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III. Here Be Dragons: the (Pre)History of the Adventure Game

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III. Here Be Dragons: the (pre)history of the adventure game

The past is like a broken mirror, as you piece it together you cut yourself.
Your image keeps shifting and you change with it.

MAX PAYNE 2: THE FALL OF MAX PAYNE

At the end of the Middle Ages, Europe’s thousand year sleep – or perhaps thousand year germination – between antiquity and the Renaissance, wondrous things were happening. High culture, long dormant, began to stir again. The spirit of adventure grew once more in the human breast. Great cathedrals rose, the spirit captured in stone, embodiments of the human quest for understanding. But there were other cathedrals, cathedrals of the mind, that also embodied that quest for the unknown. They were maps, like the fantastic, and often fanciful, Mappa Mundi – the map of everything, of the known world, whose edges both beckoned us towards the unknown, and cautioned us with their marginalia – “Here be dragons.” (Bradbury & Seymour, 1997, p. 1357)1

At the start of the twenty-first century, the exploration of our own planet has been more or less completed2. When we want to experience the thrill, enchantment and dangers of past voyages of discovery we now have to rely on books, films and theme parks. Or we play a game on our computer, preferably an adventure game, as the experience these games create is very close to what the original adventurers must have felt. In games of this genre, especially the older type adventure games, the gamer also enters an unknown labyrinthine space which she has to map step by step, unaware of the dragons that might be lurking in its dark recesses. The main difference to the original Mappa Mundi is that this adventure world has been created in the mind of a modern griot, a master storyteller who pilots the gamer through this immersive world where reality gradually disappears with every step she takes. The similarity between exploring the virtual space of a computer game and exploring physical space on voyages of discovery is discussed by Fuller and

1 Although the phrase ‘Here be Dragons’ is often used to denote dangerous and unexplored territories, as far as is known only the Lenox Globe (ca. 1503-07) uses the Latin phrase Hic Svnt Dracones on the eastern coast of Asia (Livingston, 2002). There is no surviving Mappa Mundi that carries the text; the authors therefore make a common mistake. The more common Latin phrase used on maps was Hic Svnt Leones (also used by Guglielmo da Bakersville in Umberto Eco’s Il Nome della Rosa). In PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL Barbarossa says to Jack “You’re off the edge of the map, mate. Here there be monsters!” (1:48:17). It is unknown when the English version was introduced and popularized. The phrase is also used in computer games, for instance, in GRAND THEFT AUTO: CHINATOWN WARS (2009); when the gamer takes a boat ride to any corner of the map the message 'Here be Dragons' appears.

2

An earlier Dutch version of this chapter was published in a special Games issue of the Tijdschrift voor Mediageschiedenis (TMG) (2004, pp. 77-99). This chapter is based on the revised English edition (Veugen, 2006), which in essence was very close to the original. The text in this chapter has been expanded to better fit in with the rest of the dissertation.

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Jenkins, who found that both 16th and 17th century travel accounts and certain types of computer games deal similarly with exploration, colonization, and charting:

What we want to get at is not these alluring narratives of Princess Toadstool, Pocahontas, and Virginia Dare (or of Mario, Luigi, and John Smith) but another shared concern in our material that seems to underlie these more memorable fictions in a constitutive way. Both terms of our title [Nintendo® and New World Travel Writing: A Dialogue] evoke explorations and colonizations of space: the physical space navigated, mapped, and mastered by European voyagers and travelers in the 16th and 17th centuries and the fictional, digitally projected space traversed, mapped, and mastered by players of Nintendo® video games. Simply put, we want to argue that the movement in space that the rescue plot seems to motivate is itself the point, the topic, and the goal and that this shift in emphasis from narrativity to geography produces features that make Nintendo® and New World narratives in some ways strikingly similar to each other and different from many other kinds of texts. (Fuller & Jenkins, 1994, p. 57)

