King’s Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella

Last updated: January 9, 2026

Overview

King’s Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella marked a watershed moment in gaming history when it launched in September 1988. As the first PC game to support sound cards and one of the first major adventure games to feature a female protagonist, it represented both a technical and cultural milestone for the industry.¹² The game introduced Sierra’s new SCI engine, which doubled the screen resolution from 160x200 to 320x200 pixels while also supporting mouse input, representing a dramatic leap from the AGI engine used in the previous King’s Quest titles.³⁴

Game Info

Developer: Sierra On-Line¹ Designer: Roberta Williams¹ Publisher: Sierra On-Line¹ Engine: SCI0 (also released in AGI)³ Platforms: MS-DOS, Amiga, Atari ST, Apple II, Apple IIGS⁴ Release Year: 1988¹ Series: King’s Quest Protagonist: Princess Rosella Sierra Lineage: Core Sierra

The game showcased William Goldstein’s groundbreaking musical score, featuring over 75 original compositions played through the Roland MT-32 synthesizer or AdLib sound card, prompting Sierra’s marketing to ask: “Can a Computer Game Make a Person Cry? King’s Quest IV did on June 4, 1988.”⁵⁶

Story Summary

The story begins directly where King’s Quest III concluded, with King Graham’s triumphant family reunited in Castle Daventry. As Graham prepares to pass his adventurer’s cap to his children Alexander and Rosella, he suddenly collapses from a heart attack, leaving him on the brink of death.¹⁷

The good fairy Genesta appears through Daventry’s magic mirror, revealing that a magical fruit tree in the distant land of Tamir bears fruit once every hundred years that can cure any ailment. Genesta offers to transport Rosella to Tamir, but reveals her own crisis: the evil fairy Lolotte has stolen Genesta’s life-giving talisman, and without it, her powers are fading.⁷⁸

Rosella accepts both quests. Disguised as a peasant girl, she must navigate the land of Tamir, complete three impossible tasks for Lolotte to gain access to the magical fruit, recover Genesta’s talisman, and return home before her father dies, all within a single day.⁸⁹ The narrative incorporates approximately thirty fairy tale characters including the seven dwarfs, ogres, unicorns, Pan, Cupid, and the three witches from Greek mythology, woven into a cohesive fantasy world.¹⁰¹¹

Gameplay

Interface and Controls

King’s Quest IV was the last entry in the series to utilize a text parser for player interaction, requiring players to type commands such as “look,” “take,” and “talk to” rather than point-and-click selections.¹² The SCI version introduced mouse support for character movement, though commands still required keyboard input. The game supported over ninety verbs including specialized actions like “bridle,” “tickle,” and “polish.”¹³

Unlike the AGI version where typing did not pause the game, the SCI version pauses action during text entry, providing a more forgiving experience during time-sensitive sequences.¹⁴ Players navigate Princess Rosella through Tamir’s environments, interacting with characters and objects to solve puzzles and advance the story.

Structure and Progression

The game uniquely operates on a real-time clock, with a complete day-night cycle spanning approximately six hours of real-world play time. This 24-hour in-game period was more intuitive than King’s Quest III’s magic clock system, with certain puzzles available only during daytime and others exclusively at night.¹⁵¹⁶ Night transforms Tamir dramatically, with a haunted mansion becoming accessible and zombies emerging from a cemetery.⁹

The world design follows a geographic pattern where safety generally lies to the west (beaches and meadows) while danger increases to the east (forests and mountains). Lolotte’s fortress crowns the eastern mountains, providing the climactic location.¹⁷

The game features approximately 95 rooms, with roughly 30 featuring distinct night versions, effectively creating one of the largest adventure games of its era.⁵¹⁸ Players can complete the main quests in different orders, with Lolotte demanding three items in sequence: a unicorn, the magic hen that lays golden eggs, and Pandora’s Box.⁸

