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Adventures
| 3D Land | Acord Games | [top] | |
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You are 3DMan, exploring and walking around an unusual world wherein you find teleportation ports and click on objects which will enable you to find a solution to a puzzle that will allow you to win the game. First person. 3D Virtual Reality. | ||
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| Abenteuer Atlantis / Knorrli: Abenteuer Atlantis [G] | COMAD GmbH, Hypercomm / Knorr-Nährmittel AG | [top] | |
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This is a promotional game for the food manufacturer Knorr. You are playing as Knorrli who has to rescue his folk in Mesopotamia from starvation and epidemics. This evolves into a search after the legendary Atlantis. It is played like many other adventure games: You search rooms after useful objects, use objects to solve puzzles and combine inventory items. There are only three commands - walk, use and speak - which can selected either with the mouse or the function keys. Knorrli automatic takes items when you click on them. | ||
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| Adventures of Maddog Williams in the Dungeons of Duridian, The | Game Crafters | [top] | |
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This is a great shareware graphical adventure in the style of Sierra's early King's Quest (i.e. text parser with graphics). As genius inventor Maddog Williams, journey far and wide across the kingdom to save the world from impending doom. Help Maddog rescue the beautiful Princess Leoria and free her father King Thaylor. Help him vanquish the Evil Serak and restore peace to the lands of Duridian. The parser is not up to Infocom's standard, but it is definitely as good as Sierra's early AGI games. Well worth your time if you are a fan of "old-skool" parser-with-graphic games. Game Crafters later released it for free (just enter anything for the copy protection question) before they vanished into gaming oblivion. It was actually quite successful in Europe on on the Atari computer. | ||
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| Adventures of Robin Hood, The | ISC / Millennium Interactive Ltd. | [top] | |
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In Robin Hood you must perform many heroic deeds to change the public impression of you from "villain" to "hero". It's a cutesy little game where NPCs do follow their own agenda, and are amusing to watch. Despite the picture of Kevin Costner on the cover, the game is (thank goodness) not based on the movie. The game begins with a funny intro in which Robin's castle was overthrown. You take control of the sulking Robin outside the castle gates. Your job, of course, is to lead Robin on his quest to regain his castle, by recruiting enough "merry men" and collecting enough gold from unwilling aristocrats. The control scheme is quite awkward, and complicated by the very tiny graphics. Rescuing Will Scarlet, for example, involves shooting his captors with your bow. Save your game before you fire, as you're just as about as likely to shoot Will instead of the guard. This is mildly irritating, but actually goes along well with the feel of the rest of the game. Beware of the confusing interface though: user-friendly it ain't, and the tiny animations are hard to see, not to mention some frustrating action sequences and obscure clues. Those who are patient will be well rewarded with an amusing little game. | ||
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| Amazon: Guardians of Eden | Access Software, Inc. | [top] | |
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An underrated "cinematic adventure" by the company famous for Tex Murphy games, Amazon is a fun romp in the style of B-movies in the 50s. As a hapless scientist who willingly brave the Amazon jungles to find your missing brother, you'll find yourself glued to the screen in this frustrating game that manages to be funny despite the intentional campiness. Many pixel-hunting and real-time puzzles sometimes spoil the fun, but the cool Indiana Jones style plot and characters help make up for it somewhat. Overall, a fun and original adventure marred by illogical pixel-hunting puzzles and cliche writing. If you like B-movies, give this one a try. If you're looking for a thoughtful, serious adventure, look elsewhere. | ||
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| B.A.T. 2 The Koshan Conspiracy | Computer's Dream / Ubi Soft | [top] | |
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This second part of the BAT series takes place in ROMA 2, the most important city of the planet Shedishan. The United Galaxies Organization has contacted the "Bureau of Astral Troubleshooters (BAT) in order to investigate the murder of a BAT agent named Sylvia Hatford who tried to uncover the businesses of a mysterious dealer of important raw materials. You are playing the second agent, Jehan Menais, now involved in the dangerous investigations. The game itself is a mixture between graphics adventure, space combat simulator and strategy game. The adventure part is realized in a classic 2D point-and-click environment, the space combat can be best described as a small version of Firebird's Elite and the various small arcade games included can either be played in a strategic mode or an arcade mode where your reaction skills are required. It improves upon its predecessor in every respect, including a more intelligible plot that actually *develops* into an interesting pan-galactic drama. However, as in the first game you still have the freedom to ignore the plotline for as long as you wish to explore the wonderfully realized gameworld that is populated by colorful characters, shops, and strange gadget to find and use, including the programmable B.O.B. computer in your arm that is much more versatile and intelligent than in the previous game. Your tasks this time around are much more questionable if not downright strange (burglarizing a bank as a pretense to saving the galaxy is, after all, not a very common cop-thing). As in B.A.T. 1, the freedom the game affords you can be a double-edged sword: while it makes it much more fun to explore, it does mean less clues and frequent hunting for a store (among dozens) that sells the particular item you need. The world, while large, is also very disorienting since it's not laid out in easy cardinal directions, and the fact that you only need to use less than a fifth of all objects you can collect make puzzle-solving more difficult. Despite all these shortcomings, however, B.A.T. 2 is still a highly atmospheric and original game that will please sci-fi lovers and anyone who likes non-linear games. A 1994 Deluxe Edition CD version features CDA tracks as opposed to the MOD tracks from the original, allowing clear speech and a better sound ambiance, large FMV-videos of noticeable length, digitized speech and in-game manual. | ||
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| Beyond The Wall Of Stars | Creative Multimedia Corporation | [top] | |
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This is one of the earliest, and most unknown, computer games to take advantage of the CD-ROM's storage capacity. Written and designed by R.A. Montgomery, a prolific author whose "Choose Your Own Adventure" books were highly popular in the early 1980s, BTWOS is best described as a multimedia CYOA book - you read the story like a book, then, once every few "pages," select one of two choices for your action that will affect how the story unfolds. The plot is standard, and even cliche, sci-fi fare: you are leader of an urgent expedition sent by the Celadon planet. Your task is to find Tara, a more advanced race who live beyond "the Wall of Stars" to ask them to aid the Celadon in their plight against. While it doesn't make full use of 640MB on the CD, the game is over 300MB large, with most of the space taken up by speech files and short movie clips. The quality of writing is decent - just as you would expect in any R.A. Montgomery's CYOA books: competent, but never truly spectacular. The plot and the plot branches you will choose while playing are interesting enough to attract you to the very end, but the game isn't attractive enough in my opinion to warrant replay. The "puzzles" are also minimal, because it's not only that you interact by choosing from multiple-choice options, but also that those options are more geared towards picking what you will see next, rather than solving any tough puzzles (although some choices you will make are indeed crucial to the survival of your crew). As one of the earliest CD-ROM titles, BTWOS deserves a look by all adventure fans as one of the earliest efforts in leveraging the new medium to present an older one. If you like CYOA books, you'll probably like this "game" that unfortunately isn't as interesting as some of the author's best works. Oh, and some of the graphics are "paper doll cutouts" that look pretty bad. | ||
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| Case Of The Cautious Condor, The | Tiger Media / Compton's New Media | [top] | |
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This is an adventure game in an interactive comic book style. It was one of the first CD-ROM-only games that was furthermore a complete new development for that media and not only a port of another version such as an already existing floppy disc game or a laserdisc arcade machine. It won several awards, such as "Best Adventure 1989" in Japan. The game sold below expectations of the developer also because CD-ROM drives were not yet widespread at that time. Basically it is a detective adventure game in which with your help, private eye Ned Peters has to figure out the identity of the murderer by wandering around the rooms, looking for clues and overhear conversations between the other guests aboard the Spruce Goose-like flying boat "Condor" on a cruise over the Atlantic. The game has no text because all the dialogue is being played from the CD and the interface is completely mouse-driven. | ||
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| Chichen Itza [Sp] | Aventuras AD | [top] | |
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This is the third part of the trilogy of Adventures "Legends of CI-U-THAN" after La Diosa de Cozumel, and Los Templos Sagrados. This relates the fabulous final outcome in the most famous Mayan Temple: Chichén Itzá. No doubt the ingenuity of the author has reached the maximum, which means that it might be even better or perhaps another writer... Well, again derogatory comments arise to the villages in the area, but as a plus has been added new dangers that surround you which really make you feel anxiety, adrenaline, panic and the desire to get out of them alive, since your death will no doubt be repulsive, and you don't want that. You follow the same commands as in previous releases, you can die almost anywhere, and again land in the labyrinthine jungle of which you must fight out of. Again you need to solve some complex puzzles, please refer to the natives as barbaric Indians without intelligence, among other peculiar actions. The graphic detail has been improved considerably as it's the first game in the series that has VGA graphics. With this new pattern of colors you can admire the inner beauty of the game and without weeping at the very sad colors that were used before. Note that each of the sites listed in these three books actually exist and are well preserved until now, although they are listed as areas of tourism, which has taken away the sense of mystery that they once had. | ||
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| Conspiracy: Deadlock Files (cancelled) | Accolade | [top] | |
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This 256-colors VGA adventure was first announced by Accolade in Summer 1989 at the Chicago CES, but was apparently reported numerous times. It appears that the game was localized at least in French around June 1991, but again nothing concrete was released. Some previews of the game continued to appear until 1992, and then it vanished without more info. It is very likely that "Conspiracy" was never released. Conspiracy: Deadlock Files would take place in New York, in a complex story where you are wrongly framed for the murder of a CIA agent: you have 24 hours to find the seven deadlock files in order to prove your innocence and stop the conspiracy against the American government. The game features over 350 digitalized scenes, from Wall Street to the Empire State Building, and a rich interface similar to the Carmen Sandiego games. |
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| Crime City | Interactive Fantastic Fiction / Impression Games | [top] | |
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Crime City is a classical point-and-click adventure. You play Mr. White, a poor chap who writes detective stories but wants nothing more than to be a real private investigator. It's a pretty classical story: one day, he can't really write a thing, but then, a mysterious blonde stands before his door, telling him his Father, Henry White, was arrested for murder. It's up to you to prove the police wrong. A difference to the classical adventure exists: you need money to travel, get information or training. To get money, you can trade at the stock market. What's also different is that the time of the day really matters and that the protagonist becomes sleepy after staying up too long. It's a neat little adventure game that was released only in Europe with little fanfare. It's essentially a detective game with creative strategy elements thrown in (e.g. you must manage your time and money very carefully - each action takes time, and travel costs money). Lots of text in this game provide for hours of fun sleuthing despite amateurish graphics and sound. | ||
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| Curse Of Enchantia | Core Design Ltd. | [top] | |
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A good example of the "good concept butchered by poor execution" syndrome, Curse of Enchantia's only feature that is worth mentioning is the fact that it was one of the first CD-ROM adventure games ever released (although it took little advantage of 640MB storage, adding only a longer animated introduction than the floppy version). Way back in 1992, the game was bundled with many first CD-ROM drives, but its real use as a coaster will become apparent soon after one installs the game. The plot isn't half bad - it's a typical hero-boy-kills-an-evil-witch story, which as Roberta Williams has proven can make successful games. The game, however, has a VERY awkward interface - picking and using items require a lot of clicks, for one thing, and you'll be tired of clicking after a few screens. This, combined with grainy graphics and poorly written dialogues, more than ensure that the game would remain unseen from the eyes of most players. If you want to play a decent adventure from the house that Lara Croft made, try Universe instead. Proceed at your own risk. | ||
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| Dagger Of Amon Ra, The: Laura Bow 2 | Sierra On-Line | [top] | |