I will discuss the spatial aspects of adventure games and other games of progression more fully in Chapter IV. The necessity of physically charting the virtual explorations of early adventure games will become clear below.
In game literature the adventure game is often overlooked, and for a number of reasons. Firstly, this type of game originated on mainframe computers and hence did not find its way into the living room until the arrival of the home computer (like the Apple II)3 in the early eighties. Secondly, as the original adventure games were text based they were not suitable for gaming Arcades4. Thirdly, in the West adventure games, for a long time, were only played on home computers, unlike Japan, where console based adventure games, such as THE LEGEND OF ZELDA (1986) and FINAL FANTASY (1987), were hugely popular5. Finally, in the heated debate between the narratologists and the ludologists (see Introduction) adventure games were not seen as ‘real’ computer games by some game researchers like Jesper Juul (2001)6.

3

In the Netherlands computers like the famous Commodore64, the Atari ST, the BBC microcomputer, the Amiga and the ZX Spectrum were referred to as home computers (as in the United States and Great Britain). The term microcomputer was used for both home computers as well as personal computers. The first commercial adventure game that found its way to the Arcade was DRAGON’S LAIR by Cinematronic in

4

1983. This was after the success of adventure games on the home computer. Strictly speaking THE LEGEND OF ZELDA games are action adventure games and the FINAL FANTASY games are

5

single player role-playing games. But as we will see later on, these types both derive from the adventure game. On the subject of time in games he uses interactive narratives (adventure games) to illustrate their

6

fundamental difference with ‘normal’ computer games: “In an ‘interactive story’ game where the user watches video clips and occasionally makes choices story time, narrative time, and reading/viewing time will move apart, but when the user can act, they must necessarily implode […] This means that you cannot have interactivity and narration at the same time” [Italics in the original] (Juul, 2001). Later, for instance in his book Half-Real (2005), he does count adventure games as games; in fact, he sees them as the genre that is the most clear-cut example of a game of progression, as we saw in the previous chapter.

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In this chapter, I would like to shed more light on the origins of the games of progression: the adventure game. I will dwell at length on the two cultural phenomena that preceded them i.e. the stories by J.R.R. Tolkien and the role-playing game DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS. I will limit myself to the history of adventure games that were produced for home and personal computers7. I will end this chapter with a discussion of the fascination with the Middle Ages that is often found in adventure games and their modern day successors, the highly popular (massively multiplayer online) role-playing games like

NEVERWINTER NIGHTS, EVERQUEST and WORLD OF WARCRAFT8.

The wherefore and the why of adventure games Although there is a clear difference between the early adventure games that were textonly, both in input as well as in output, and the more modern graphic adventure games, both have a strong story element. Being able to participate in a compelling story is one of the key attractions of the traditional adventure game, as observed in this entry in Wikipedia:

Un jeu d’aventure, du point de vue du joueur, est une oeuvre de fiction interactive, soit bien plus qu’un jeu vidéo. Cette phrase donne l’essence de tout ce qu’il y a à dire sur les aventures. Tout d’abord, une fiction. Comme un film, un roman ou une bande dessinée, une aventure raconte une histoire. Interactive, car contrairement à un film, un roman ou une bande dessinée où l’on reste prisonnier de la linéarité de l’intrigue, on interagit dans un jeu d’aventures avec l’environnement. Du fait de son caractère narratif, le jeu d’aventure se rapproche de ce qui fait la substance même des œuvres d’art.9

Another is being able to move freely through the diegetic world of the game, in search of clues, objects, and information that help the gamer to advance both in the world and in the story10. Another requirement is a sense of agency; the gamer must have the idea that her actions influence/change the story. Summing up, the key aspects of a good adventure game are a gripping non-linear story, which makes it hard to turn away from the computer, because you want to know what happens next; a diegetic world that compels the gamer to explore it in search of anything that can help to eventually gain closure; and

7 Console based adventure games are already well covered, see, for instance, Steven Kent (2001) and DeMaria
& Wilson (2002 & 2004).

8

Real Time Strategy games (RTS) which became popular at the end of the nineteen-nineties also often use mediaeval (fantasy) settings. In the course of the chapter, it will become clear that this fascination originates from the same sources as those of the adventure game.
9 Definition ‘Jeu d’aventure’ Wikipedia; http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeu_d%27aventure (2004).

