The Dirty Secrets of King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella

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Sierra's 1988 classic King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella was famously referred to as a computer game that could make people cry. It was meant to reference a poignant story in which Princess Rosella traveled far and wide to find a cure to save her dying father, but there's much more to this beloved adventure that might have made people cry for entirely different reasons – perhaps tears of laughter at some unintended goofs, or tears of rage at some (hopefully) unintended punishing design decisions.

Instead of rushing through the experience, speedrunner extraordinaire OneShortEye slow-walks viewers though the fine points of KQ4 in his latest insightful video. As only he can, OSE highlights in detail all the "dirty secrets" the game conceals (or used to, before now) that aren't quite as family friendly as its reputation suggests, whether from secret game mechanics, hidden developer messages or funny words that confuse the internal swear detection, dead ends, not-so-random RNG elements, and less than optimal endings, among others.

Of course, there's lots to love about The Perils of Rosella too, so to balance out the negativity, OneShort Eye invites fellow Adventure Game Hotspot Network members AdventureGameGeek, Paul Korman, Anna Vigue, and even a reluctant Space Quest Historian to chime in with their favorable impressions of the experience.

You thought you already knew King's Quest IV inside and out? Watch this fantastic deep dive and you'll surely come out with a much better and wholly different perspective.

OneShortEye is part of the Adventure Game Hotspot Network, a collective of talented, dedicated content producers who work entirely independently but have joined forces to promote each other’s efforts. All opinions expressed belong solely to the original creators.