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This second and final game in the Laura Bow series, is set in a museum in the 1920s and reflects the Egyptology craze of the period. You play as Laura Bow (one of the first female protagonists in a game), a Southern belle who has just graduated from Tulane University and moved to New York City, where she has landed a job at a prestigious newspaper. For her first assignment, she is asked to write a straightforward, lightweight story on a benefit held at a local museum to celebrate their new Egyptian exhibit. When a murder occurs during the party, however, she is locked inside with all of the other suspects. As other guests begin dying one by one, Laura must solve the numerous crimes occurring before the culprits escape or kill her. The Laura Bow games were distinctive in that they required some actual logistical detective work on the part of the player; for the most part, though, the puzzles were of the typical variety of inventory and environment interaction (and frequent, often unexpected, player character death) found in most Sierra adventures. Unlike in The Colonel's Bequest, the identity of the murderer is not automatically revealed at the end of the game. Instead, the player is asked a series of questions, ostensibly by the police, to prove that Laura had solved the crimes and discovered the secrets of the other suspects. If the questions are answered incorrectly, the coroner will give a hint to point the player towards the path that would have revealed the correct answer in subsequent playing of the games. The ending of the game can change depending on the answers given to the questions, most notably in that Laura can be killed if the player doesn't know the identity of the main murderer. The game uses the more advanced SCI1 (Sierra Creative Interpreter, version 1) engine which features a point and click interface, VGA graphics capable of 320x200x256 resolution, and digitized sound effect. It also utilizes a toolbar located at the top of the screen that allows limited selection of actions, system commands, and access to the inventory. The CD-ROM version adds enhancements such as the voices of the characters, the sounds of the city, and the growl of the museum’s resident dinosaur that are not available in the original version. | ||
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| Dark Half, The | Symtus / Capstone Software | [top] | |
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Despite its "cult" status as one of the most sought-after games of all time, The Dark Half is one of the worst adventure games ever made, its blockbuster license notwithstanding. The game is chock full of plot holes the size of a Buick, illogical puzzles, and very bad writing that does absolutely no justice to the brilliant novel it was based on. One thing the game doesn't lack - and this is true for most Capstone games - is a great premise. Of course, that's because it's based on one of master thriller Stephen King's best-known novels. Here's a brief synopsis: as a young boy, Thad Beaumont developed a brain tumor. When his skull was opened in the operating room, the tumor turned out to be the undeveloped remains of a twin that Thad had incorporated into himself while still in his mother's womb. More than twenty years later, Thad is a successful writer with a family. The books he writes under his own name are "literate", but to maintain his income, he writes violent, formula fiction under the pseudonym of George Stark. When a blackmailer threatens to reveal his double identity and endanger the profitable secret, Beaumont goes public himself, "burying" Stark. That's when the murders start. As the body count mounts, Beaumont becomes the prime suspect - his fingerprints have been found in the victims' blood - but Thad has no idea what's going on. Has Thad's evil twin come alive, or is some sort of evil entity is loose in the world? The game opens with a very brief introduction, and you, as Thad, standing in the cemetery - staring at the symbolic grave of "buried" Stark. Unfortunately, plot holes and inane puzzles rear their ugly heads as soon as you get into the game. Thad's goal throughout the entire game is to avert the police' suspicion that he's a murderer, mainly by hiding evidence that points to him, and collect evidence that Stark is the real murderer. All well and good, except that you'll be wondering why this town's police is so dumb. For instance, the police will arrest you at the end of the first day if you fail to hide all evidence and wipe all fingerprints... but there's the murder weapon - victim's fake leg - lying in the back of the truck that you cannot interact with. The question, of course, is why the police didn't just dust that leg for fingerprints, or, if your prints match Stark's anyway, why you should bother to erase your other fingerprints at all. The game goes on in this vein, throwing illogical puzzles in your face once in a while. One of these, is the fact that Thad has to smoke before he could write, and he MUST write every day to further the plot. This is of course something that's never mentioned anywhere in the game, and the appearance of fresh, new sheets of paper at every new crime scene that Thad can use to write is as mysterious as most things that go on in this game. Despite a few nice touches, such as sufficiently spooky cut-scenes and good ambient music, it's simply just too inane, illogical, and badly written. King's fans beware: this is NOT every 1/100th of a how good a novel is. Capstone definitely lives up to their worst performances in this release. | ||
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| Dark Seed | Cyberdreams, Inc. / Dro Soft | [top] | |
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One of the most memorable (and few) science fiction- horror games ever released, Dark Seed is an interesting horror/scifi story based on the haunting artwork of H.R. Giger, creator of Aliens. As writer Mike Dawson, you must travel in both the human and alien dimensions to thwart the aliens' evil plans. Interesting premise and outstanding graphics make for an interesting game that unfortunately gets bogged down with too many illogical (and timed) puzzles. A good first effort from Cyberdreams, and *much* better than its horrible successor Dark Seed 2. A Japanese version for Win3.1 contains more audio options than the normal CD-DOS version. Both wav recordings of the Macintosh music and midi files that can be played with either FM or Wavetable. In contrast to the CD-DOS version, the midi files are mapped to the correct instruments instead of being broken. | ||
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| Das Erbe [G] | Advertising Tie-In | [top] | |
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This is a free advertising adventure made by the German environmental protection agency. You are left an old shack in a will and must renovate it by getting a notary to give you a bank power of attorney over 3 million DM and to find a locker key. Then it goes into a shopping mall, where the Bank Bares in the first turn. Damit läßt sich es natürlich prächtig einkaufen, wobei man allerdings immer peinlich genau auf umweltschonendes Konsumverhalten achten muß. There is obviously splendid shopping, which is always scrupulously environmentally friendly consumer behaviour is needed. In the transportion business there is no chic sports car, but instead a bicycle. One after one comes up so many more (buying) problem that should be resolved. The whole game is essentially faster than it sounds, with the display and the simple point and click controls of the games from LucasArts. The ease of use does not take away from the fun and the quite nice music is constantly repeated. | ||
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| Das Telekommando [G] | The Art Department / German Telekom | [top] | |
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When engineers at Telekom (then freshly isolated from the post office and partially privatized) it is your job to survey the lines of the city and help with technical problems. The graphics are minimalist and there is no sound. Nevertheless, the whole has some charm. | ||
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| Daughter of Serpents | Eldritch Games / Millennium Interactive Ltd | [top] | |
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Created by the same team that brought us the atmospheric text adventure The
Hound of Shadow, this is a graphic adventure game with a point-and-click interface. An exotic, ancient city bustling with life. A strange, unnatural creature. A murder. And you, on a business trip to Alexandria, Egypt, suddenly involved in the case of a mysterious cult that deals with strange forces. Take a piece of ancient Egyptian mythology, add a pinch of demonology a la Lovecraft, and mix with a decent dose of colonial middle-east romanticism -- those are the ingredients for this sinister adventure game. Quite unusually for a pedigree adventure game, you have to design your character at the beginning of the game. You may chose a gender as well as one of six professions, ranging from traveller to private eye or occultist. Each category consists of four to five talents, in which you can then invest skill points. You may thus specialize your character in toxicology, let him learn the Arabian language, make him an excellent observer or an expert in necromancy. The talents have no influence on the plot, but a marginal one on the dialogues; you will get slightly different conversations depending on your knowledge of certain subjects. Your choice of profession, however, opens three slightly different approaches to the mystery, culminating in three different endings. Although the basic course of events does always stay the same, a few scenes are exclusive to each branch. Also, you will be accompanied by either the Greek occultist Ariadne Elytis or the rational inspector Bimbashi Cameron. It suffers from almost nonexistent puzzles and short length. Nevertheless, the plot, which involves ancient Egyptian curse and artifact-smuggling ring, is excellent. Many possible endings (depending on skills you
select at the start) also invite multiple replays that compensate for the short length. In all, a good introductory-level game. The game was updated with voice acting and animations (although with same dated graphics) but was a cut down version with 4/6 of the whole game removed and re-marketed as The Scroll in 1995.
See also: #Scroll, The |
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| Diabolik Episodes 1-12 [It] | Simulmondo | [top] | |
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This is a series of platform games based on a famous European comic book hero. They were released one a month from September 1992 to August 1993 to be sold in magazine stands just like comic books. You play "Diabolik" who is a man behind a mask. Also smaller riddles must be solved. The individual titles are: Diabolik N° 1 - Inafferrabile Criminale, 2 - La Gemma di Salomone, 3 - La Fuga, 4 - Trappola d'Acciaio, 5 - Ore Pericolose, 6 - La Notte della Paura, 7 - Diamanti Unici, 8 - Un Piano Perfetto, 9 - A Caro Prezzo, 10 - All'Ultimo Sangue, 11 - Inganno Fatale, 12 - Terrore a Teatro. | ||
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| Dinosaur Adventure | Jordan Freeman Group / Knowledge Adventure Inc. | [top] | |
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This is an educational game that teaches about dinosaurs. It comes on three disks and includes full motion video. It consists of different sections. In the first one a dinosaur storybook can be read. It consists of a series of still images with a voice that narrates the story. There are interactive elements. For instance, the dinosaurs in the images can be clicked and then their name is read out loud. The second activity is the Name-A-Saurus game. The name of a dinosaur is displayed and then the corresponding picture needs to be selected from an overview. The third activity is the Read-A-Saurus game. This is the opposite of the previous one: a picture is shown and the correct name needs to be selected from a list. The fourth activity lets players explore the history of dinosaurs through an interface that resembles an interactive encyclopedia. It shows Earth in the top left corner and the player can rotate it or scale to change the distance. The bottom of the screen holds a timeline. By moving the slider the different periods are shown and explained. The top of the screen has buttons to explore a library, print, read about archaeological activities and fossils, watch movies about dinosaurs, learn the difference between herbivores and carnivores, and explore the life and extinction of the animals. The last activity has an overview of all available movies. At any moment it is possible to leave an activity and return to the main menu to start a new one. | ||
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| Dragon's Lair 3: The Curse of Mordread | Don Bluth Multimedia, Inc. / ReadySoft | [top] | |
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This game features a set of levels from the arcade version of Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp not used (unable to fit, presumably) in Readysoft's earlier home conversion. It has Dirk dodging QTEs through various time periods and dimensions to such memorable locales as Wonderland, a pirate ship, and even the keyboard of Ludwig von Beethoven. In the early 1990s, Readysoft released a number of animated action games that became instant hits on the Laserdisc platform, although their PC counterparts suffered poor sales in comparison. This is by no means surprising: although these games boast very high production values and excellent animations which are created by Don Bluth Studios, their value as games is sorely lacking. These games are little more than PC versions of "choose-your-own-adventure" books, in which gameplay is boiled down to choosing an action from multiple choices. PC versions are, naturally, cut-down versions from Laserdisc originals, with many sequences missing altogether. It wasn't until the advent of CD-ROM that Readysoft (now sold to Digital Leisure) started making "deluxe" versions of these games and put them on CD-ROM and later DVD. Treat the games as fun and humorous computer cartoons, but don't expect them to be involving games. If you like any of these disk-based versions, check out the deluxe DVD/CD-ROM versions. This is the last and probably also best of the floppy-based Dragon's Lair games by ReadySoft. this one has Dirk dodging through various time periods and dimensions to such memorable locales as Wonderland, a pirate ship, and even the keyboard of Ludwig von Beethoven. | ||
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| Dylan Dog: The Murderers | Simulmondo | [top] | |