10

Of course, the diegetic world of the game is not limitless. However, good writing and design can make the boundaries of the game world part of the story. See Chapter IV, where I explain how boundaries are

imposed in the 2D game GABRIEL KNIGHT SINDS OF THE FATHERS (1993) and the 3D game GABRIEL KNIGHT BLOOD OF THE SACRED, BLOOD OF THE DAMMED (1999).

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the gamer must get the feeling that it is her own actions and choices that got her there, which gives her a sense of achievement. That is what the aficionados of the genre, the true adventure gamers, expect. And that is what makes certain adventure games stand out, even though they are games of progression where the designer controls the sequence of events. Admittedly the gamer has to go through a predefined set of actions in order to complete the game (and gain story closure), but in the truly great adventure games the order in which she completes the set is logically interwoven with the story. Furthermore, such games give the gamer enough room to manoeuvre so that it does not feel that choices are forced (because the story has to stay in sequence). Only then does the real world blur away and the game world takes over:

From my arrival at the Robner mansion, I am a character whose actions affect the world I enter. I arrest a suspect only to find that the grand jury isn't convinced by my evidence. I follow a suspect too obviously, and he just retires to his room. My questions can lead to a second murder - and my carelessness to my own. But there is a unique solution. And to find it, I must often start the case over, re-experience it from different perspectives. The average complete investigation lasts 20 hours; I have spent many more exploring the program's intricate universe. (Rothstein, 1983)

Apart from the traditional adventure games, there are also Role-Playing Games
(RPG’s), adventures in which the gamer is part of a group that has to bring the adventure to a satisfactory conclusion. In offline role-playing games the gamer is either the leader of the group (e.g. Robin Hood), or she first chooses from a set of playable characters (e.g. Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli). In online adventure and role-playing games such as Multi User Dungeons (MUD’s)11 and Massively Multiplayer Role-Playing Games (MMRPG’s) the gamer usually creates her own avatar. In these games, there are also missions to complete and problems to solve, but the main emphasis is on character development and on keeping the illusion of the fantasy world in tact, not on an overall narrative12.
With the arrival of Lara Croft in the game TOMB RAIDER (1996) a new subclass of the adventure game became extremely popular: the action adventure game, as we saw in the previous chapter13. In this subclass, agility of the avatar (and dexterity of the gamer) is a key ingredient; the gamer cannot end the game without this ability. A variation on the

11

This is the original term. When a new type of multi-user game developed, the multi user community, the term was changed into Multi-User Domain. For games the original term is still preferred.
12 As we saw in the previous chapter, for Juul these are games of emergence because they are rule-based.

13

TOMB RAIDER became the epitome of the action adventure game but was not the first action adventure to emerge. The subclass was first introduced on the game console with the LEGEND OF ZELDA series by Shigeru Miyamoto (first instalment 1986) and on the home computer with the game PRINCE OF PERSIA (1989).

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action adventure game is the stealth game, first used in THIEF: THE DARK PROJECT (1998) but epitomized on the personal computer by TOM CLANCY’S SPLINTER CELL (2002).

Although many of these modern games seem far removed from the first adventure games, the key elements of the game type can still be distinguished. These elements originated outside the world of the computer game in the fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien and the role-playing game DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS14.

Image III.1 THE LORD OF THE RINGS, THE RETURN OF

THE KING (Electronic Arts, 2003)

Tolkien and the origin of the fantasy genre Tolkien’s influence on popular culture cannot be overestimated. It can be witnessed in every popular medium: (comic) books, television, films, musicals, and computer games. Or as one of the best known fantasy writers of the twentieth century, Terry Pratchett, put it: “Tolkien influenced everyone that came after. He set his stamp on the [fantasy] genre so heavily that there is an echo of it even now” (2001). Because of this influence, most people assume that Tolkien was the first person to write fantasy and that he thus invented the genre. This is not so. In the Victorian era, under the influence of industrialization, economic expansion and colonization, which turned Great Britain into an empire, we see a renewed interest of the British in their past, especially in the Middle Ages. This can be seen in the revival of the Gothic style, especially in the buildings funded by the new industrial capitalists. It can also been seen in the works of the then innovative Pre-