Puzzles and Mechanics

Puzzles draw heavily from fairy tale knowledge, with solutions often requiring familiarity with classic stories. Kissing a crown-wearing frog, cleaning the seven dwarfs’ cottage, and navigating past ogres from Jack and the Beanstalk all reference well-known tales.¹¹¹⁹

The game includes several notoriously difficult sequences. The whale tongue puzzle, where Rosella must escape from inside a whale by climbing its tongue and tickling its uvula with a feather, became so infamous that Al Lowe referenced it in Leisure Suit Larry III.¹⁷²⁰ An invisible bridle hidden on a desert island remains imperceptible except for a brief glint mentioned only in the SCI version, leaving players permanently stuck if they leave the island without it.¹⁹²⁰

A maximum score of 158 points rewards thorough exploration and optimal puzzle solutions. The game features multiple endings, including a tragic alternate ending where Rosella returns to Daventry without the magical fruit, watching her father die before her eyes.²¹²²

Reception

Contemporary Reviews

King’s Quest IV received critical acclaim upon release, with Computer & Video Games awarding it 91% across all platforms, praising the graphics (95%) and playability (90%), and declaring it “surely the most advanced animated adventure yet from Sierra” and “its finest game to date.”⁹ QuestBusters confirmed the game “went gold” with 100,000 copies sold in its first two weeks, a remarkable achievement for 1988.²³

The Amiga version earned strong reviews averaging 82% across seven publications, including Datormagazin’s 9/10 and CU Amiga’s 85%.²⁴ The Software Publishers Association recognized King’s Quest IV with its Best Adventure Game award for 1988.²⁵⁷

Computer Gaming World’s Scorpia offered a more tempered assessment, describing the game as “exasperating, irritating, tedious, boring” due to its dead ends and obscure puzzles, though acknowledging it was “a matter of personal taste.”⁶

Modern Assessment

Modern retrospectives recognize King’s Quest IV’s historical significance while acknowledging its design flaws. Adventure Gamers rates it 3.5/5, noting it as “groundbreaking for many reasons” including the SCI engine, female protagonist, and sound card support, calling it “a must-play if you like the other King’s Quest games.”¹

MobyGames records a Moby Score of 7.7 with a 77% critic average from 25 reviews, with user reviews describing it as “an instant classic” and “the apex of EGA graphics.”⁴ Only Solitaire’s 2021 retrospective calls it “almost impossible to imagine a better adventure game… to have been produced in 1988,” representing “Roberta Williams at the height of her powers” alongside The Colonel’s Bequest.¹⁷

HowLongToBeat data from 31 players shows an average completion time of approximately four hours.²¹ Critics consistently praise the day-night cycle, atmospheric music, and fairy tale integration while criticizing instant deaths, obscure puzzles, and dead-end scenarios typical of the era.¹⁹²⁰

Development

Origins

Roberta Williams conceived King’s Quest IV specifically to feature a female protagonist, believing that “men and boys would accept a female heroine and think it was okay. Then, possibly the women and girls would notice it and become attracted to it.”²⁶ Corporate concerns at Sierra questioned whether a female lead was viable, but testing revealed male players cared more about story and puzzles than protagonist gender.¹²

Before release, word leaked that King Graham might die in the game, prompting fans to write letters pleading with Roberta Williams to save him.¹²²⁵ Williams herself grew attached to Rosella, describing the character as “a part of me that’s coming out” who is “sometimes delicate, but she’s strong, knows what she wants, she’s not afraid to do what she has to do.”²⁶

The decision to animate female movement differently became an unexpected creative challenge. “Girls die differently. The way she falls has to be different from the way a guy falls,” Williams explained. She also noted that “having the woman die bothered me more than I expected.”⁵²⁵

Production

Development required over eleven man-years from a team exceeding thirteen programmers, developers, and artists.⁵ Sierra invested over $3millioninunderlyingtechnologyandanadditional$500,000 in improvements specifically for King’s Quest IV.⁵ The resulting 5.5 megabytes of program code made it the “largest computer game in history” at release.⁵⁴

