How to make a Kings Quest type game?

I have mostly used to Visual Basic to make small educational games for my kids. But I've always wanted to make adventure games. I love the way Kings Quest was laid out. Anyway, I've been using Gamemaker to create some 'fun' games but still mostly educational. Someone commented that most of my games use a point and click method. It made me realize I need to add some variety to my porfolio so I'm trying to come up with different game styles. I just downloaded some tutorials for gamemaker and I made my first side-scrolling game - a space shooting game. I've also looked at making an overview map style - similar to Zelda. There's also race games and isometric games and another type which is not quite overhead but not isometric either. The tutorial calls this a parallel game. Anyway, I also discovered how to use Gamemaker to make a 1st person shooter game like Doom, but turning the person into a camera which basically applies textures to the floor, ceiling, and floor when you look at them. My daughter wants to make a game, which I'm building for her, but so far only this 3d style has come close to what she wants. However, she doesn't want to see the player carrying around a shotgun, she actually wants to see her character walking around. It sounds like she wants a kings quest type game. Is there someway I can make one in Gamemaker? The player would control a character walking around inside a house - from room to room. You see the character and everything in front of her. This is almost like my usual point and click games, except now you control a person walking around with the arrow keys. I'm thinking you'd have to have each room a separate Gamemaker room with its own background, but won't that make it exceptionally large and slow down game play and loading? Any suggestions would be great. Perhaps I need to get out of Gamemaker altogether and use a game engine. However I was hoping to stick with Gamemaker and keep it 2D. The 3D first person shooter is cool, but I'm still thinking we want more of a 2D game. The person should still be able to walk forwards and backwards as well as side to side, but the room wouldn't rotate to reveal all 4 walls - like it was in Kings Quest. Actually it might be like this parallel game only the person should be 'life' size not tiny like you are looking from far away. Any suggestions would be great!