14

Due to the blockbuster film adaptations by Peter Jackson, Tolkien’s work has again become very popular. Consequently, new game adaptations both of The Lord of the Rings (1954-55) and The Hobbit (1937) have been released. (Most of these games base on the films, but some also base on the original books, see Chapter VI). We should probably say that this is yet another resurgence of the Tolkien hype, as every new generation seems to have rediscovered and reinterpreted his works in a new cultural context, and sometimes even in a new medium. Still, it is also somewhat ironic that the work that was one of the major influences on the origins of the game genre has found its way back to the genre after so many years. However, it should be noted that some of the earliest adventure games were also adaptations of Tolkien’s books, though usually very free adaptations.

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Raphaelite Brotherhood. Now that Science seemed to have undermined the old religious ideals, the Pre-Raphaelites were looking for new values. And they found them, amongst others, in British myths and legends, especially in Arthurian legend (Hacking, 1999).
One member of the Pre-Raphaelite movement was the multi-talented William Morris.
Outside England Morris is mostly known as a graphic artist and (textile) designer and as the founder of the Arts and Crafts movement. However, William Morris is also the real creator of the fantasy genre. Like the other Pre-Raphaelites, Morris was interested in the literature, myths and legends of the Middle Ages. But Morris took this interest one step further. Together with Eirikr Magnusson he translated Old Norse poems, of which the Volsunga Saga proved to be especially influential on his own literary works. Morris was Tolkien’s direct precursor in that both recognized that Old Norse and other Older Germanic literary works were the real cultural heritage of Western Europe (Morris, Introduction, 1870). The Volsunga Saga became the source for Morris’s own poem The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs (1877) and his novel A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and all the Kindreds of the Mark (1890). These more historical writings were the overture for the fantasy stories Morris would later write, like The Wood beyond the World (1894) and The Well at World’s End (1896).
Tolkien’s premises, however, were different. Like Morris, Tolkien was disappointed that England lacked her own homogenous cultural heritage. Even as a child he was taken by Germanic myths and legends like the story of Sigurd15. Morris’s translation of the Volsunga Saga and Tale of the House of the Wolfings were also amongst Tolkien’s favourite works (Carpenter, 1977, p. 99). Tolkien had hoped that Morris’s translations of the Old North poems and sagas would replace the Greek and Roman mythology that had eradicated England’s literary heritage after the Norman invasion. He was therefore quite disappointed when this did not happen, remarking: “How far off and remote sound now the words of William Morris! The Tale of Troy has been falling into oblivion since that time with surprising rapidity. But the Völsungs have not taken its place” (Tolkien, 2009, p. 13). Unlike Morris, who only wanted to reintroduce the old Northern European stories into the cultural awareness of the English public, Tolkien thus wanted more: he wanted to reinstate them into England’s cultural heritage:

15 Tolkien’s mother used to read him bedtime stories, one of which was ‘The Story of Sigurd’, which featured in The Red Fairy Book by Andrew Lang. Humphrey Carpenter, Tolkien’s biographer writes: “It was the best story that he had ever read.” (Carpenter, 1977, p. 39). And Tolkien himself noted “I had very little desire to look for buried treasure … Red Indians were better … But the land of Merlin and Arthur was better than these, and best of all the nameless North of Sigurd of the Völsungs, and the prince of all dragons” (Tolkien, 1983, pp. 134-135).