A critical development crisis emerged in late August 1988, just one month before the scheduled release tied to Sierra’s October IPO. Al Lowe discovered the project in serious trouble: “Two programmers were lost. They had no clue. A lot of code was buggy.”⁶ Lowe took charge of an all-hands emergency effort where the team “went to the mattresses,” moving into the Sierra building with food and doing laundry on-site.⁶ By month’s end they had a functional game, albeit “a little buggy.”⁶

The game uniquely shipped in both AGI and SCI versions simultaneously, a hedge against potential SCI problems. Sierra offered a disk exchange program where customers unable to run the SCI version could mail their disks to receive the AGI version.³²⁷ The AGI version was quickly discontinued when sales demonstrated the market had adequate hardware, making it a collector’s item.¹⁴⁸

Technical Achievements

The SCI engine represented a fundamental leap in Sierra’s technology. Resolution doubled from 160x200 to 320x200 pixels, enabling greater facial detail and body language in character animations.⁵³ The engine used an object-oriented language similar to LISP, written in Assembler, C, and itself.¹⁸

Animation requirements were substantial, with Princess Rosella requiring over 1,000 individual drawings to animate all her activities.¹⁸ The game contained more than 140 rooms across day and night variations, with tens of thousands of lines of scripting instructions.¹⁸

Sound card support transformed PC gaming audio. Ken Williams secured a partnership with Roland after meeting a representative at a trade show, enabling support for the MT-32 synthesizer’s 32 simultaneous voices.⁵²⁵ Emmy-nominated composer William Goldstein, known for the Fame television series, created over 75 pieces of original music totaling forty minutes, each of the 35 characters receiving their own theme.⁵¹⁸²⁸ Support for the more affordable AdLib card ($245versustheMT-32^{\prime }s$550+) made high-quality game audio accessible to mainstream consumers.⁵⁶

Version History

King’s Quest IV was uniquely released in both AGI and SCI versions simultaneously—the only Sierra game to do so.³²⁷

SCI Versions:

Version	Date	Interpreter	Notes
1.000.106	September 19, 1988	0.000.247	First release, high-detail day/night graphics3
1.000.111	September 23, 1988	0.000.274	Gold Box release, Great Master Adventurer Contest flier3
1.003.006	1989	0.000.395	Reduced detail backgrounds, night sky overlays329
1.006.004	August 7, 1989	0.000.409	Final version: faster diagonal walking, improved music3

AGI Versions:

Version	Date	Interpreter	Notes
2.0	July 27, 1988	3.002.086	Easter egg edition: “beam me,” “rap kq,” “pirate”1427
2.2	September 27, 1988	3.002.086	Easter eggs removed27
2.3	September 27, 1988	3.002.086	Easter eggs removed27
1.0K	November 22, 1988	3.002.086	Apple IIGS, no easter eggs, improved sound27

Copy Protection: Manual-based word lookup required at startup. The SCI version included “BOBALU” as a backdoor to bypass copy protection in early releases, later removed.²⁹ Sierra offered a disk exchange program for customers whose systems couldn’t run the SCI version.²⁷

Platform Releases:

• MS-DOS SCI: September 1988³
• MS-DOS AGI: September 1988²⁷
• Apple II: October 1989¹⁶
• Apple IIGS: February 1989¹⁶
• Amiga: 1990²⁴
• Atari ST: 1990⁴

Version Differences: Only SCI version 1.006.004 has been officially re-released in compilations and digital storefronts. The original high-detail SCI versions (with separate day/night artwork) and all AGI versions remain officially unavailable.²⁹

Development Credits

Core Team:⁴¹³

• Written, Directed, Designed by: Roberta Williams
• Executive Producer: Ken Williams
• SCI Programming: Chane Fullmer, Ken Koch
• AGI Programming: John Hamilton, Chris Hoyt, Teresa Baker
• Animation: Carolly Hauksdottir, Gerald Moore
• Background Scenes: William D. Skirvin
• Music: William Goldstein
• Music Development System: Stuart Goldstein
• Cavalry Coding: Al Lowe, Robert Eric Heitman, Chris Hoyt, David Slayback
• Documentation: Jerry Albright
• Quality Assurance: “A cast of thousands!”

