Stupid Adventure Game Puzzles – King’s Quest IV

Okay, so here are some more of the stupidest adventure game puzzles of all time, this time from the King’s Quest series.

At the very,very beginning of King’s Quest IV, you stumble across this house in the woods:

When you go inside you find that the place seems to be the home of seven bachelors, and boy are they slobs. Aha, you think, I recognize this, and so you set to work cleaning up the joint. Soon the occupants return, grab some grub, and thank you for cleaning up after them. When they’re gone, you notice that they’ve left a present for you on the kitchen table — a bag of diamonds! Great, you think, I know a poor fisherman and his wife who could really use these. So then you give the diamonds to the fisherman and he rewards you with a fishing pole. Great, you’re really on your way now.

Except you’ve just LOST THE GAME. Yeah, that’s right, you lost the game and you don’t even know it, and you’ll play for hours and hours and hours until you’re almost at the very, very end, and then you’ll get to a dark cave and have no way to get through, and then you’ll play for hours and hours more, completely frustrated, trying to figure out just what the hell you’re supposed to do now.

Turns out what you have to do is start the game over from the very beginning. See, you know earlier when it seemed like those dwarves were giving you a bag of diamonds? Actually what happened is that they just accidentally left a bag of diamonds sitting around on the table during lunch (WTF?) and what you’re supposed to do is try to return it to them, in which case they say, “Nah, keep ’em,” and also give you a lantern that you can’t beat the game without. Oh my god, what SADISTIC FREAK designed this game?

Okay, I was actually planning to list two more, but now I’m so angry just from thinking about that one that I need a break. Back in a bit.