King’s Quest VII - Tales from the Crypt

Written by Michael

We will be avoiding this creature today.

Good morning!  The sun is rising on my country cottage as I prepare to enter the midnight black woods of Ooga Booga.  This is truly the Halloween chapter of this game, but sadly, I wasn’t able to time my gameplay to the real-world calendar.

When we last left Rosella, she was hopping in the bucket elevator from the troll kingdom, repaired by a magical rope.  Here, we get nearly to the top...

...when the non-magical chains break.

Fortunately, someone is nearby.

He really digs giving us a hand.

There’s a gravedigger who happens by the hole, and we grab his shovel and get out of the hole, just as it collapses in for good.  Hope we don’t need to go back to the land of the trolls.

The man who rescues us starts muttering under his breath about how difficult it is to shovel with his small shovel. Somehow, I expect we're going to be helping him replace that shovel, and even getting one for ourselves. We go to talk to him, and the first thing he does is whip out a long tape measure, and measure me. 

Yes, he's a grave digger. He's very one-minded. His conversation is merely about digging graves.  “I'm sorry, lady. I can't start digging your grave until tomorrow.”. We tell him that, while appreciated, he won't be needing to take a grave for us just yet. That's in part due to the fact that he just saved our life. He confirms that this is the land of Ooga Booga, and when we ask him about the shovel he's complaining about, he tells us that he has a grand machine for digging graves, but the local children have stolen away its power source. 

In this storage shed is an engineering marvel.

I talk to him until he gets annoyed at me, and then I start to look around. On the outside of his storage shed, you can view the close-up of the doors. There's three icons, a skull, a bat, and a spider. I'm thinking this is another recipe or instruction manual, like the ones we saw in the first chapter for desalinating water.

Good grief!

Exiting the screen to the east, I come across a young boy climbing what I later find out is a spider web to a giant treehouse shaped like a pumpkin.  This, from the looks of the boy, is meant to be a reference to what may be the most famous family-friendly animated  Halloween movie of all time. One only has to look at the boy's shirt, to know that they are referencing Charlie Brown. And, oh my, is that a great pumpkin perched upon that ledge. 

If I try to climb the spider web to the treehouse, the spider comes and eats me. So I won't be getting there that way. The boy doesn't offer much to me in the way of conversation, just taunts. He is, as we will find out soon, a very experienced rascal. 

Feed me, Seymour. Feed me!

I head off in another direction, and find behind the gate, a small little garden. It looks like there's some man-eating flowers there, but I can't even get that far, because if I try, a creature that looks like a cross between a bush and Snuffleupagus consumes me.  So, this is another screen I have no use for yet. 

We last saw Ben Franklin in Day of the Tentacle and Pepper's.

On another screen, I come across a haunted looking house. There's another young boy throwing eggs at it. The owner comes out, gives him a hard time, and really gets nowhere. The children in this town are seriously out of control. 

While Monkey Island 2 may have the best adventure game cemetery, the tombstone inscriptions in this game are quite entertaining. Very long though.

I leave the screen for the time being, although I will return in just a moment.  I head off down another screen, to a cemetery. I read some of the tombstones, but nothing interesting appears to be here. At times, when I visit the screen, if I stick around too long a bad creature will chase after me. If I'm able to escape the screen, I'm fine. 

He is both the town doctor and coroner, although I do not believe there are any living residents.

Back to the haunted looking house, I knock on the door and I'm greeted by the resident. He invites me in to talk. Not surprisingly, his name is Dr Mort Cadaver.  We ask him about where the troll King might be, because we're told he came to this land. While the doctor doesn't know, he tells us that, because Malicia has been handling things around here, things are going to help. The Boogeyman thinks he owns the place, and the children run amok. Well, we've definitely already seen what the children can do. Actually, we'll see even more. 

He tells us that, before last week, he could stand up to those kids. But, because he gave his spine away to a patient in need, he's become, well, spineless. Without a backbone, he can't stand up to people. 

Other than looking around his office, shelves filled with various potion ingredients, and a rather unfriendly rodent in a glass cage on the table, there's not much to see here. And no, that's not the rat that was stolen from the grave digger. And, the grave digger made it very clear that only his rat will do. 