Legacy

Commercial Impact

King’s Quest IV achieved remarkable commercial success, selling 100,000 copies in its first two weeks.⁶²³ In a 2023 interview, Roberta Williams revealed the game “sold twice as much as the prior three” King’s Quest games combined.³⁰ From KQ4 onward, the series consistently sold 300,000-400,000 copies per game in the United States alone, according to PC Data.³¹ GameSpot named King’s Quest IV one of the “15 Most Influential Games of All Time,” noting it “marked a dramatic increase in the series’ commercial success.”³¹

This success helped propel Sierra’s October 6, 1988 initial public offering, where 1.4 million shares were issued at $9pershare;thestockapproached$20 within a year.⁵⁶

Industry Influence

The game’s sound card support established the AdLib and Roland MT-32 as industry standards for PC game audio throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s.²⁹ Sierra’s demographics revealed that fully one quarter of their players were women or girls, with King’s Quest specifically reaching 40 percent female players, directly contradicting industry assumptions that women were “not a viable market.”⁶

Ron Gilbert, designer of Maniac Mansion and numerous LucasArts adventures, cited King’s Quest as influential: “What dawned on me when I saw King’s Quest was how simple it was… The backgrounds were very, very simple,” noting how this clarity let core gameplay shine through.³¹

Roberta Williams later reflected: “Of all the King’s Quests, I think that one is the strongest in my mind, partly because it has a female protagonist… I really think King’s Quest IV with Rosella really did open up everybody’s eyes like ‘Girls like to play computer games too.‘”³⁰

Remakes

No Official Remake: King’s Quest IV remains the only original King’s Quest game without an official point-and-click remake. AGDI (AGD Interactive) began but abandoned a VGA remake project.²²

King’s Quest IV Retold by DrSlash, released May 5, 2021, is the most accessible fan remake. Built with Adventure Game Studio, it converts the game to a point-and-click interface while preserving the original 320x200 EGA graphics—a deliberate choice to avoid the “blurry” VGA conversions common in other remakes³²³³. The remake combines Roland MT-32 music, Apple IIGS sound effects, and Amiga environmental sounds, while optionally removing dead ends and the 4-hour time limit³³. The frustrating troll caves received new backgrounds replacing the original pitch-black screens³³. A November 2025 “VGA + Talkie” patch added voice acting, though reception was mixed due to inconsistent art assets³².

Unicorn Tales is an ambitious 3D remake in development since 2012, continuing in memory of original developer Karen. As of December 2025, all introduction assets are complete with a potential teaser release anticipated.³⁴

A King’s Quest IV novel was approved by Roberta Williams but cancelled by publisher Berkeley Boulevard due to poor game novelization sales at the time.³⁵

The King’s Quest Companion

The King’s Quest Companion by Peter Spear, an official authorized walkthrough endorsed by Roberta Williams, features Chapter 8 devoted to King’s Quest IV³⁶. Unlike traditional hint books, the novelization presents Rosella’s adventure as told by Queen Valanice herself, recounting her daughter’s involvement in Tamir³⁶³⁶. Chapter 7, “Grave Matters” (reprinted from the fictional Telltale Traveler magazine), provides additional Tamir history including the origins of Whateley Manor and poetry from Tamir’s gravestones³⁶.