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I had in mind to make a body of more or less connected legend, ranging from the large and cosmogonic, to the level of romantic fairy story […] which I could dedicate simply: to England; to my country.16

As a philologist Tolkien not only knew mediaeval works of literature intimately, he also studied Germanic language history17. Using this background he hypothesized that given that every Germanic language has a linguistically related word for dwarf18 they would not only share a common Indo-European base19, but would also have the same basic concept of what a dwarf is20. He furthermore hypothesized that, as it is possible to determine the original Indo-European form of a word, it must also be possible to determine the original ‘Indo-European’ story from modern day myths, legends, sagas, fairy-tales and folk tales (Shippey, 2000, p. xv). Strictly speaking, therefore, Tolkien’s stories are not original (see Chapter VI for further details). In The Silmarilion (published posthumously in 1977) and The Lord of the Rings, however, Tolkien’s mastery weaves these original elements into stories of epic grandeur that have a mythical presence of their own. Or as his biographer Humphrey Carpenter (2001) put it:

He [Tolkien] said that he wanted to create a mythology for England. I don’t think he did exactly that, but I think that he rediscovered kinds of narrative with the power of the saga and the adventure story which had been lost from twentieth century English fiction.

Tolkien’s influence on popular culture also extends to the newest medium of the twentieth century: the computer game. Here his works proved to be indispensable, as game-designer Ian Livingstone (2001) noted:

Then suddenly comes Tolkien. You got this world of condense gloom and danger and doom, all this disgusting creatures that he created out of his imagination. […] he made us see a much darker, stronger, richly imagined world of fantasy, which had never been done before.

Especially the authors and designers of the first generation of adventure and role-playing games are indebted to Tolkien. One of these is Richard Garriott, designer of the legendary ULTIMA series (first game 1981)21:

16 Excerpt from a letter Tolkien wrote to Milton Waltman late in 1951 (Carpenter, 2000, p. 144). 17 His first job was working as an etymologist for the Oxford English Dictionary. 18 Cf. German zwerg; Dutch dwerg; Norwegian dverg; Swedish dvärg; Danish dværg.

19

The Anlo Saxon (Old English) word is dweorg and the Old Norse dvergr. The Indo-European word is dhwergwhos.

20

Which obviously is not the meaning the word has today, Gimli is Tolkien’s interpretation of the IndoEuropean concept.

21

The first ULTIMA game was published in 1981 by California Pacific Computer. Nine single player games followed. The first online version aptly entitled ULTIMA ONLINE was published in 1997. In 2002, Electronic Arts released the final instalment of the series ULTIMA ONLINE: LORD BLACKTHORN’S REVENGE.

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“Three important events happened in 1974,” says Richard Garriott. “First, my sister-in-law gave me a copy of Lord of the Rings. Second, I discovered DUNGEONS & DRAGONS. And third, I became acquainted with my first computer. In combination, these three events began a love affair with the computer that has continued to this day.” (DeMaria & Wilson, 2002, p. 118)

But Tolkien’s contribution to the computer game did not end here. His inspiration not only gave rise to a new imaginative game world, complete with exciting new characters, it also brought us — be it at first limited — games with stories22.

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    Write Your Way Into Animation and Games Write Your Way Into Animation and Games Create a Writing Career in Animation and Games Christy Marx AMSTERDAM • BOSTON • HEIDELBERG • LONDON NEW YORK • OXFORD • PARIS • SAN DIEGO SAN FRANCISCO • SINGAPORE • SYDNEY • TOKYO Focal Press is an imprint of Elsevier Focal Press is an imprint of Elsevier 30 Corporate Drive, Suite 400, Burlington, MA 01803, USA Linacre House, Jordan Hill, Oxford OX2 8DP, UK © 2010 Elsevier, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, elec- tronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Details on how to seek permission, fur- ther information about the Publisher’s permissions policies and our arrangements with organiza- tions such as the Copyright Clearance Center and the Copyright Licensing Agency, can be found at our website: www.elsevier.com/permissions. This book and the individual contributions contained in it are protected under copyright by the Publisher (other than as may be noted herein). Notices Knowledge and best practice in this field are constantly changing. As new research and experience broaden our understanding, changes in research methods, professional practices, or medical treat- ment may become necessary. Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and knowledge in evaluat- ing and using any information, methods, compounds, or experiments described herein. In using such information or methods they should be mindful of their own safety and the safety of others, including parties for whom they have a professional responsibility.
  • A Chronicle of Map Interfaces in Games