Scared to death.

Traveling on to another screen, more tombs and graves. Not surprisingly. There's a lady in a black robe kneeling down in front of a tomb, mourning a loss.  If I try to talk to her, she turns to me, and opens her hood. I don't see exactly what happens, but it seems similar to Medusa in the desert. We die. 

I think I can afford this house on my budget.

Exploring some more, I come across the remains of a house that has been desecrated over time. However, on the wall is that same pattern of three icons again. Very clearly, this is going to be important at some point in this chapter. If I stick around the screen too long or walk in the wrong spots, a midnight black dog comes literally out of the shadows, but I can avoid it if I'm careful. Also, if I approach from the east, I am often greeted by the Boogeyman, either I have to retreat very quickly, or I get captured.

I've got a bone to pick with you.

Some more exploration, and I come across a pile of bones. This is right next to a vividly purple tree. If I approach the bones, the pile awakens, revealing it to be some kind of creature, and it devours me. So, again, another thing I can't solve yet. 

There are a lot of apparent puzzles to solve so far, and no immediate solutions are showing to me. I'm going to start walking around the place again, and see if something comes to me. 

This is not the Treehouse of Horrors most '90s children think of first.

When I approach the treehouse again, there's no child outside, but I notice another bucket elevator hanging from a rope from the treehouse. I hop in, and I'm taken to the tree house. 

Inside, I find a lot of ghoulish things. There's some creepy heads on a shelf.  There's also a Jack in The Box that I can interact with and will scare me to death. There's a mummy that looks like it might be of an elephant. The window in the back, if I click on that I climb out it and escape, perhaps I'll need to do that at some point in a hurry. 

But, in the small coffin, is a foot wrapped up in a burlap sack. Well, it's not nailed down, although I expect it probably has five nails on it. I'll pick it up.  Also, on the floor just before the coffin, is a bundle that ends up being a backbone, with a few extra pieces that fall to the ground. I'll grab that also. That, I know exactly what I'm going to do with it. 

His ailment is musical.

I return back to the doctor's house, where I come across him treating a creature with a broken heart. A little bit of glue, and the staple gun. And the good doctor nurses him back to health. He sits back down at his desk, going back to filling out death certificates where I give him the bundle of bones. He very happily deepthroats them, and standing up straight, he looks like a whole new man. 

He's very grateful for what I've done, so he offers me a present as a reward. There's a box on the lower shelf of his bookcase. Inside it is something he loosely categorizes as a pet. 

Not the first game I've played for this blog where a rat is being used for a sports game.

I head over to the tree house again, where I find the two boys on the ledge, tossing the rat back and forth while singing a song.  Well, not really a song, more of a schoolyard rhyme talking about how if the s-shaped branch of a tree is facing up, running hide, but if it's down the Boogeyman is away. This will actually be very useful to us at some point later. 

But for now, I want to get that rat back for the grave digger. They don't want to give up this very fun ped of theirs, but, I offer them a nicer one in trade. They lower the elevator down, telling me to place the pet in the elevator. Then, one of them changes her mind, and says you should bring it up yourself. 

Long story short, if you go up into the tree house when the boys are present, you'll end up getting killed. 

Back to before making the bad mistake, I placed the mystery pet in a box in the elevator, and it goes up into the treehouse. The boys happily go inside and check it out, only to find it's a ferocious creature.  This is where I learned the boy's names, although I won't be needing them for this game. One of them is named Cadaverous, the other one Homicidal. 

That's not actually a bad thing, but it does scare the living daylights out of the rat, who soon after comes jumping out of the pumpkin into my arms. He's so glad to be free of the murderous little boys, he even gives me a big giant smooch. 

Can you dig this?

My next move is obvious. I head back to the grave digger and reunite him with his rat. He is overjoyed. He pulls his digging machine out of the storage shed, the power source hops back in, and they start digging a grave. 

In exchange for their reunion, we are given a horn. If we blow this horn, he will come and dig a grave for us. 

