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	Making something new out of something old (or reinventing the genre you created).

The past few years have been ones of thinking and consideration for Roberta -- she had to figure out how to make the graphic adventure genre glorious and profitable once again. During the long drawn-out period between her last King's Quest game and her latest one, three things happened to the game industry to make the King's Quest style obsolete.

First of all, Myst happened. It was a huge hit and is worthy of a moniker as one of the best games ever. Even so, it took most of the fun of the average adventure game and made it as workable and fun as it is to shove a large blunt object (let's say a broom) up your own ass. Now most of us probably haven't done that, so maybe it was a bad example. (If you have, I gotta ask: was it hard to get out?) What I mean is that it was a very clumsy way to make an adventure game, and since it was a big hit, a million other wannabe hits came out as well, saturating the industry with crap.

Secondly, 3dfx happened. Sure, everyone takes it for granted now, but five years ago, there was no 3dfx, and therefore no spectacular 3D graphics. Hell, we didn't even have Direct 3D or even the ViRGE back then! Five years ago, when the last King's Quest was released, it was on the top of its game and was designed the way many adventure games were back then: with a 256-color VGA graphics mode at 300x200. Now there are a huge number of 3D cards saturating the atmosphere of the gaming industry. Any game that doesn't want to be a joke (with the exception of real-time strategy games) must have 3D graphics in them.

Finally, the game itself just doesn't fit the times. While walking around places, finding things out, solving problems, and using text boxes worked five years ago, there's no way you're going to get away with it now. You have games like Quake and Tomb Raider making this once safe playground we call the computer game industry a battlefield. As much as many of us like that idea, it leaves the adventure genre holding its wounds, waiting for the day when it's returned to glory once again.