The game seems to freeze (I can only access the menu on the right) during certain animations.
One is during the first conversation with the bookworm, when that second (grey) creature pops up. Another is when the snapdragons snap at you. And also after you read Cassima's letter from the nightingale.
I wish there was some way around this. I tried using text instead of speech, but it still happens.
I'm using DOSBox to play in Windows XP.

I've had no issues with it so far. It could be a setting issue in DosBox.

I'm getting the same problem. I remember when I played this game about 20 years ago, I had the issue with it getting stuck at the snapdragons, but never with the bookworm. Now I'm playing it again and it gets stuck with the bookworm, not the snapdragons. Very frustrating.

Anyone know a workaround for this?

Thanks.

I tried playing again right from the very beginning and basically only completed actions that I HAD to do, to get to the point where you learn the book keeper will trade the magic book for a rare book. Then I went to the bookworm and managed to get past the conversation and get the rare book. Then I went and did the part that makes the snapdragons move, and it didn't get stuck there either. Now I have just been thrown in the catacombs, but once again the game has got stuck here.

Any idea if changing anything in the DosBox config for the game will work? I tried messing around with a few settings but it still gets stuck.

Thanks.

Just wanted to say I'm having the same problem too.

This is the first time I've played King's Quest VI, and I just got to the snap dragons and find that the game gets stuck when I approach them. They start moving really fast (clearly the animation is running much quicker than it's supposed to), the cursor turns into the crown, and all I can do is click on the save/quit menu in the top right.

The game also seems to get stuck when I go back into the book shop on Crown Island. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. (By the way I am running it on Windows 7 64-bit)

Okay, I found a solution suggested on another site that works. Simply download ScummVM and run the game files with that (rather than DOSBox).

I can't see that there's anything wrong with doing that, and it fixed the problem for me. :)

I'll give it a go and let you know how I get on.

I recommend to always use Scumm instead of Dosbox for older adventure games - it works better in most cases. Check the game compatibility list on Scumm homepage for more info.

Just out of curiosity, does anyone have any other solutions to this problem? I only ask because I don't really want to start the game over on ScummVM. I've played through most of it at this point, occasionally getting the freezing problem but fixing it by reloading and trying events in a different order, but it's gotten to the end and it freezes on almost everything I try to do.

A late response but try lowering your Dosbox cycles, alot of the old SCI and AGI engined Sierra games were tied to the CPU and so higher CPU cycles often threw the games off. I personally run KQ6 at around 4000 cycles

In the last couple of days i had the same problems with the italian version of the game. So i've thinked a lot about the problem and analyzed it.
There's a way to fix them and it's to use scummvm but i don't like this program for many reason. Scummvm fix the problems because it's an emulator so they create workarounds and insert them in the scummvm source code, so basically they say to the emulator what to do to fix it when it's finding them inside the game. So they HAVEN'T FIXED THE GAME but the emulator.
The problem is not related to dosbox or to the cycles of cpu, it's a bunch of nasty bugs that i descovered Sierra generated creating the Talkie version of the game. So you'll have it even using a real 486 with dos.
The game originally was created on floppy disk without the talkie part, so when they added all the speech, they rewrote all the .scr script. Editing scripts of a Sierra game that originally doesn't have a speech part, to say to the game "here you must to initialize that sound and speech", means only: WE ARE INSERTING BUG IN THE GAME.
Yes, the bugs are inside .scr and .hep files.
For example in some circumstances when you bring back the dangling participle to the bookworm the game get stuck, because there is a bunny (pink) that come out and then a grey one saying some shitty lines, there the .scr try to initialize the audio and it can't do it. So they are all problems related to the failed initialization of sound effects and speech.
If you turn off the audio and turn on only subtitles, the situation it doesn't change at all, because the room and events are managed by the same .scr files of the talkie part and you have the same bug. In the example that i've bringed the bug is inside 460.scr and 460.hep.

The only way to be sure to avoid the bug is to buy gog edition and then use it with scummvm or that GOG take away the shitty programmed talkie version and replace it with the english floppy disk edition. Or that they add the floppy disk edition to the package.
It would be nice to rewrote the .scr and .hep affected, because after that you could use the talkie game with dosbox or with a real 486 without problem, but this is a nasty job, there is need of a programmer that edit .scr and .hep fixing them with some debugging program. New Rising Sun have done it with Quest for Glory 1 and 4.

edit:
for people interested: italian official version is a strange edition, it's created from the cd talkie english, but they have deleted the speech part, so basically it's like a floppy disk edition, but they have inserted all the talkie nasty bugs... so i was guessing: But what the f**k were they thinking?????? XD Why they haven't used the floppy disk edition to create the italian floppy one??????? XD