I'm not entirely sure where we're going to use that yet, so for now, I go back to exploring. In front of the treehouse, the boys are back at it. I find them on the ground level, standing around a small rectangular box. Listening to them, it seems they're having a funeral for a dearly departed cat. 

Except, from the sounds of the box, the cat is nowhere near departed. 

I suffered no bad luck at all for this black cat crossing my path.

The ceremony comes to a stop, when they realize they don't have a shovel to proceed with the burial. They run away to find one, leaving me alone with the coffin. Hearing the cat inside, I'm drawn to rescue it. I use my hammer and chisel to open the lid, and the feline emerges.

The cat is extremely grateful for the rescue. She tells me that she overheard my conversation with the doctor, and that the king of the trolls is being held captive in the lair of the Boogeyman, underneath the deadfall. I'll later figure out this is that pile of bones. 

In addition to the information, she gives me a reward. Since I saved one of her nine lives, she gives that life to me. She rubs up against me, purring, and by doing so transfers me the extra life. 

Here?  Are you sure?

Over at that pile of bones, I'm drawn to the branch on the tree that is shaped like the letter S. It is pointing down, which according to the boy's song, means the boogie Man is away. I blow the horn, summoning the grave digger. He's confused by our request to have a grave dug here, but he proceeds to go at it.  He starts digging below the tree, and in doing so crushes the skeleton creature into oblivion. 

There's now a path for us down. 

Must be Pandora's Box.

Down below, we find a large coffin secured with chains wrapped all around it, and a combination lock at the front. 

I had thought that series of symbols was a recipe or directions of sorts, but I try it here as the combination. It does indeed work. 

Those are daring colors in the Boogeyman's closet.

Inside the closet we find King Otar. The REAL King Otar. He's a little bit more gruff than the wishy-washy, friendly impostor we met down below, but he's not necessarily bad. We exchange a couple of pleasantries, and then are interrupted by the evil witch. She proceeds to relock the casket around us. In the dark, we are stranded. 

The King manages to light a light, and it's up to me to make the next step. I decide that it's a great time for him to be reunited with his childhood pet. Remember, I've been carrying around a dormant dragon toad.

Otar is ecstatic upon being presented with his old friend. He says there's a jewel on his bracelet that can revive him from his slumber. He tries to get it loose, but doesn't have any luck. 

Good thing I'm carrying around a hammer and chisel from a jeweler, right? I'm impressed with how many times we're needing to use this so far in this game. I used the hammer and chisel to knock loose the jewel, the king revives his dragon toad, and the toe digs us a hole out of the coffin, to apparent safety.

We dug down and ended up... here?

Well, we dig our way to safety, which means the cemetery.  As soon as we are free, King Otar sends his toad to warn Matilda what is happening. He then hands us a magical staff, and has us aim it at him. Using it, he is transformed into a small scarab.  He then advises me to find a disguise for myself as well.  His magic makes a cloak appear, hanging off of a nearby tomb. I grab it, and put it on so I am not recognizable. I then pick up the king, and carry him along with me in my pocket. 

My, what a big back you have there.

Not knowing what to do next, I visit my only friend in this world, Dr Mort.  He's happy to see me, but warns me that I am being hunted, so I best leave as soon as possible.  Since our way back to the land of the trolls has been blocked off by the collapse hole, he advises that we go through the main gate of town. That's that garden area that I couldn't get through before, because of the tree creature that eats me. 

He hunts around on his shelf to find something to help us get past the swamp creature, and hands us a defoliant. It will strip the leaves off of any plant we spray it on. And, it also smells awful. 

On my way to the gate, I pass through the cemetery. Conveniently, the grave digger left his old shovel there. I grab it. Then, I pass by the clubhouse.  I have some fun and decide to visit the horrible youth. They see me, and think that I am that woman that killed me by the grave earlier. So they run off in terror. I feel better now. 

Speaking of running off, I’m about to do the same.  While I’ve managed to fit each chapter into one post so far, this post is a little longer than usual, so I’ll continue next time.

Session Time: 1 hour 45 minutes

Total Time: 6 hours