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Based on the Italian comics character Dylan Dog, London "nightmare detective", Gli Uccisori (The Murderers) is another volume created by Tiziano Sclavi himself and is a side-view action platform game with fighting, adventure, and puzzle elements. After the nightmare Dylan saw in his dream, he received the invitation from one mysterious person to visit a mansion along with many other people. Accepting the invitation, Dylan (clothed in his signature red shirt, black jacket, and blue jeans) entered the house and took part in the sumptuous feast. But the wine was poisoned, and the part of guests were the murderers. Dylan, remembering the nightmare, just in case took the revolver with him. And here it all starts. You as Dylan should move around the house, fight with the murderers with bare hands, with revolver, or with weapons found in the house such as knife, screwdriver, sword, or maul. You should find certain keys to open certain doors. Also after killing certain murderers, you'll be provided with certain secrets given to you by the survived guests. Main parts of the story is told in comics art-style without any literary material. The problems for you in the mansion along the murderers are: 1) the timeflow, so you should act quickly; 2) your life energy, so you should keep it as high as possible blocking the opponent's hits; 3) number of the bullets for the revolver, so you should use them wisely; 4) no ability to save the game, so you should break through to the finish during the single seance of the gameplay; 5) the mansion's owner, whose identity you'll understand at the very end. | ||
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| Eternam / Tracy | Atari Europe S.A.S.U. | [top] | |
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You are Don Jonz, a marshall in the United Forces of Orion. After plenty of courageous deeds and macho heroics, you really need a break. Luckily, there's something in the mail. It seems you've just won a free trip to the galaxy's best and most luxurious planet-sized funpark: ETERNAM! After high-tailing it to your leisure-packed holiday destination and slipping into a strange 'barbarian' costume, you're a little dismayed to find that this was all one big trap, set up by your arch-nemesis, the accursed MIKHAL NUKE. Now you're stuck on Eternam, with its life-sized reconstructions of past eras and meticulously crafted bio-beings and who knows what's going to happen to you? Luckily, there's one person on your side: TRACY, one of Eternam's best computer technicians. In order to escape Mikhal Nuke's clutches, she had to transform herself into electronic impulses and hide inside the computer system, but at least she'll be there for you in digital form. There's a whole network of islands to traverse, each with their own unique reconstructed time zone and sense of hospitality. It's a combination of 3rd-person graphic adventure and 1st-person 3D 'travel' sections, interspersed with plenty of cartoon animations. | ||
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| Evil Crypt | Curtis Keisler | [top] | |
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This little adventure game was created in 1985 for the TRS-80 and Color Computer computers in order to participate in a competition announced in the magazine. Seven years later, in 1992, the author ported it to DOS, fully preserving the gameplay and appearance of the original. The plot is this: the evil villain imprisoned the wizard Willy in the dungeon and stole his spell book in order to create all kinds of bad things in the world. Our task - in the role of a captive sorcerer to find a way out and stop the villain. To achieve the goal, it is necessary to overcome three confusing maze levels filled with monsters. Unarmed Willy is powerless against enemies and immediately dies, so he will have to look for means of self-defense and other objects useful in such conditions, well, and the transitions to the next stage. The task is complicated by the fact that the interface consists of a decent size window with inventory and a very small window showing what is happening: only our hero and adjacent cells are visible on it (that is, a 3x3 field). And this means that the player will either have to train the photographic memory, or draw a map, since the locations here are not so small. The game is simply overwhelmed by the old school - this is manifested both in monochrome graphics and demanding and unforgiving gameplay. | ||
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| Flash Gordon: Il Rapimento di Dale [It] | Holodream Software | [top] | |
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Another adventure inspired by a classic comic book. Flash Gordon, after a failed attempt to divert a meteorite, he has to rescue his girlfriend from the clutches of the Emperor Dale. Gameplay is linear. The adventure was originally to be much easier with more chapters to come but only the first chapter, il Rapimento di Dale, was ever made. | ||
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| Formosa in China [Tw] | T-time | [top] | |
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One of the first products of the highly successful and well-known Taiwanese company T-Time Technology Co. Ltd (光譜 資訊 股份有限公司). The game combines two different directions (a detective simulator and cognitive geography of the provinces of China). Your task will be quite simple. It is necessary to disclose crimes (theft) committed in different parts of China. The list of suspects is compared with evidence and witness statements. For each disclosed crime, of course, a substantial reward is due. Your personal cash account in the game, by the way, tends to melt very significantly every day of a protracted investigation. So you have to act quickly. You are a kind of nameless detective (the player sets his name at the beginning of the game) and initially rests on a secluded tropical paradise island. I must say that for some reason this island is placed on the game map far to the north-west from the borders of the Celestial Empire, which somehow seems to be not entirely correct from a geographical point of view. To move, just click on the "car keys" in the lower left part of the screen and select a new location for your "location". On the left side of the screen is your personal computer - oddly enough, without the abbreviation IBM. To start the game, you need to turn it on by pressing the “ON” button. Above the computer is a row of floppy disks. These are the menu items. A floppy disk with a green face will call the main one. It will contain the following sub-items: a list of cases of theft (竊案 委託書); "Hall of Fame" of outstanding detectives (偵探 名人堂); player information (玩家 資料 庫) - balance of funds, number of cases opened / not opened, qualifications; as well as a library (地理 圖書館), - geographic information about all corners (provinces) of China is collected here. Why is it necessary for a simple "detective" - it is not clear. The next floppy disk menu in the form of a red face is, as you might guess, personal profiles of famous criminals (罪犯 資料 單). Here are indicated: name (姓名), consisting of two or three characters; gender (性别); blood type (血型); place of birth (籍貫) - this is probably a purely Chinese peculiarity, because the origin greatly affects the dialect of the criminal, that any witnesses can easily identify; special signs (特徵); hobbies (興趣); and color of clothes (服 色). Rog ... the faces of the criminals are all colorful and made in the characteristic Taiwanese caricature style. The next menu item is information from the police. Only simple information is displayed here - for example, whether or not the suspect was in the city at the time the crime was committed. And the last diskette menu is “Page”: this is an analysis by a simple exhaustive search of the totality of signs and characteristics of the suspect according to known witness testimonies. You have to sort out the signs so that the name of some famous criminal clearly appears at the bottom of the table. At the bottom of the screen, to the left of the white background, there is a very important point - the testimony of witnesses (訪問 證人). You need to click on it with the cursor - and the witness will appear on the screen. It is this information that is primary for you, and from it you will sort through all the suspects from the list, and the police will then say “Yes” or “No” to the question about the fact of his stay in the city. Good quality graphics: 8-bit color with a screen resolution of 640x480, but with a contrasting palette and dithering was used. Sounds are available in small quantities, but there is even digitized Chinese speech for some of the menu items. Well, the game deserves a good grade. True, playing without knowledge of the language is a rather dubious occupation: you need to read and analyze a lot of different information in Chinese. | ||
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| Gateway, Frederick Pohl's | Legend Entertainment Company | [top] | |
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The first of a 2-game adventure series based on Frederick Pohl's award-winning science fiction books. You're an astronaut-prospector, out to make your fortune (even though you save the world in this game, I think success is really determined by how much money you have at the end). This is very much classic science fiction, well thought out and detailed. Earth is searching for remnants of an advanced civilization's technology, and prospectors like you risk life and limb to find that big lode of hardware that's gonna make you rich. Along the way you read the news and meet some robots, and everything seems about as likely as sci-fi ever does. It is a very believable future. This is about as intelligent as adventure games get. It has Legend's text parser which fills up a third of the screen with a list of words to choose to perform actions, while another third is for the description of the current scene and the last third is a graphic picture. In 2017, HandsFree made a free fan remake in the more visual style of the later Legend games. | ||
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| Gobliins 2: The Prince Buffoon | Coktel Vision / Sierra On-Line | [top] | |
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The second in the series of adventure-puzzle games. In this installation, you only have two imps to control instead of three. Someone has kidnapped the prince and it's up to you and two hilarious sidekicks, Winkle and Fingus, to rescue him. Winkle is a reckless jokester, while Fingus is careful and has a gift for solving puzzles. Luckily, they're blessed with extraordinary vitality. In other words, they never die. That'll sure come in handy when you're up against Wily Wizard's traps, maniacal monsters, and twisted and perplexing puzzles. | ||
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| Heimdall | The 8th Day / Core Design / Virgin Games | [top] | |
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You play as Heimdall, a demi-god based in Norse mythology. Heimdall's job is to protect the entrance to Asgard, the home of the gods, from all evil, including the terrible Ragnarok, when all the evil forces come together to try and destroy the gods and ultimately everything. Unfortunately Ragnarok is on its way and if that wasn't bad enough, Loki, god of mischief, has hidden Thor's hammer, Odin's sword and Frey's spear in three worlds (Midgard/Earth, Utgard the world of giants, and Asgard home of the gods). You, as the newly mortalized Heimdall, must visit each of these worlds to collect the god's weapons. Each world has around 15 islands and each island has countless rooms. When you start your mission you are given three sub-games to complete: axe throwing, pig catching, and the long boat fight. How well you complete these games determines Heimdall's stats (strength, agility etc) as well as how many people he can choose from to make up his party. If you don't do well then you won't get the full 30 characters to choose from and some of the better ones will not be available to you. Once you've done this it's time to wander around the isometric landscape solving puzzles and killing baddies until you eventually find one of the god's missing weapons. | ||
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| Hexuma: Das Auge des Kal [G] | Weltenschmiede / Software 2000 | [top] | |
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Hexuma - Das Auge des Kal is interactive fiction with graphics and a point-and-click interface. This German-only game is the last of three text adventures created by the Weltenschmiede team, the other two being Das Stundenglas and Die Kathedrale. Hexuma sends you into an old, supposedly haunted mansion, which turns out to be a gateway to six different periods in Earth’s history. Travel from the age of dinosaurs to the distant future and bring back six crystal shards to battle the sinister god Kal. Otherwise a conventional text adventure in its design and functionality, Hexuma is aiming for the versatility record: the game knows six different ways to enter a command. You can simply type it in. You can click on objects in the graphic window to trigger the most probable action. You can piece your sentence together in an icon menu. You can consult a list of pre-fabricated commands tailored to the situation. You can click on any word in the text screen to copy it in the command bar. And, strangest of all, you can enter your command letter by letter with the mouse on a display of a keyboard. Talk about German diligence. There are a few puzzle dead-ends, so you might consider saving frequently. | ||
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| Hook | Shadow Software / Ocean Software Ltd. | [top] | |
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This is based on the Steven Spielberg movie Hook. Peter Banning is an ordinary suburban dad with two kids - or so everyone thinks. What not even his family know is his past as Peter Pan, scourge of Captain Hook in JM Barrie's children's fiction. Captain Hook gains revenge on Banning by stealing his two children, so Peter must return to Neverland, return to eternal childhood, and get them back. It's a point and click adventure, and the pirate setting ensures that it recalls the Monkey Island games. The top 2/3 of the screen features a visual depiction of the area Peter is in, while a row of icons along the bottom can be selected to alter the function of a mouse click. These include looking at an object, picking it up, talking to people, using objects to solve problems (often in combination with others), and giving objects to others. | ||
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| Hovering Castle [Bu] | Hristo Bozhinov | [top] | |
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Meet the first exclusive Bulgarian PC-game. This is a side-view quest that almost does not contain what is the basis of any representative of games in this direction. Yes, yes, there is a plot but it is almost not observed here. Actually, we only know that a certain person - our protagonist - fell into the mysterious “hovering castle” full of traps, secret passages, strange objects and other things - and now he has to get out of here. Accordingly, the gameplay is wandering around the premises of the said castle and solving all kinds of puzzles, the interaction with the surrounding objects and objects (some of them can be placed in your inventory), and - note - by manually entering text commands in Bulgarian. Sometimes whole sentences consisting of three or more words will have to be printed, so any knowledge of the language of the fraternal people is absolutely necessary. There is a high risk of death, and what is often happening - especially in the case of wrong actions - is accompanied by malicious ones ( and, like teams, textual) comments. Visually, our hero looks like a white silhouette. Of course, one could, on the basis of this alone, recall the unpleasant slogan “Play the morgue!”, But it would be much better to take a closer look at the environment. Take a closer look - and notice that, surprisingly, the backgrounds of the locations are not so bad: the objects and all kinds of “decor” are catastrophically small, and everything looks very monotonous, but after all they made this back in 1992 by only three students: Hristo Bozhinov (main author), Ivan Kolev and Stanislav Evstatiev. And they created their creation for the sake of pleasure - more precisely, maybe the sales were originally planned, but in the end the game saw the light as completely free, distributed through BBS. And preserved, by the way, a real miracle. Yes, this thing is really capable of, let's say, "surprise" - but still it is unique and charming in its own way. | ||