    A Chronicle of Map Interfaces in Games

    Maps, Navigation and Transportation: Find a way DIS ’20, July 6–10, 2020, Eindhoven, Netherlands Paper to Pixels: A Chronicle of Map Interfaces in Games Z O. Toups,1,3 Nicolas LaLone,4 Katta Spiel,5 Bill Hamilton2,3 1Play & Interactive Experiences for Learning Lab / 2Participatory Live Experiences Laboratory 3Computer Science Department, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM, USA 4Bridge Lab, Department of Information Systems and Quantitative Analysis, College of Information Science and Technology, University of Nebraska at Omaha, Omaha, NE, USA 5e-Media Research Lab, KU Leuven, BE & Centre for Teacher Education, University of Vienna, AT [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] ABSTRACT More than physical navigation, maps navigate the complex Game map interfaces provide an alternative perspective on and dynamic world of human culture. Maps on news media the worlds players inhabit. Compared to navigation applica- show political and socio-economic divides. Maps can show us tions popular in day-to-day life, game maps have different where people like ice cream over frozen yogurt or can be used affordances to match players’ situated goals. To contextualize by sports commentators showing us where specific athletes and understand these differences and how they developed, we have placed a ball or puck over time. present a historical chronicle of game map interfaces. Starting Despite that ubiquity, maps in and of themselves are generally from how games came to involve maps, we trace how maps static, a relic of the paper to which they owe their creation. are first separate from the game, becoming more and more There is so much more that maps can provide users given the integrated into play until converging in smartphone-style inter- growing ubiquity of computation and the increasing digital faces.
  • 19. CD-ROM Games

    19. CD-ROM Games

    Forthcoming in WOLF, Mark J.P. (ed.). Video Game History: From Bouncing Blocks to a Global Industry, Greenwood Press, Westport, Conn. 19. CD-ROM Games Carl Therrien While it became a standard relatively recently, disc-based storage goes a long way back in the history of video game distribution. The term encompasses a wide range of technologies, from magnetic floppy discs, analog laserdiscs, to a variety of digital optical media. Of the latter, the CD-ROM enjoyed the strongest following and the longest lifespan; as of 2006, a significant number of PC games are still burned on CDs. When it became the most common video game distribution format in the mid nineteen-nineties, the compact disc was already a standard in the music industry. In contrast to the magnetic tapes used for the distribution of albums and movies, optical discs allowed relatively fast, random, non-linear access to the content. But these features were already common in the realm of cartridge-based video game systems; the ROMs in Atari 2600 or Super Nintendo game cartridges were directly connected to the system’s working memory and could be read instantly. The CD drive optical head couldn’t compete; as a matter of fact, optical discs introduced the infamous “loading” screen to the console gamer. Video games benefited first and foremost from the storage capabilities of the CD-ROM. While the CD format shares its core technical principle with the more recent DVD standard (found in the Xbox and PlayStation 2) and other dedicated formats (such as the Dreamcast’s GD-ROM and the Gamecube optical disc), this chapter will focus solely on the integration of CD-ROM technology and its consequences on game design and development.
  • Intro by the Admin

    Intro by the Admin

    The Sierra Chest Newsletter: Issue 2, May 2009 Intro by the admin Dear Sierra fans, Another busy month of construction on the Sierra Chest. Most notably “Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned” has been inserted. And while that took far more time than expected, the result is great! More info about that on the next page. We also worked a bit on King’s Quest, and fully inserted “Lost in Time” by Coktel Vision. Some general stuff, such as a load of box arts have been added and it is now also possible to access the fanbased Empire Earth servers through the Chest. Also our friends at UnityHQ, member of the Sierra Gateway and fanbased home of the No One Lives Forever forums and servers, have a small request for you. It is a pleasure to say that, after some 200 uploaded videos on the Sierra Chest’s Youtube channel over the past half a year, we finally nailed an honor! The video “Gabriel Knight 3: Fiction versus Reality” was among the most watched videos in the video gaming category in France on April 26th. It was a small honor, which lasted only a day, but it was an honor nonetheless, so it is gratifying to see things are beginning to fall in the public spotlight. The video combines real locations with Gabriel Knight 3 gameplay and then shifts towards the vampire story during the 2nd half of the video, all guided by music of W. A. Mozart’s Requiem. With the number of subscribers to the Sierra Chest Youtube channel increasing by about 50% over the past month alone, we are confident more fans will find their way to the site and the Sierra Gateway forums (http://www.sierraforums.com).
  • Sierra-95-96Catalog

