King's Quest III: To Heir Is Human - Geography

Geography

Most of the game's various lands and locations appear in the magic map. Once Gwydion reaches a new region, he cannot use the magic map to travel to a previous region.

Llewdor, the region in which the bulk of the game takes place, has no hard boundaries. In the north and south directions, the game map loops: if Gwydion travels far enough in either of these directions, he will come back to where he began. To the east and west, however, the sea and desert (respectively) are endless, and attempting to travel more than a few screens will result in Gwydion's death.

The "wrap around" characteristic creates an unusual situation with the game's graphics. The magic map shows the topography of Llewdor. It shows Port Bruce and the Three Bears' house as being south of Manannan's house, which is supported by some of the in-game descriptions of each location; at the Three Bears' house, one can see the mountain with Manannan's house to the north. Yet from Manannan's mountain, one would see the both the village and Bear's house to the north of the mountain.

Once on board the Pirate Ship from Port Bruce's dock, Alexander travels across the Western Sea. This sequence in the game is marked only by a red line crossing the magic map, leading towards the north coast of the continent where Daventry is located. During this sequence, Alexander's movements are limited to the ship. If Alexander is caught by the pirates or jumps off the ship, he will drown out at sea. Later, when the ship docks, he can jump off and swim to the beach.

Once past the Western Sea, Alexander reaches the Great Mountains at the border of Daventry. Daventry itself is a small region, made up of only a few screens. Most are based on areas seen in the original King's Quest AGI version. This includes the broken well, a dried river bed, the crumbling castle, and the broken door into the mountain. These areas, while being based on landmarks of the original KQ1, are not located in the same places as they were in that game. Areas beyond these few screens are blocked off by piles of boulders, the Great Tear (a large chasm), stone walls and fences, or broken bridges. The old gnome from KQ1 has moved into a rickety old shack that rests over the dried river bed (where Graham picked up pebbles in KQ1).

The door into the mountain leads to a crumbling staircase (based on the staircase in the original KQ1) leading up to the Cloudland (based on the Land of the Clouds in KQ1). Cloudland is a bit smaller than it was in KQ1, only made up of three screens. The land is scorched, the trees are dead, and the area is full of steam. The three-headed dragon takes up the middle screen. Trying to open the magic map in this region will cause the map to disintegrate. Alexander must be invisible to travel very far in the region.