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| Hugo III: Jungle Of Doom | Gray Design Associates / Personal Companion Software | [top] | |
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This is the third and final installment in the EGA adventure series Hugo. The game features the existing engine in previous Hugo games along with some new features. These include a turbo button, and a "hints" feature. In this game Hugo and his girlfriend Penelope crash in a jungle somewhere in Africa, she is seriously hurt. As Hugo you venture through the jungle, confront a witch doctor and try to find the "pool of life". The Hugo series went on to become a 3d first person shooter, Nitemare 3d (see 1994 3D Shooter Legends entry). | ||
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| Inca | Coktel Vision / Sierra On-Line, Inc. | [top] | |
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One of the weirdest adventure games ever - but perhaps not so strange given Coktel Vision's reputation - Inca is a pseudo-historical adventure game that is best described as Jules Verne meets Aztec culture. The plot is as strange as any other Coktel release: you are El Dorado, mere mortal who is destined to find the hidden Inca treasure and fulfill an ancient prophecy of re-establishing the Inca empire - in space. The spirit of Huayna Capac, the last grand Inca, will guide you through the journey to space and time and beyond. In contrast to most other Coktel games, Inca offers several modes of gameplay. You will spend most of your time piloting the Incan spacecraft called "Tumi" both through space and time to discover the planets. This is done from a first-person perspective like most flight sims, and you will need good reflexes to be able to navigate through asteroid fields and survive some very frustrating combat sequences. Adventure game fans will likely be frustrated by the difficulty of these sequences, while action fans will find them too simplistic and repetitive. Where Inca really shines, though, is in Coktel's hallmark: the traditional adventure game. In adventure screens, the game will shift to a first-person perspective where you interact with people and objects, and try to find solutions to puzzles by using items in your inventory. The plot also goes through several neat twists and turns, and the ending is well worth the trouble. Filmed characters are decent, although voice-acting is below average. Oh, and by the way, this game has several MAZES which can be irritating. | ||
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| Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis | LucasArts | [top] | |
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Indiana Jones is back! The great archaeologist and adventurer has to solve a grand mystery once again, aided by his trusty whip, his sharp wit, and his courage. A man who calls himself Mr. Smith is interested in a certain ancient statue. When the unsuspecting Indy hands it over to the client, he finds out that Mr. Smith is in fact a colonel in the Nazi army. Why was he so interested in that statue? A girl who had once worked together with Indy, the pretty red-haired (and a bit troublesome) Sophia, tells him the whole thing must have a connection with the legendary lost continent Atlantis. Gathering clues from all over the world, Indy and Sophia embark on their greatest journey. "Fate of Atlantis" is not a movie spin-off, but an independent adventure with a brand new story. The gameplay utilizes LucasArts' famous SCUMM system, with action verbs the player chooses from a menu; the objects that can be interacted with are highlighted. The game contains many puzzles of various kinds (mostly inventory-based) and dialogues with multiple choices. There are also a couple of hand-to-hand fights against the Nazis. The middle part of the game can be played in three "modes": co-operation (Indy and Sophia), adventure (Indy alone), and action (Indy alone, with less puzzles and more action). In each mode there are different locations to visit, different puzzles to solve, and different characters to meet. One of the best adventure games ever made and highly recommended for everyone. | ||
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| Inspecteur Banaan en de ontvoering van MaBella [Du] | Davilex, Virgin Interactive / 3DO | [top] | |
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Inspector Banana and the kidnapping of Mabella is a Dutch point & click adventure that uses cartoon characters over real photos from Amsterdam as background. Mabella is a famous singer who mainly indulging in erotic dances. These dances cause many a man to lose their heads. Her husband who goes through life as a clown is not happy and decides to abduct her. Unfortunately for him, this goes out of hand before he ends up in jail. Superintendent Apple decides to put the best man on the case - Inspector Banana. This is where the story begins. He risks his life to arrest him without fear against the drug dealer Dirk. The nice thing is that some game elements draw a parallel to today's reality. So we too suffer from drug dealers, beggars and troublemakers. Inspector Banana addresses these issues in such a way that he inspired many to follow his example. Banana takes up against the entire Ferrari gang led by Mancini, the ruler of the underworld. Because of his strength and perseverance, Banana will overcome and become glorious. | ||
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| Isaac Asimov: Science Adventure | Knowledge Adventure Inc. | [top] | |
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This is a single player, multimedia educational title which contains a science quiz - however it's not as straightforward as that. It is NOT an encyclopedia and it is NOT structured - at least not in a conventional way, this product is a series of small articles that can be accessed in a variety of ways that are intended to pique the player's curiosity. The screen is divided into four areas;* Upper Left: This starts with a picture of the Earth from the Moon but for most of the time it's an map of the world which the player can spin, zoom in/out of, and click on to get some information relevant to that location, it's even possible to zoom right out to view the solar system. Upper Right: Here there are fourteen boxes each with a picture, most represent a branch of science. For example the first picture is an abacus so that must be mathematics - well maths is in there but you'll also find Stonehenge and other stuff; the next picture shows light going through prism and this takes us to the physics; the flasks of coloured liquid bring up something related to chemistry; the baby represents medicine; the cogs and gears are machines, the earth is geography and the picture of Saturn is space. Below these icons are the controls. The lifebelt is the in-game help; the U Turn sign goes back to the previous screen, the books represent the in-game library and the chess pieces start the game. Lower Left/Right: When a new article is selected the text appears in a window in the lower left and the associated picture appears in the lower right. Beneath the picture is a date and a timeline allowing players can use the timeline to scroll through articles chronologically. The Quiz: This is not the standard quiz format where the player is asked a question and they either enter the answer or they choose a response from a pick list. This is a 'Science Adventure' so when the player selects one of the three difficulty settings they get asked a question and the task is then to find an article that gives the answer. One of the easy questions is "This planet is closest to the sun, can you find it?" So, up in the top right there's a map of the planet and the player zooms a long way and is rewarded with an image of the planets, selecting that will surely lead to the answer won't it? Well it doesn't, instead it leads to an article about LaPlace and his 1799 book on Celestial Mechanics. The next option our player tries is the in-game library where they find there's no entry under 'M for Mercury' or 'P for planets' however while looking the player wonders "Why is Tutankhamen's Tomb under the heading for pneumonia?" or "Why is there an entry for Balloon under August?" both of which lead to a quick detour to have a look to investigate before trying something else. All the time the player is looking for an answer the score keeps increasing and little bits of knowledge are being picked up and stored away. Eventually when an article that has the information is found the player gets an audible fanfare. The game has sound effects and can be played with the mouse or the keyboard. | ||
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| Island of Dr. Brain, The | Sierra On-Line, Inc. | [top] | |
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This follow-up to the classic Castle of Dr. Brain sadly doesn't live up to its predecessor, mostly because the wonderful variety of educational puzzles in the original is reduced to a boring lot of language puzzles (e.g. word search and grammatical games) that feels more like English 101 than anything else. Most puzzles also seem too hard for the intended age group of 12+ yrs. old. Overall, the game will be fun only to those who like grammatical challenges, and not as original as its predecessor. | ||
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| King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow | Sierra Entertainment | [top] | |
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Prince Alexander is haunted and tormented by his brief memories of the beautiful Princess Cassima and sets sail for her home in the Green Isles, but is shipwrecked in a storm. Alexander washes up onshore alone with nothing but the clothes on his back and some ship wreckage. He soon learns that Cassima is being held prisoner in her castle by Abdul Alhazred, the evil Vizier of the Green Isles who has murdered the King and Queen and plans to force Cassima to marry him so that he can rule himself. Alexander must expose the Vizier's plot, stop the wedding, and free Cassima. Alexander also discovers that the islands of the kingdom are on the verge of war. Precious artifacts from each island have been stolen, and the different leaders all blame each other. This is widely recognized as the high point of the King's Quest series for its in-depth plot, landmark 3D graphic introduction movie, and professional voice acting. Hollywood actor Robby Benson provides the voice for Prince Alexander, the game's protagonist. KQVI was the last King's Quest game to be released on floppy disc. A CD-ROM version of the game was also released in 1993, include more character voices, a slightly different opening movie, more detailed artwork and animation, both DOS and Windows versions, and the Girl in the Tower theme song. | ||
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| L.A. Law: The Game | Synergistic Software / Capstone | [top] | |
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A shallow courtroom game based on blockbuster TV series of the same name, L.A. Law is an ambitious design that is ultimately flawed due to logic inconsistencies and limited interaction. As an associate working for a large L.A. law firm, you must take on assignments from senior partners. Choose to play as either Jonathan, Abby, or Victor, all of whom are rising stars in the TV show. Each time you defend a client successfully in court, you are given a new assignment and a chance at being promoted. The game ends when you climb to the highest rank in the firm and elicit congratulations from the founding partners. The game is divided into several cases, starting with "The Wrathful Race," in which you must prove your client's innocence in a car crash. You have a limited time to prepare each case before being ushered into court, and every action takes time in the game so you must carefully decide what to do. The problem is, sometimes that is not very logical. You can use the library to research past cases, in hopes of finding legal techniques and information that pertain to your own case. You also can ask various senior partners in the firm for advice, which are generally very valuable and tell you exactly what to do next. These take time, however, so you must use this "hint" function sparingly. When you feel you are prepared to go to trial, you can go to court any time you want. The courtroom sequence is much better than pre-trial, since there are several actions you can take, and the final judgement can vary depending on how good your arguments or pre-trial preparation is. You can, for example, raise objections to the opposing counsel's questions, move for a mistrial, or even request continuance from the judge if you feel you need more preparation (this is hardly granted). Although your questions to the witnesses and their responses are "canned," it is still fun to watch their reaction and effects on the opposing lawyers. | ||
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| L'Eternauta [It] | Holodream Software | [top] | |
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This is another Italian adventure in the series with Flash Gordon, Mandrake, and Yellow Kid that were made in collaboration with Roma Comic Art. The Eternaut is an Argentinian science fiction comic created by Héctor Oesterheld and Francisco Solano López. It follows the story of a time traveller who wanders through the space-time continuum in search for his original temporal dimension. In this video game adaptation produced by the Italian publisher of the comic, the Eternaut appears in a future Rome that is being overrun by aliens. He must travel back in time to investigate the origin of the invasion and stop it. The game essentially plays like an action adventure. The player controls the Eternaut across two-dimensional screens and interacts with people, objects and exits, occasionally having to fight aliens or robots using his bare hands or a laser gun. A combination of mouse and keyboard control allows the player to move, jump, crouch, attack, interact with the environment or use items in the inventory. It has annoying little robots in the catacombs, and you have to collect nuts of different colors. You have to eventually reach areas where you have to pull a lever to procede. | ||
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| Last Half Of Darkness II | SoftLab Laboratories | [top] | |