The book became an important part of King’s Quest canon—facts from the Companion appeared as questions in the King’s Questions trivia game, and historian character Derek Karlavaegen later became integral to King’s Quest VI’s backstory³⁶. Roberta Williams endorsed the work, calling it “a wonderful blend of fact and fiction that brings my games to life in an exciting new way”³⁶.

Easter Eggs and Unused Content

Easter Eggs:¹⁴⁸

• “beam me” (AGI only, removed v2.2+) - After defeating Lolotte, typing this in the corridor teleports Rosella to a Star Trek-inspired spaceship where the KQ4 programming staff appears, including Vu Nguyen, Chris Hoyt, John Hamilton, Teresa Baker, and Roberta Williams⁸
• “rap kq” (AGI only) - In the prison cell, Rosella breakdances and raps about the game’s development, referring to Roberta Williams as “the Bert”⁸
• “pirate” (AGI only) - At copy protection, debug mode (Alt+D) + “pirate” displays a jolly pirate picture while “Drunken Sailor” plays⁸
• Whale Bottle Messages - Reading the bottle note multiple times in the whale’s mouth reveals references to ten Sierra games: Leisure Suit Larry, King’s Quest I-III, Space Quest I-II, Police Quest, The Black Cauldron, and Mixed-Up Mother Goose⁸
• Profanity Response - Swear words yield different responses: SCI suggests buying Leisure Suit Larry; AGI responds “You were raised better than that!”⁸³⁷
• Dennis Jonathan - Typing “dennis jonathan” functions as “wear crown”—a hidden synonym honoring Sierra customer service team member²⁹³⁸

Trivia:

• Box Art Discrepancy: The back of the game box shows the witches outside the skull cave—a scene that never occurs in the actual game³⁹
• Zombie Population: The graveyard contains more zombies than graves, with one “intelligent” zombie that waits for Rosella near the house and disappears when she has the scarab³⁹
• Edgar’s True Form: When Genesta transforms Edgar, she says “You should look like what you are”—implying his handsome appearance may not be his original form before Lolotte’s curse³⁹
• Time Limit Bug: If time runs out, the game says evil will rule Tamir even if Lolotte is defeated, Pandora’s Box returned, and the unicorn freed³⁹

Unused Content (The Cutting Room Floor):³⁸

• Unused Scarab Sprite: A beetle sprite exists only in the 1988 release, among the last views in the game files
• Test Animations: Yellow ball smiley face test animations remain in game data
• Frog Prince Walking: Walking sprites for the frog prince were created but never used—he simply zips offscreen after transformation
• Genesta Island Night: Seven nighttime backgrounds exist for Genesta’s island but are impossible to see since the island is only reachable during daytime
• Unseen Mummy Death: If a player somehow enters the mummy tomb without the scarab (impossible in normal gameplay), unique death text appears: “How did you get here without the scarab? You will be the next victim of the mummy!!”
• BOBALU Backdoor: Early SCI versions allowed “BOBALU” to bypass copy protection, later removed²⁹

KQ4 References in Other Sierra Games:⁸

• King’s Quest VI - Pawnshop items include “golden bridle finder,” “tongue climbing gear,” “uvula tickler,” and “shovel for 100+ grave diggings”
• Quest for Glory I - Erasmus’s hall contains a sarcophagus with Rosella depicted as a hieroglyph and a peacock from Genesta’s island
• Laura Bow 2 - The preservation lab’s Vat 10 contains the KQ4 unicorn
• Leisure Suit Larry II - Rosella appears as a hairdresser at the airport barber shop
• Leisure Suit Larry III - A Sierra studio scene shows Roberta Williams filming the whale tongue sequence; typing “tickle finial” triggers “You’ve been playing King’s Quest IV too long!”

