Police Quest 1

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Game Title: Police Quest: In Pursuit of the Death Angel
Release Date: xx-xx-1987
Release Number: 1
Part of Series: Police Quest
Next Game in Series: Police Quest 2: The Vengeance
Designer: Jim Walls

Sonny Bonds is a small town policeman who must fight against the rising tide of drugs in his city. The game is based on real police procedure and adheres carefully to following the rules of police work. Beginning as a patrol officer and working into detectives, Sonny will chase down the infamous Death Angel and put an end to his criminal underworld. (From Mobygames description)

Alternate Releases:

Police Quest 1 History

Jim says:
My name is Jim Walls, designer of the first three Police Quest series. I would like to write a bit about how Ken Williams and I met, and how Police Quest was born.

The year was 1985 in Oakhurst CA, home of Sierra On-Line. I lived a few miles south of Oakhurst near a small foothill town by the name of Coarsegold. I was off duty from the California Highway Patrol on what is called 4800 time. When an officer is on 4800 time, he/she is taken off active duty for a period of time due to a particular condition. It can be caused by physical or psychological injury. Sometime the evaluation may be due to serious illness. Anyway, the department uses the 4800 time to evaluate those conditions and make a recommendation. My reason for being on 4800 time was due to conditions arising from a shootout I was involved in a year earlier in Jan. 1984.

During this time of evaluation, I didn’t have much to do outside of a bunch of honeydews, a little golf and handball. My wife was a beautician in those years and had her business in Oakhurst near Sierra On-Line. One day Ken Williams stopped by my wife’s shop for a haircut. Somehow, during their conversation, my name popped up. As the conversation continued, Ken told my wife he had been thinking of doing an adventure game series with a police theme and wanted a cop to be involved. Since Ken had a racquet ball court in his home, and learned that I liked playing handball, he invited me to his home for a few games.

After a few games of racquet ball, in which I was handed an old fashion country butt kicking, I learned that racquet ball was a way faster game than handball. Anyway, after Ken wore me out, we retired to his game room for a couple beers and conversation.

Mind you, I knew nothing about computers or computer games. However, after Ken thoroughly confused me by explaining everything to me, he asked if I thought I could write about my experiences and put it in story form. I told him that I would give it my best shot, and the rest is history.

Ken says:

Roberta Williams, who designed Sierra's first game, Mystery House in 1980, felt it was time to write another murder mystery which lived up to the computer capabilities of the late eighties. Mystery House, which was put on public domain in 1988, was the first computer game ever with graphics, but it lacked colors, animation and sound. The Colonel's Bequest was developed, using EGA graphics, Sierra's SCI engine, sound and a music score, as well as featuring a deeper plot and more detailed character descriptions.

The game has a sequel, The Dagger of Amon Ra, which is also the last Laura Bow game. Both games are also included in the 1997 King's Quest Collection and the Roberta Williams Anthology. Although the original release of The Colonel's Bequest can still relatively easily be found on online auctions, a complete original game is considered as a true collector's item, as it contains many goodies which are often missing from second-hand sales, particularly the Laura Bow pen and notebook. The games copyright protection is also quite original: the gamer needs to use a magnifying glass (included in the box) to identify a fingerprint on the game screen.

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