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This sequel to the first Last Half of Darkness picks off where Part I ended. The player wakes up in a strange room alone, near a dungeon. The girl whom the player saved in the first chapter of the saga is nowhere to be found, and the player soon discovers that she is going to be sacrificed to some ancient volcano deity. You must stop this and sail away with the girl. The game uses the same engine from Part I. The atmosphere is a bit different and more various in comparison to Part I, but it maintains the same horror-type feel. | ||
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| Last in Amsterdam [Du] | John Vanderaart / Computer! Totaal | [top] | |
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This text adventure was included for free with a Dutch computer magazine. People who played through the game before the first of February 1993, had a chance to win some prizes. I'm not sure if anyone did win something eventually. Our hero is called Geurt, a farmerboy from West-Friesland (a part in the north of Holland). His brother and sister went to Amsterdam a few weeks ago and nobody has heard from them since. Do they have a job, do they have money, are they still alive, do they want to go back home, are they well fed, is there cable TV? All questions that Geurt wants answered. One day, Geurt takes a decision: "Off to the big city!". He kisses his mother, takes his suitcase and drives off on his motorcycle. "I'll be back for dinner!", he calls. How should this end? Geurt never ventured outside the village before and has yet to be confronted with theft, beggars, trams and bars. It's your job to help Geurt find his brother and sister. | ||
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| Leather Goddesses Of Phobos 2 | Activision Publishing / Infocom | [top] | |
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This is a graphic adventure sequel to the original text adventure. In the beginning, you can choose to play as either Zeke, Lydia, or Barth the alien who crash-landed on earth. Despite this illusion of longevity, each path you take can be finished in a few hours - there are few items to use, and you don't even need to use everything you can take. Playing Lydia is exactly the same as playing Zeke's game, except that you screw males instead of females, and Barth's path is even shorter. Because the game uses a one-click-does-all scheme, you can finish the game merely by clicking madly everywhere on the screen (it's not easy separating items that can be picked up from the rest). Overall, the game is a big disappointment and a disgrace to the Infocom name. Juvenile dialogues, insipid puzzles, and out-of-place "mature" content. | ||
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| Legend of Kyrandia | Westwood Studios / Avalon Interactive | [top] | |
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This first part of a trilogy of classic adventure games was made by Westwood which later became more famous for its Command & Conquer strategy games. Designed with visual appeal as well as storyline, this classic spawned two sequels and gained quite a following. In this game you play the role of Brandon, grandson of Kallak - a wizard of the realm of Kyrandia. Malcolm, a psychotic jester imprisoned in the past by Kallak, has broken free and wishes to take over the land as well as lay down his revenge on Kallak whomo he then turns into stone leaving him with only his eyes, so that he can see and cry for Kyrandia's ruin. This is where Brandon steps in; returning home shortly afterwards only to find that his grandfather has been turned into stone, Brandon is being told by a messenger from the Realm of the Land that he has been chosen to embark on a journey that will rid this realm of Malcolm and his evil. This is a 3rd person, point and click game with a friendly interface and inventory which includes an Amulet to hold the spells you acquire, and the CD version has music and voice (both Brandon's complaints and Malcolm's wisecracks are delightful). The charming story is set in a beautifully rendered world of enchanted forests and pools and caverns, and the mood is consistently upbeat. All the graphics are lustrously illustrated in VGA resolution. Over 100 rendered scenes are overlaid with animations. | ||
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| Les Manley 2 In: Lost In L.A. | Manley And Associates / Accolade | [top] | |
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In this sequel, Helmut the Human Bean, Les' best friend from the first game, has been kidnapped from his mansion in LA, and it's up to our bumbling nerd again to the rescue. It's an inferior game compared to the first. It uses now a point-and-click interface that changes depending on where the cursor is (e.g. "Talk" to character, "Move" in default, and so on), without giving you the ability to choose among different icons. Puzzles are few and far between, and you'll be forced to watched contrite sophomoric dialogues one after another that tries very hard to be funny. Fortunately, the game is even shorter than its predecessor, meaning you won't have to tolerate it for long. | ||
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| Lost Files Of Sherlock Holmes: Case Of The Serrated Scalpel | Mythos Software / Electronic Arts | [top] | |
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London, 1888. Sherlock Holmes, the world's most famous private investigator, and his faithful companion Dr. Watson, are called to the scene of a gruesome crime: a young actress has been murdered in an alley behind her theatre. Not surprisingly, Scotland Yard's Inspector Lestrade is clueless. Was it the work of the Ripper? Sherlock Holmes is not so sure - the circumstantial evidence indicates a much more intricate crime. The game is a classical crime story with two distinguished, sympathetic protagonists. In the role of Sherlock Holmes, you travel through London in the search for clues. Interesting locations are gradually added to a city map. Your most important source of information are dialogues with suspects, witnesses and other people – and with Dr. Watson, who will readily comment on the situation. When talking to persons, you may chose one of several lines that seems most appropriate. Watson notes down all conversations in his journal, where you can access them if needed. Pleasingly true to the novels, Holmes will solve many puzzles through sharp observations and thorough searches of every location (thus discovering clues and deducing connections) as well as clever interrogations. The handling of the game by means of verbs is simple and accurate. Readers of the Sherlock Holmes stories will recognize many acquaintances, from Lestrade to Miss Hudson, from Inspector Gregson to Toby the hound. The game's introduction, cut-scenes and ending feature digitized speech. All the old Victorian London backdrops, including 50 authentic locations, are drawn in full 256 color VGA graphics. There is some background music and sound effects are present in a lot of situations but not everywhere. Spoken text dialogues are present in the intro and some of the cut scenes. The 3DO version features digitized voices, sound tracks, and animations not found in the original version. | ||
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| Lost Treasures of Infocom II | Infocom / Activision Inc. | [top] | |
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This is a compilation of 11 computer games from interactive fiction pioneer Infocom games: Border Zone, A Mind Forever Voyaging, Plundered Hearts, Bureaucracy, Cutthroats, Hollywood Hijinx, Seastalker, Sherlock Holmes: The Riddle of the Crown Jewels, Wishbringer, Nord and Bert Couldn't Make Head or Tail of It, and Trinity. The CD-ROM Release contains 3 extra adventure games created by the Staff of Infocom: Arthur, Journey, and Shogun. | ||
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| Lure Of The Temptress | Revolution Software / Virgin Interactive Entertainment | [top] | |
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Lure of the Temptress is a fantasy point-and-click adventure game with comedic elements. It was the first game developed by Revolution Software and was the debut for their own in-house developed Virtual Theatre game engine which Revolution's later games, Beneath a Steel Sky and the Broken Sword series, would utilise. You are a young man named Diermot, who was living a quiet pastoral life in a peaceful kingdom until the King conscripted you to serve in his army. It seems that he recently received news of a revolt in the hamlet of Turnvale, orchestrated by a young and beautiful apprentice sorceress named Selena. Much to his surprise (and yours!), he was met not by peasants armed with pitchforks, but by a horde of grotesque gargoyle-like creatures: vicious mercenaries known as 'The Skorl'. The king and all of his men were killed. Except you. You fell off of your horse and were knocked unconscious. You awaken in a dungeon in Turnvale, the prisoner of the cruel Temptress Selena with an unfriendly Skorl guard just outside the door. Your sidekick, Ratpouch practically steals the show with his observations and wisecracks. Plus you can tell him to do almost anything (complex commands), and he will do it. And the tongue-in-cheek humor of the other 'locals' is just as good, particularly from one or two of the regulars who hang out at the pub. In August 2003, the game was released as freeware. | ||
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| Mandrake: L'Ombra del Cobra [It] | Comic Art / Holodream Software | [top] | |
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This is an Italian game based on Lee Falk's comic strip "Mandrake the Magician". Lothar has died under unclear circumstances and Mandrake examines some tracks. He comes to a seemingly deserted mansion and discovers the body of a man with a bag. Possibly a thief who tried to break in. Behind it all we glimpse the shadow of Mandrake's archenemy, the Cobra. | ||
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| Mel Odius Goes Six String Searchin' | Worwyk Software | [top] | |
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This is an animated graphic adventure in which you play the role of Mel Odius, an up-and-coming young guitarist who is about to get that big break. He has a small problem, though. The problem is that his guitar has been stolen! Your objective is to help Mel find his guitar. You must wander around town in search of his precious guitar, and you must find it tonight because his big showcase for the record executives is the next morning. As you move about town, you will find a variety of objects which will help you in your quest. You will also meet some interesting characters in the various establishments throughout the small town. Some will help; others will ignore you. You must deal with all these people, however, since someone must know who stole your guitar. The game uses VGA graphics (the scenes are only 16-color but they were drawn using a VGA palette so they will not work in EGA). | ||
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| Murder Makes Strange Deadfellows | Tiger Media | [top] | |
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This is a standard "Whodunit?" mystery game. You play the role of Nick Steere, you and your family have gathered for the will reading of your great uncle Randolph Steere. After the will has been read a friend of Randolph tells of a newer will hidden somewhere in the house. Naturally, wanting the truth to be exposed, you set off to find the new will, and also find out if Randolph's death was really an accident (notice the game's title). The twist in this game is that the house is full of ghosts who will aid you as well as scare you. The graphics have a comic book style, no animation, just pictures with voices that reminded me very much of reading a comic book. The problem is that the graphic artist was a bit lazy, so after a while you'll easily recognize the recurring pictures of the characters who seem to be just pasted on the background. Playing the game is very simple. You have a certain amount of "time" to search the rooms and gather clues, after the time is up (or you think you heard and saw enough), you choose the person or place that has the will. Gameplay is almost non-existent, you merely click on the room you want to search and a non interactive sequence is triggered in which you discover the clues in that specific room in that time. Going to different rooms at different times yields different results naturally, however you never deduct anything from those clues. For example, in one occasion I saw a character enter a secret door, naturally by going to the room the character was just in you will open the door too and reveal what is behind it. However, it isn't necessary to view the other character open the door, if you choose that specific room in that specific time in the game you will ALWAYS get the same sequence of opening the secret door. In the end, poor graphics and boring gameplay (which consists of clicking on rooms and viewing a long sequence), ruin what could have been a very good idea. It deserves mention as one of the first CD-ROM only games ever made but it's a shame it wasn't more interactive. | ||
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| Nippon Safes Inc. | Dynabyte | [top] | |
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This is a little known prequel to Big Red Adventure, a cartoon adventure by Italian developer Dynabyte. Like in its followup, you take the role of three different heroes (though, opposite to Goblins series, one at time). They are Doug, the smart safe cracker; Dino, the strong, but dumb, boxer; and Donna, the sexy club dancer. The gameplay takes place in Tokyo. While all three characters explore almost the same areas, each of the heroes has its own story to follow and puzzles to solve. You can choose which character would you like to play first, and which lastly. When you have finished all three sub-plots, you'll get a final with all three characters acting altogether. The game features cartoonish, comics-style graphics, unique icon-based interface and non-linear plot. It is also full of Italian humor, and the game is played more like a comedy, rather then crime-based adventure (unlike The Clue!). The interface recalls Activision's later Return To Zork, with pop-up icons that change depending on items and situation. Overall, it's a fun above-average game with logical puzzles. In Mar/2021, the game was made freeware by the developers. | ||
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| Plan 9 From Outer Space | Gremlin Ireland / Gremlin Graphics Software / Konami | [top] | |
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The movie Plan 9 From Outer Space is a cult classic and regarded as the worst film ever made. Its director was Ed Wood considered the worst director of all time. In the game, the producer of the film has noticed that it's been stolen by Bela Lugosi's double. Though he remained faceless, he intends to bring glory to the cult classic using more footage of himself... and colorizing it! As the studio's Private Eye, your job is to find the 6 reels and screen the film, frame-by-frame, to ensure that the warped actor did not cut Bela from the flick (although just about any editing will make it better). There's over 70 locations to explore. Using the interface, you can combine up to three actions at a time from a list of available verbs, so there is flexibility and lots of things to try. | ||