Collections

King’s Quest IV has been included in numerous compilation releases:⁴⁸

• King’s Quest Collector’s Edition (1994)
• The Roberta Williams Anthology (1996)
• King’s Quest Collection Series (1997)
• King’s Quest Collection (2006)
• King’s Quest 4+5+6 (GOG, 2010)

Rosella would return in King’s Quest VII: The Princeless Bride, and her rescuer Edgar appeared transformed in that game. The Ken and Roberta Williams Collection was donated to The Strong National Museum of Play in 2011, including original design documents in Roberta Williams’s own hand for the King’s Quest series.²

Downloads

Purchase / Digital Stores

• GOG - King’s Quest 4+5+6 (ScummVM, DRM-free)⁴⁰
• Steam - King’s Quest Collection (7-game collection)⁴¹

Download / Preservation

• Internet Archive - DOS SCI Version⁴²
• ScummVM Wiki - King’s Quest IV (Compatibility info)⁴³

Manuals & Extras

• Internet Archive - Original Manual¹³
• Xeen Music - MT-32 Soundtrack (Official licensed archival recording)²⁸
• Sierra Gamers - Hint Book (Scans and resources)²⁵
• Sierra Help Pages (Patches and technical support)⁴⁴

Series Continuity

King’s Quest IV directly continues from King’s Quest III, opening with an extended reprise of that game’s closing scene showing Graham, Valanice, Alexander, and Rosella reunited in Castle Daventry.¹⁴

The game establishes Rosella’s character and romantic interest Edgar, both of whom return prominently in King’s Quest VII. King Graham would recover to star again in King’s Quest V.

Previous: King’s Quest III: To Heir Is Human (1986) Next: King’s Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder (1990)

References

Footnotes

1. Adventure Gamers - King’s Quest IV – - Review score (3.5/5), groundbreaking firsts, editorial verdict ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

2. Strong Museum of Play - The Perils of Rosella and the Genius of Roberta – - First female protagonist claim, Williams collection donation ↩ ↩²

3. SCI Wiki - King’s Quest IV – - Version history, interpreter numbers, graphics differences between releases ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰

4. MobyGames - King’s Quest IV – - Moby Score 7.7, credits, platform releases, trivia ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

5. Sierra Newsletter Winter 1988 – - IPO details, 5.5MB size, 11 man-years development, music details, female protagonist design ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹

6. Digital Antiquarian - Sierra Gets Creative – - Al Lowe crisis quote, CES preview, 100K sales, IPO, sound card history ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹

7. [Sierra Fandom - KQ4 SCI](https://sierra.fandom.com/wiki/King%27s_Quest_IV:_The_Perils_of_Rosella_(SCI) – ) - Story details, credits, continuity notes ↩ ↩² ↩³

8. Sierra Chest - King’s Quest IV – - Story summary, technical significance, collections list ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹²

9. Computer & Video Games #91 – - Keith Campbell review, gameplay descriptions, animation examples ↩ ↩² ↩³

10. Sierra Help - Easter Eggs – - ~30 fairy tale characters, cross-game references ↩

11. Hardcore Gaming 101 - King’s Quest IV – - Story elements, marketing quotes, infamous puzzles ↩ ↩²

12. IGN - Revisiting King’s Quest IV – - Corporate concern about female protagonist, fan letters about Graham death ↩ ↩² ↩³

13. Internet Archive - King’s Quest IV Manual – - Full credits, supported verbs, gameplay instructions ↩ ↩² ↩³

14. [King’s Quest Omnipedia - KQ4 AGI DOS](https://kingsquest.fandom.com/wiki/King%27s_Quest_IV:_The_Perils_of_Rosella_(AGI_DOS) – ) - AGI version differences, easter eggs, developer room credits ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

15. StrategyWiki - King’s Quest IV – - Real-time gameplay, 24-hour span, alternate ending ↩

16. [Sierra Fandom - KQ4 AGI](https://sierra.fandom.com/wiki/King%27s_Quest_IV:_The_Perils_of_Rosella_(AGI) – ) - Time mechanic (8 AM to 8 AM over 6 hours), AGI differences ↩ ↩² ↩³