    Sierra-95-96Catalog

    TRBL E Dear Customer, OF CONTENTS ~ p3 ADVENTUAE Welcome to the '95-'96 Sierra games cataloguel p 10 ADVENTUAE/ACTION The products in this catalogue are the result p 11 SIMULATION of thousands of hours of design and programming by a dedicated and p 15 STAATEGY passionate team of professionals. You will find all the latest p19 SPOATS multimedia games Including new releases expected for 1996. p20 AACADE Each game is presented under its own category (adventure, simulation, strategy etc.) with a detailed description in order p22 CUSTOMEA SUPPOAT to let you discover your favourite games in the p23 INDEX BY PLATFOAM simplest way possible. p23 INDEX BY GENAE A E rfASMABD The terrifying story of a woman fighting for her life against the forces of «A sinister game in the style of Edgar evll comes to life In the most Allen Poe, Alfred Hitchcock, and advanced multimedia suspense • Stephen King» ·., PC GAMER thrlller ever: Phantasmagoria. Unfolding In novel-like .. chapters, this game estab­ production, digital •~ ~ · · · " lishes on unprecedented .. .. ·' ..• effects, computer­ .• . blend of Hollywood film • ... rendered worlds, .: ·•. and Interactivity. • In Phantasmagoria, master designer Roberto Wlllloms creates a frighteningly believable nightmare from which you may never awoken. Vl UJ a: • Developed using sophisticated Hollywood film techniques and digital effects .....:::> a: • Features and ultra-realistic 3-D rendered world in which characters have free movement UJ ... • Unfolds in novel-like chapters UJ :::> 0 • Ava ilable on 7 CD 's z • Written by master game designer Roberta Williams :::> e A E GABRIEL KNIGHT II THE BE AST WITHIN Sierra once again brings its Inimitable touch of quality to adventure games! Ludwig of Bavaria, Wagner's This new Gabriel Knight last opera, and the mysterious mysterv plunges "Slack Wolf".
  • Ben There, Dan That! / Time Gentlemen, Please!

    Ben There, Dan That! / Time Gentlemen, Please!

    Ben There, Dan That! / Time Gentlemen, Please! Even though Sierra and LucasArts gave up on adventure games around the turn of the century, there are still those who hold on to the belief that the genre is very much alive. But without the continuation of games like Monkey Island, Space Quest and Simon the Sorcerer, what we have are, mostly, legions of humorless entries with depressingly dry CG backgrounds, plus the occasional cartoonish adventure that tries to be funny but fails spectacularly. Former adventure creators still make some great work, of course. Tim Schaefer, of Grim Fandango, spent a long time working on Psychonauts and Brütal Legend, both of which were hilarious despite not being adventure games, while Telltale, formed with some of the other LucasArts staff, comes close to the glory days of the genre. But it‟s not quite the same. So it was more or less out of nowhere that a tiny group of Brits called Zombie Cow Studios brought out two of the funniest adventures since... well, since ever, perhaps. Ben There, Dan That! and its sequel, Time Gentlemen Please!, are both low budget hits made with Adventure Game Studio and have a graphical style most consistent with elementary school notebook doodles, but succeed tremendously because they‟re so brilliantly written. One could call it “The British version of South Park!” and that wouldn‟t entirely be wrong, but that‟s a glib summation of it. While both creations have uber low-fi visuals, subversive plotting, and more than just a bit of toilet humor, Zombie Cow‟s games replace South Park's libertarian cynicism with a self aware affection for adventure games, LucasArts in particular.