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| Police Quest 1 VGA Remake | Sierra On-Line | [top] | |
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In this enhanced VGA version of the original Police Quest, the remake replaces the original cartoon like characters with video captured human actors and adds full color VGA graphics. It uses an upgraded interpreter called SCI (Sierra Creative Interpreter) which adds high resolution VGA graphics with digitized music and a point and click interface. The game’s theme music is context sensitive, from the jukebox music playing in the bar to the background blues melody playing in the stripper joint. | ||
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| Quest For Glory 1 VGA Remake | Sierra On-Line | [top] | |
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This is a 256-color version of the RPG adventure Hero's Quest with a brand new interface. The remake features VGA graphics (most of the locations and character graphics were completely re-done), and a new, icon-based interface (instead of the text input in the original). You select dialogue choices from a dialogue menu, instead of typing conversation topics by yourself. Combat engine and some dialogues were also re-made. It uses video-captured clay-animation action, all new digitized color art, and a full, rich stereo soundtrack. | ||
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| Quest For Glory 3: Wages of War | Sierra On-Line | [top] | |
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The third game in Quest for Glory series is set in the Africa-like world of Tarna, where you travel with your new liontaur friends you have met in the second game. Shortly after your arrival, you learn about the conflict between the liontaurs and the neighbor Simbani village, populated by the leopardmen. It is now time for our hero to become a skillful diplomat and to prevent an upcoming war between the two nations. The gameplay system of "Wages of War" is the same as in the two previous games. The game plays like an adventure, with puzzles to solve and characters to talk to, with the additional of RPG elements: combat (action-based) and character development. You can play as either a fighter, a thief, a mage, or a paladin, and raise your skills directly after battles or by performing various actions. Graphics and interface underwent a major change. This is the first 256-color Quest for Glory game, and the first one to utilize the new, icon-based interface. | ||
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| Refixion II: Museum or Hospital [MAC] | Synergy Inc. | [top] | |
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This was the second eerie CD-ROM art game with 3D graphics in the Sound And Sight Series for MAC only. It's from the Japanese publisher of Gadget and L-ZONE. | ||
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| Rex Nebular And The Cosmic Gender Bender | MicroProse Software | [top] | |
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Rex Nebular is the first graphic adventure produced by Microprose. It was developed using the Microprose Adventure Development system, and made use of 256-colour graphics. Rex Nebular, a character who resembles Han Solo of StarWars, is the space smuggler pilot of a specially altered cargo ship called the Slippery Pig, which was modeled after the Millenium Falcon. Rex is mostly a down-on-his-luck pilot who will do almost anything for money where galactic deliveries are concerned. Rex gets a job from Colonel Stone, a wealthy Elvis Impersonator, to retrieve a valuable vase from Terra Androgena, a planet populated only by xenophobic women. Apparently, Terra Androgena's biology proficient women killed all of the technology proficient men in the Gender Wars, and promptly used a cloaking device to cause the planet to disappear. In order to reproduce without men, the women invented the extremely distasteful Gender Bender, a machine which turns women into men and vice versa. Rex discovers Terra Androgena, and his ship is immediately disabled by a planetary defense craft. The Slippery Pig crashes beneath the sea and Rex must find the vase on a planet of hostile women. Rex also finds the need to use the gender bender to change into a woman in order to avoid detection by the women who populate the planet and obtain essential artifacts. | ||
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| Ringworld: Revenge of the Patriarch | Tsunami Games / Accolade | [top] | |
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The first release from Tsunami Media is a disappointing adventure despite having a powerful license behind it. Based on Larry Niven's Hugo and Nebula award-winning novel, Ringworld eschews the book's plot and instead cast you as Quinn, a human "problem solver" who has to deliver an infodisk for Louis Wu, hero of the novel. The premise is intriguing enough: the infodisk said you were to deliver a warning. Unfortunately for you, it never mentioned an insane Patriarch, Kzinti assassins or Puppeteer genocide. A tangled web of intrigue brings you to form an unlikely team with Seeker, a vengeful Kzin, and Miranda, a kidnapped woman engineer. The Kzinti are on the warpath, the Puppeteers claim innocence, and the vast, mysterious Ringworld holds the answer. Despite this promising start, it degenerates into a poor click-and-wait kind of game: puzzles are few and far between, and you will sit and watch Quinn solve most interesting obstacles on his own, without your involvement. Worse still, most puzzles, whenever they appear, range from boring to downright pointless. After watching the heroes haplessly look for his own belongings one too many times, you'll wonder why he's worthy of Louis Wu's mission. The n on-interactive sequences can last minutes or more, and although they are generally well-scripted, they will make you wonder whether you're watching a poor Ringworld movie instead of playing a game. Die-hard Niven fans or adventure game beginners who want a game they can easily complete in one sitting may still enjoy it. Anyone interested in a good game based on Niven's novel should play the much-better sequel Return to Ringworld instead. | ||
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| Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective Volume 2 | Viacom / ICOM Simulations | [top] | |
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"What they said about Sherlock I, you'll say about Sherlock II"...reads the advert in the box, based on the nice critics about Volume I. The same video technology keeps offering a true interactive environment: actually letting you "feel" the traffic in the streets of the old London. The same structure brings a familiar look, inviting you to channel all your attention to the task of solving mysteries: your intelligence, skills and patience are required to find clues by listening to people, observing details, or even reading the London Times - but don't let yourself be misguided by a wrong hint. In this volume there's the same number of cases: 3. But, each situation is completely different: "The Two Lions" involves the murder of circus lions, "The Pilfered Paintings" are ones just bought by The National Gallery, and "The Murdered Munitions Magnate" where hints reveal different possible motives...have nothing in common, except the detective in charge: you. | ||
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| Soul Crystal [G] | Avantgardistic Arts / Starbyte Software | [top] | |
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Your name is Dave, and these are your first holidays you're spending alone, without your parents. You're resting in a hotel near a mysterious loch in scottland. You go swimming in the lake and dive through a waterfall - on the other side of it, you're finding yourself in a strange fantasy-like world. The game is a mixture of a graphical and text adventure. All actions can be performed by typing or by clicking on the icons. Soul Crystal is one of the better German-made text adventures, with a fun and interesting story, a fairly good parser, and a mouse-driven interface. The plot sounds as if it were inspired by Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. The game is very nicely presented with excellent music and (small) graphics. Probably one of the last commercial games of its kind. | ||
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| Space Adventure | Knowledge Adventure, Inc. | [top] | |
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The universe is at your fingertips in this interactive adventure through space. Read about WWII rockets, eclipses, how humans might live in space colonies, and more. Watch Voyager flybys, Apollo launches, former President John F. Kennedy challenge America to go to the moon, computer simulations, and other videos. By clicking on objects on the screen, you can zoom to other topics on space. Space Adventure even covers some science fiction, too. The whole thing is like a really big encyclopedia covering, space, our solar system, space probes, aliens, and other stuff that a budding astronomer could want to know. It also features Caltech's Tom McDonough and astronaut Buzz Aldrin. This game came with Packard Bell computers in the early to mid 90's. It came on a CD-ROM, along with other Knowledge Adventure titles, like Undersea Adventure, Speed, and a Knowledge Adventure demo of other products. | ||
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| Spellcasting 301: Spring Break | Steve Meretzky / Legend Entertainment Company | [top] | |
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This third game in the humorous trilogy is the last and best game and once again puts you in the shoes of bumbling nerd sorceror Ernie Eaglebeak as he joins his fraternity brothers on a spring break. The game is somewhat difficult, though not frustrating, and there are multiple solutions to many puzzles, some of which are optional (i.e. you don't need to solve them to win the game, although it's a lot more fun to do so). A clever plot twist and surprise ending will delight fans of the series and provides excellent closure. | ||
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| T-zero | Dennis Cunningham | [top] | |
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T-Zero is a highly unusual piece of epic interactive fiction, playing in a Lewis Carroll-like surreal surrounding, with a strong emphasis on word puzzles. The game starts with you awakening in a River Bed. You have to explore your surroundings to find six objects, "scattered across ages and landscapes", to transport them "to progressively future time zones where they can right the troubled times." The puzzles are quite hard, as they often use puns (as in Infocom's Nord and Bert) or elements of Western pop culture (like the Beatles). Non-native English speakers could have a hard time to solve this game. The parser of T-Zero is quite unusual, powerful but tricky. It understands uncommon verbs like IMAGINE (this one allows you to visualize objects and locations have not encountered). Still, it sometimes is quite touchy and requests you to type the exact phrase it wants. The game also contains a hint system. | ||
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| Vision: The 5 Dimension Utopia [G] | BBDO Interactive / Ad Games / LBS | [top] | |
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This is a German advertising game for the German building society LBS, who sold it rather cheaply in its branches. The year is 2022, and the setting is Rockefellow Tower (a building floating on the South Pacific Ocean). There is a plot to sabotage the project which you must stop. You've got to work in order to make money for food and the rent of your suite while staying healthy through sleeping and eating enough. The common way to earn money is playing mostly action-oriented mini-games or doing smaller quest (or rather tasks), which also are part of the plot of the game. Let's grab you by the plethora of unique features in this thrilling adventure: the atmosphere of an interactive film; you experience this adventure from the first-person perspective. It's seen in a wide strip, which frames a consistently sustained large field of view, a variety of scanned airbrush graphics, maximum color variety and the situation-related music and sound effects of an "interactive movie" impression. In addition, a super soft scrolling, realistic graphics and many, many animations support this impression. In this game, everything is in it, but just the linguistic diversity of the dialogues and your question and possible answers result in a seemingly infinite amount of game Chronicles. The dependencies resulting from simulated, more or less friendly relations of the game characters to each other, increase the realistic impression of a genuine interactivity. "Levelmaps" are supplied directly and are available at the Central info lift at any time. Should you still not get further, there is also in-game help. | ||
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| Volcano! Mount Saint Helens | Meed Software / Home Learning Software | [top] | |
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On Sunday, May 18, 1980, a catastrophic eruption of St. Helens volcano occurred in the southwestern state of Washington, which caused massive destruction and claimed the lives of more than fifty people. Over the next few years, this tragic event was captured in literature, in cinema, and even in symphonic music - and then came the turn of computer games. Somewhere already in 1982, when the software was distributed mostly in paper form, a simulator of the same eruption adapted by Pete Cherwinski for the Tandy platform in Basic language appeared in one of the magazines. Three to four years later, another enthusiast, Ed Greeney from New Jersey, presented version number 7.0 which dates back to February 1992 - and became available to the general public exactly on the day of the fortieth anniversary of the largest volcano eruption in the history of the United States thanks to the courtesy of the famous collector and YouTube star Clint Basinger. A computerized story about St. Helens was distributed formally in the status of rather Shareware, but it was completely free, because it had no restrictions on use. "Volcano!"- as one of the distributors called this little thing, a certain Home Learning Software from North Carolina, - or "Mount Saint Helens: Review Program and Survival Simulation", - as it is called on the screen saver screen, - consists of three different parts, which you should get acquainted with strictly sequentially. The first component is called “Volcanoes” and is a short - on several screens - mini-textbook with information about the nature, types and classes of these geological formations. After a little enlightenment in this area of earth science, we move on to the history section of Mount St. Helens itself; detailed textual material is available by clicking on the icon in the lower left corner of the start screen of this episode (although in modern conditions it is just not more convenient to read the Info.txt text file using system tools), while the arrow on the lower right will indicate the path to a much more visual and entertaining things. After such a thorough acquaintance with the hero of the day, backed up by a slide show of seven consecutive photographs of the eruption, we find ourselves in the most remarkable - and actually “gaming” - section “Mount Saint Helens”. Namely, a text simulator of survival in the conditions of the awakening of the volcano, compiled from the memoirs of about three hundred witnesses, caught near the mountain and, as a result, safely saved. There are no illustrations in sight here, and everything that happens will remind you of the Interactive Fiction genre. Although typing manually will not be necessary either: we will be given a brief description of the situation - and several options for the available actions to choose from, only one of which will be correct, while all the others will lead to immediate death (and will force the entire adventure to pass from the very beginning). For example, after a small earthquake and an explosion of the upper part of the mountain, when a dense cloud of black smoke begins to move in our direction, you can either take pictures or try to climb higher. | ||