17. Only Solitaire - King’s Quest IV Review – - World design analysis, whale tongue legacy, Roberta Williams at peak ↩ ↩² ↩³

18. Official Book of King’s Quest - Making of KQ4 – - 140+ rooms, 1000+ animation drawings, 75+ music pieces, SCI engine details ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

19. Choicest Games - King’s Quest IV Review – - Modern retrospective (5/10), specific puzzle frustrations ↩ ↩² ↩³

20. DOS Days - King’s Quest IV SCI – - Technical reference, version differences, disk exchange program ↩ ↩² ↩³

21. HowLongToBeat - King’s Quest IV – - Completion times, release date (Aug 16, 1988), user stats ↩ ↩²

22. VGU - A History of King’s Quest – - First bad ending in series, sound card innovation ↩ ↩²

23. QuestBusters Vol. VI #4 – - Gold status (100,000 copies) in first two weeks ↩ ↩²

24. Lemon Amiga - King’s Quest IV – - Amiga reviews averaging 82%, WHDLoad info ↩ ↩²

25. Sierra Gamers - King’s Quest 4 – - Roberta Williams Anthology quotes, SPA award, exact release date ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

26. CGW December 1988 Interview – - Roberta Williams on female protagonist strategy, Rosella characterization ↩ ↩²

27. [AGI Wiki - King’s Quest IV AGI](https://agiwiki.sierrahelp.com/index.php/King%27s_Quest_IV:_The_Perils_of_Rosella_(AGI) – ) - Version dates, disk exchange program ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

28. Xeen Music - KQ4 Soundtrack – - Official licensed MT-32 recording, 96 tracks ↩ ↩²

29. TV Tropes - King’s Quest IV Trivia – - Only version 1.006.004 officially re-released, sound card impact ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

30. Time Extension - Roberta and Ken Williams Interview – - KQ4 sold 2x prior three games, internal opposition to female protagonist, Roberta’s personal connection ↩ ↩²

31. GameSpot - 15 Most Influential Games – - 300K-400K copies per game (PC Data), Ron Gilbert quote on KQ influence ↩ ↩² ↩³

32. AGS - King’s Quest IV Retold VGA + Talkie – - November 2025 release, mixed reception ↩ ↩²

33. King’s Quest Omnipedia - King’s Quest IV Retold EGA – - DrSlash release May 5 2021, EGA preservation, combined audio sources, troll caves improvements, optional dead-end removal ↩ ↩² ↩³

34. Unicorn Tales Development – - 3D remake in development, December 2025 status ↩

35. [King’s Quest Omnipedia - King’s Quest 4 Novel](https://kingsquest.fandom.com/wiki/King%27s_Quest_4_(novel) – ) - Cancelled novel approved by Roberta, cancelled by publisher Berkeley Boulevard ↩

36. King’s Quest Omnipedia - The King’s Quest Companion – - Official novelization, Chapter 8 KQ4 from Valanice perspective, Roberta Williams endorsement ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

37. VGFacts - King’s Quest IV Trivia – - “beam me” and “rap kq” easter egg details ↩

38. The Cutting Room Floor - King’s Quest IV – - Unused scarab sprite, test animations, Genesta night screens, unseen mummy death, BOBALU backdoor, Dennis Jonathan synonym ↩ ↩²

39. Sierra Planet - King’s Quest 4 Curiosities – - Box art discrepancy, zombie count, Edgar transformation ambiguity, time limit bug ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

40. GOG - King’s Quest 4+5+6 – - Digital availability, ScummVM, DRM-free ↩

41. Steam - King’s Quest Collection – - 7-game collection availability ↩

42. Internet Archive - DOS SCI Version – - Preservation download ↩

43. ScummVM Wiki - King’s Quest IV – - Compatibility since ScummVM 0.10.0 (AGI) and 1.2.0 (SCI) ↩

44. Sierra Help Pages - King’s Quest IV – - Patches and technical support ↩