Page "King's Quest III: To Heir Is Human" Paragraph 29

However, to complete King's Quest III, the player needs to create a number of magic spells through alchemical formulas that are only available in the game's manual.

Many considered the process slightly overdone ; 140 of the 210 possible points in the game are obtained through simply doing what the manual says, leaving less room for real puzzles.

Starting with King's Quest IV, later Sierra games would instead open with a dialog requesting that the player enter word X from page Y of the manual.