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| Waxworks | Horrorsoft / Accolade | [top] | |
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This is a nice horror RPG adventure. As a child, you were never taught of your family's dark secret - a whole history of 'evil twins' doing Satan's work on earth, and 'good twins' attempting to put this right. Your uncle informs you of this shortly before his death, and after travelling to his castle you find that you must travel through time to correct these wrongdoings. Through a range of murals at your uncle's house, various past scenes must be entered, with more becoming available as you complete them. In each you must find and kill your demented relative in time. The game's controls are point and click, with the interface allowing you to examine and collect objects, select a weapon, and attack potential foes by striking at a particular part of their body. | ||
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| Weird Island | Kevin A. Lee | [top] | |
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Weird Island is a graphic adventure which uses an original 'point and click' interface, eradicating the need for typing of complex sentences. It features graphic illustrations of every location from a first person perspective. This allows you to take part in the game as yourself not some computer character. The plot of the game is as follows: Leafing through the newspaper one morning you come across a notice requesting your presence at 'HUGH, PUGH and BARNEY-MAGREW Solicitors to Elizabeth Taylor.' Puzzled (and who wouldn't be), the next day you visit the solicitors where you are told that you have come into possession of a remote island paradise. The island was apparently claimed by five galley slaves many, many years ago; one of whom was your ancestor (its nice to know who your descended from). Ownership of the island passes between the families of the founders every 100 years and your family is next in line to do with the island what you wish. You were supposed to be told this by the previous owner of the island but he seems to have conveniently disappeared. Anyway, the solicitors suggest you go out to the island to see for yourself. Strangely, you feel happy to oblige. | ||
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Adventure related
| Alcatraz | 221B Software Development / Infogrames Europe SA | [top] | |
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A drug baron took over Alcatraz prison and now the player takes the role of an U.S. Navy Seal to break in and neutralize him. He has two hours to complete his objectives in three buildings and needs to survive two different playing styles: side-scrolling fighting on the streets and first-person shooting inside. Outside, the goal is to reach the building in which the objectives have to be completed. Of course the baron's thugs are not too pleased and try to kill the hero - so he has to shoot back with a many different weapons, e.g. flamethrowers, machine guns, bombs, and other destructive or close combat weapons, which can be collected from dead enemies. Similarly to Hostage: Rescue Mission, he can also hide in the background in certain spots. Once inside a building, the game switches to a first-person view, in which the player has to navigate a maze to reach his goal, e.g. recovering evidence. To his disposal are a radar and a rifle. | ||
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| All Music Guide | Michael Erlewine / SelectWare | [top] | |
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The first All Music Guide, published in 1992, was a 1,200-page reference book, packaged with a CD-ROM, titled All Music Guide: The Best CDs, Albums & Tapes: The Expert's Guide to the Best Releases from Thousands of Artists in All Types of Music. Its first online version, in 1994, was a text-based Gopher site. It moved to the World Wide Web as web browsers became more user-friendly. 1,400 subgenres of music were created, a feature that became central to the site's utility. Features: 200,000+ separate albums; 30,000 artists and groups; 190,000 sidemen and instruments; 70,000 in-print classical albums; 120,000 separate classical compositions; 7,000 music books and magazines; 600 essays, instrument maps, articles, resources, mail order numbers, etc.; 800 musical term glossary; Plus Ratings and reviews by 150 of the country's best music reviewers, and reviews from more than 60 music magazines. Search by: Artist or group; Album title; Sidemen and instrument; Song title; Music categories (jazz, blues, folk, reggae, etc.); Music styles (hard-bop, salsa, rockabilly, etc.); Record company; CDs, LPs, Cassettes; Ratings and reviews. Search classical: Composer; Composition; Conductor; Orchestra. Special features allow users to mark records they own or want to buy. By 1999, 350,000 albums and two million tracks had been cataloged. All Music had published biographies of 30,000 artists, 120,000 record reviews and 300 essays written by "a hybrid of historians, critics and passionate collectors". | ||
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| Batman Returns | Spirit of Discovery / Konami Corporation | [top] | |
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A very disappointing adaptation of the blockbuster movie license, Batman Returns is a hodge-podge of elements from adventure, action, and role-playing genres, the whole of which is much less than sum of its parts. The plot loosely (make that very loosely) follows that of the 1992 movie Batman Returns starring Michael Keaton. If you want to understand the plot, seeing the film is a prerequisite to playing, since the game has plot holes large enough to drive the Batmobile through, and never explains why you, as Batman, are doing what you are doing. Although you can control Batman as he battles his foes, that control is limited to selecting weapons, and setting the 'ferocity' of Batman's attack. The battles are not very interactive, since batman seems to win easily no matter which weapon he chooses, although they are fun to watch. To add insult to injury, certain objects and people will appear in certain locations only during particular times of the virtual "day." Often the time of their appearance is a mystery without any clues, meaning that you will need to retrace your steps to various locations over and over again until someone or something shows up. This adds a level of complexity, but in a way that is unfair to the player. Puzzles are limited to scanning the various objects into the evidence monitor to further the plot, given of course that you are there at the right time when they show up. In the final analysis, Batman Returns is only an average adventure that could have been so much more. It's only recommended for dedicated bat-fans, and perhaps those who are new to the adventure genre. | ||
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| Beauty and the Beast: A Multimedia Storybook | Judith K. Jones / Ebook Inc | [top] | |
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Multimedia Storybooks are designed specifially for the Multimedia Personal computer, and immerses the reader in the world of make-believe. These magical electronic books involve children and parents alike in a story they will want to return to again and again. This presents the most romantic fairy tale of all with original illustrations, musical score and a magical animated transformation at the end. The story can be interactively read (the complete narration is recorded on the disc) and has highlighted text used to define difficult words. Every picture contains musical surprises to delight young readers. | ||
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| Bomberman / Dyna Blaster | Hudson Soft Company Ltd. / Ubi Soft Entertainment Software | [top] | |
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The black spaceman kidnapped Bomberman's beloved and brought her to his chambers in the castle, far beyond his reach, over the rivers, forest and mountains. Bomberman's job is to save her, battling the sea of the enemies, with only bombs at his disposal. The range of Bomberman's bomb explosions can be upgraded with time, but if he dies, the range resets back to the minimum range and Bomberman loses his previous skills. Some updates can make Bomberman walk through the walls, increase his speed, and give him some other assets to aid him in his quest to save the woman he loves. This top-down action-arcade game consists of nine levels per stage, each tougher than the other, and each final one consisting of the boss that will have to be dealt with. Bomberman can move horizontally and vertically and lay down bombs behind him, thus evaporating the enemies, but beware: Bomberman can block himself with his own bomb, and thus become a victim of his own bomb. | ||
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| Contraption Zack | Presage Software, Inc. / Mindscape, Inc. | [top] | |
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It's Zack's first day on the job as a repairman at GadgetCo, and the whole factory is falling apart. He must navigate over 60 rooms, avoiding deadly traps, to find his missing tools and fix the incredibly complicated, interconnected machinery. Before Twinsen's Odyssey and long before Alone in the Dark, this is among the first games that successfully combined physical puzzles, action, and adventure elements into a fine game. Your job is to help Zack the clueless mechanic pass various levels by using his tools to fix things and pass nasty traps. The game is somewhat reminiscent of Epyx classic Chip's Challenge, but played in a more attractive isometric board, with more parts and items to manipulate. Definitely one of the most original puzzle/adventure games to come along in a long time. Anyone who likes this game should try out its "sequel" of sorts D/Generation, which uses the same engine but focuses more on action and adventure elements. | ||
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| Countdown | The Voyager Company | [top] | |
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This innovative program uses three challenging games - Nimbles, Leftovers, and Guestimation - to build intuition and math skills. Whether its young users are counting noodles, pennies, gumballs, or bites out of an apple, Countdown applies new approaches to mathematical concepts. Players can alter the difficulty along with the number of objects and nature of the groupings, so they never get bored (or find out that math isn't supposed to be fun). | ||
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| Crow, or How Ivan the Fool Went for Treasure [Ru] | ONP Software | [top] | |
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Russian parody game tells the story of Ivan the Fool's campaign to get treasure of while meeting characters of Russian fairy tales. It's a sequence of several unpretentious arcade mini-games, the only unifying element of which is the very name of the crow, always present as a decorative or interactive element in each of them. It has 6 different games with different genres - fights, racing, puzzle and walker. It has very good graphics (there is a change of day and night). Meet the scientist cat in Lukomorie with rejuvenating apples, catch up with Emeli to the hut on chicken legs, find Baba Yaga's secret location to get a magic weapon that can defeat the evil Serpent Dragon guarding the treasure which falls in the swamp in The Frog Princess. You can choose from three difficulty levels that affect the health of the starting opponents, their aggressiveness, the distance between the hummocks in the marsh, and other factors designed to complicate the life of the player. | ||
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| Don Quixote: A Multimedia Storybook | Ebook Inc. | [top] | |
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This is one of a series of multimedia interactive cd-roms of classic literature. This talking Multimedia Storybook, designed specifically for the Multimedia Personal Computer, immerses the reader in the world of Miguel de Cervantes classic novel. The plot revolves around the adventures of a noble (hidalgo) from La Mancha named Alonso Quixano, who reads so many chivalric romances that he loses his mind and decides to become a knight-errant (caballero andante) to revive chivalry and serve his nation, under the name Don Quixote de la Mancha. He recruits a simple farmer, Sancho Panza, as his squire, who often employs a unique, earthy wit in dealing with Don Quixote's rhetorical monologues on knighthood, already considered old-fashioned at the time. Don Quixote, in the first part of the book, does not see the world for what it is and prefers to imagine that he is living out a knightly story. Using a combination of original Animation, Art and Music, kids enjoy a fascinating array of moving pictures. beautiful music and colorful graphics. The story can be interactively read (the complete narration is recorded on the disc) and has highlighted text used to define difficult words and associated sounds. The disc is also designed so the story narration and music tracks can be enjoyed by playing on a standard audio CD player. | ||
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| Double Dragon III: The Rosetta Stone | East Technology Corp. / Tradewest, Inc., Storm | [top] | |
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The final game in the trilogy. Billy and Jimmy Lee are returning from martial arts training when their paths cross a fortune teller. She tells them of a great evil in Egypt, their strongest adversary yet, and how the Rosetta Stones can aid them. This game features weapon shops where Billy and Jimmy can buy power-ups, tricks, energy and extra lives to aid them in their quest. Power-ups make Billy and Jimmy twice their size, increasing their damage done and range of attack. The character graphics have changed, moving away from cartoon style graphics to more realistic looking characters. | ||
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| Dune | Cryo Interactive / Virgin Games Inc. | [top] | |
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Dune is based on the legendary Frank Herbert novel and movie adaptation
which goes by the same name, while introducing interactive elements to the gameplay.
