest is history.

 

Anyway, for some time now the image galleries didn’t work well, so I invite you all to have a second look at them.

 

Karen’s Image Galleries

 

I am attaching one of the last images she posted on the forums before she died

Karens last image

Never gonna give up

Today, I want to present you with fan art for our project.

 

Our greatest fans are our team members, they put hours and hours of their lives into this project – so all of us could re-live Rosella going over perils to cure her father the king!

 

So, our project manager has worked on some of his own art work and has submitted it to us all.

 

No need to explain it, the beautiful art speaks for itself!

Here it is:

Never Gonna Give You Up
Never Gonna Give You Up

2016 March progress update

Hi,

 

We were silent for too long, but it doesn’t mean that progress wasn’t done in the meantime.

This project is a free project progressed by the good will of our talented contributors, from our project manager who keeps tabs on everything reminding us constantly that work is to be done, to our artists drawing beautiful backgrounds, sprites, animations to our fans who spread the word and find us fresh talents when needed.

 

We didn’t post updates these last months but rest assured, new graphics were drawn and our musician just told us that he managed to do some progress with the music score (which you will love).

 

All of the guys and gals mentioned above are squeezing the work between job, family and other stuff so I want to say in the name of the team and fans (as I am a simple fan myself) – thank you!

 

You are invited to visit our forum to talk about the latest and greatest:

Progress in the project thread

Let’s Welcome our New Member!

Good news everyone,

 

After some internal team members talk we decided (Everyone!) to add a new member to our Team.

 

We are welcoming Isaac from the land of Kolyma!

Isaac is a regular user of our site and has offered his help so many times.

Isaac isn’t an animator, a graphic designer or a musician so as he saw we are in search of an animator and suchm he just took the initiative and contacted many people in order to find the right talent for the team.

 

Isaac, your help to the team is greatly valued – Welcome.

welcome photo

Perils of Rosella Remake