The game in itself is a strategy/adventure type of game, in which you play the role
of young Paul Atreides, the son of Duke Leto. The Emperor has sent you and your
house to the desolate desert planet Arrakis (Dune) in order to manage the
extraction of the most precious substance in the entire universe - the Spice. From
this point on you will have to rally the native Fremen people as a working force in
the extraction of spice, as fighting force in your endless battle against the
Atreides' natural rivals, the Harkonnens, and eventually as ecologists in the quest
of making Dune a habitable world. Throughout this adventure you will discover
secret, unnatural forces you never knew you had, find your destined love and
discover the truth about the nature of the planet's huge killers, the Sandworms.
A year later in 1993, it was one of the first floppy games to be converted to CD
format, which included footage of the David Lynch movie, and highly improved,
3D-rendered travelling and location screens.
See also: #Dune 2000 |
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| Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty | Westwood Studios, Inc. / Virgin Games, Ltd. | [top] | |
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The planet Arrakis (also known as Dune for its sandy landscape) is the only place in the known universe where Melange (more commonly known as the Spice) can be found. The Spice is the basis of interstellar travel and thus the standard of the Imperial economy. To increase productivity, The Padishah Emperor has invited three powerful Houses (Harkonnen, Atreides and Ordos) to compete against one another economically and bring up spice production. Competition among these houses begins peacefully but soon turns ugly as they battle each other with armed troops, advanced weaponry, and spies. The planet itself is also hostile, with dangerous sandworms inhabiting the spice fields. Dune II is often considered the first mainstream modern real-time strategy game and established many conventions of the genre (Command & Conquer later used the same engine). Even though set in Frank Herbert's famous Dune universe, the game is only loosely connected to the plot of any of the books or the films based from them. Controlling either of the three Houses, the player must fight a number of battles against the other Houses. In the early levels, the goal is simply to earn a certain number of credits, while in the later missions, all enemies must be destroyed. The single resource in the game is the Spice, which must be collected by harvesters. The spice is converted to credits in a refinery, which are then spent to construct additional buildings and units. There are two terrain types: buildings can only be constructed on stone, while the Spice is only found on sand. However, units moving on sand attract the large sandworms of Dune, who are virtually indestructible and can swallow even large units whole. As levels progress, new and more advanced buildings and units are made available, including structures like a radar station, a repair facility or defense turrets and, for units, various ground troops, light vehicles and tanks. Each House can construct one unique special unit, and, after building a palace improvement, can unleash a unique palace effect. After a mission is completed, the player can select the next mission on a map of Dune. This choice determines the layout of the next map to be played, but has no effect on the overall campaign.
See also: #Super Dune 2 |
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| Exodus: Journey to the Promised Land | Wisdom Tree Inc. | [top] | |
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In Exodus you need to guide Moses through 100 different levels in order to reach the promised land. The gameplay features an action/strategy part similar to Boulder Dash, and a question part. In the action part, you need to collect five question marks and enough Manna to open the exit of the maze-like screens. There are a variety of boulders, walls, dirt, and other obstacles in the way. Some obstacles can be destroyed when Moses uses his staff to say the word of god, other obstacles can be pushed out of the way, and some you must find a way around. You need to be careful when navigating around the screens, if you cause any boulders to fall and they land on you a life is lost. Also wandering about are a variety of enemies which can be destroyed or avoided, but will cost you one life if you get caught. When you find all the question marks and manna you need, the exit appears and you can move on to the question phase. Here you will be asked five multiple choice questions about the book of Exodus. Answering the questions correctly will reward you with bonuses, such as extra lives. It was included in Spiritual Warfare & Wisdom Tree Collection 2017 compilation running on DOSBox. | ||
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| Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia, The | Grolier Electronic Publishing Inc. | [top] | |
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This contains the complete text of 21 volume paper encyclopedia, plus multimedia additions. It has a note pad link that user can set to any word processor, allowing easy extracting. A powerful boolean search engine allows and/or/not searches on full text of articles. The 1997 version boasts 35,000 feature articles, 1,200 maps, 10,000 pictures and illustrations, 15 hours of audio and 200 separate video clips. In terms of links, there are 500,000 internal hyperlinks and 20,000 external hyperlinks to Internet resources. According to Grolier's product comparison chart, GME97 leads Encarta '97 Deluxe every category except the numbers of images. | ||
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| Guy Spy And The Crystals Of Armageddon | ReadySoft Incorporated | [top] | |
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In the early 1990s, Readysoft released a number of animated action games that became instant hits on the Laserdisc platform, although their PC counterparts suffered poor sales in comparison. This is by no means surprising: although these games boast very high production values and excellent animations which are created by Don Bluth Studios, their value as games is sorely lacking. These games are little more than PC version of "choose-your-own-adventure" books, in which gameplay is boiled down to choosing an action from multiple choices. PC versions are, naturally, cut-down versions from Laserdisc originals, with many sequences missing altogether. It wasn't until the advent of CD-ROM that Readysoft (now sold to Digital Leisure) started making "deluxe" versions of these games and put them on CD-ROM and later DVD. Treat the games as fun and humorous computer cartoons, but don't expect them to be involving games. If you like any of these disk-based versions, check out the deluxe DVD/CD-ROM versions. This was an original PC multi-scene action game by ReadySoft with great full-screen animations and graphics. Guy is summoned before the chief of international security and informed that the evil Baron Von Max has located the whereabouts of the legendary Crystals of Armageddon. Max needs these crystals to power the awesome doomsday machine he has constructed in the mountains at an unknown location. Graphically a bit similar to the Dragon's Lair and Space Ace games, but gameplay overall is much more fun and could nearly be called a game. ;) Still nothing too exciting, but worth a try. | ||
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| Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis: The Action Game | Attention to Detail Limited / LucasArts | [top] | |
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This is a fun, but VERY difficult isometic action game starring everyone's favorite archaelogist. Being an action title, the game starts off where Indy is about to have an excuse to use his trusty whip: in Monte Carlo, after he recruited headstrong former student Sophie to his aid and determined the location of ancient discs needed to open the door to the lost city of Atlantis. Most action takes place in isometric view, although there are some variations along the way to keep up interest. There are even some adventure-game elements, such as Indy's inventory which you can fill with various objects to use (i.e. money to buy things). They are mostly easy though, and are there only to relieve the tension from knuckle-blistering action. Overall, this is a much better Indy action title than The Last Crusade, although the extremely tough difficulty level may discourage action newbies, and the color scheme is a bit too sepia-influenced for my taste. It's not the best action game your money can buy, but it's still pretty good. | ||
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| Jetsons, The: The Computer Game | 221B Software Development / Hi-Tec Software Ltd. | [top] | |
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The famous animated TV series by Hanna-Barbera spawned a film, and ultimately this licensed game, which contains 8 levels alternating between side-scrolling dodge-and-manipulate and driving gameplay. All four members of the Jetson family have a themed level. The driving sections take place within George's Jetcar, and you must slow down for the speed-limited areas and beware of black holes. At the beginning of the game you are George Jetson, labourer of the Spacely Space Sprockets company in 2062. Your boss Mr. Spacely wants you to work, but you want to collect money and have a fun. So after the boss ordinary order you can explore the company as usually, collect money bills and useful items, avoiding dangerous robotic mechanisms and Mr. Spacely himself. On further levels, other Jetson family members must do the same things, but at their own locations. Level 2 involves taking Jane out of her booby-trapped home, level 3 sees Judy trying to get a kiss form pop heartthrob Jet Screamer, and finally Elroy is locked in at school and has to escape. You have to activate the items hidden behind the hatches with buttons. These allow you to progress on level, for example, fix an elevator with wrench. Time presses and you have to complete your mission quickly. | ||
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| Johnny Castaway | Sierra On-Line / Dynamix | [top] | |
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This was marketed under the Screen Antics brand as "the world's first story-telling screen saver". The screensaver depicts a man, Johnny Castaway, stranded on a very small island with a single palm tree. It follows a story which is slowly revealed through time. It takes many days to catch on to the story. While Johnny fishes, builds sand castles, and jogs on a regular basis, other events are seen less frequently, such as a mermaid or Lilliputian pirates coming to the island, or a seagull swooping down to steals his shorts while he is bathing. Much like the castaways of Gilligan's Island, Johnny repeatedly comes close to being rescued, but ultimately remains on the island as a result of various unfortunate accidents. It includes Easter eggs for a number of United States holidays such as Halloween, Christmas and Independence Day. During these holidays, the scenes are played out as usual except for some detail representing that holiday or event. During the last week of the year, for example, the palm tree will sport a "Happy New Year" banner, and on Halloween a jack-o'-lantern can be seen in the sand. The screensaver can be manipulated into showing these features by adjusting the computer clock to correspond with the date of the event. | ||
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| Mario Teaches Typing | Interplay Entertainment Corp. | [top] | |
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Mario comes to the PC, in the form of a typing tutor. In this product you get to play one of four games, of progressing difficulty (as either Mario, Luigi or the Princess): Mario's Smash & Dash: Assist your character run past a series of boxes and turtles, each labelled with a letter that must be typed to avoid the obstacle. Mario's Wet World Challenge: Help your characters swim across the screen whilst being chased by hungry sea creatures - only typing the words that scroll across the bottom of the screen will let you escape. Mario's Tunnel Of Doom: Help your character run through a tunnel filled with traps, avoiding falling blocks and the like, by correctly typing the sentences which scroll across the top of the screen. Mario's Expert Express: Essentially a practice typing lesson where you copy and type pre-defined paragraphs with the assistance of Mario's supervision. | ||
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| Microsoft Cinemania | Microsoft Corporation | [top] | |
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Microsoft Cinemania. Interactive Movie Guide was a reference and educational Multimedia application CD-ROM produced by Microsoft and published annually beginning in 1992. The software was mainly a database of films, in a similar fashion to the Internet Movie Database, and gave descriptions of the films and who starred in them. Most of this information was not readily accessible before broadband internet. Cinemania contained professional material by Leonard Maltin, Roger Ebert, Pauline Kael, Baseline, James Monaco and Ephraim Katz. The program also included over 2000 still images for movies and actors, a large amount of sound clips, dialogs and soundtracks, and a smaller selection of full-motion video clips. As the amount of material increased with each new edition, the quality of media tended to decrease, in order to fit everything on a single CD-ROM. The last edition of Cinemania was released in 1997. This version was available for Microsoft Windows PCs running Windows 95 or Windows NT with an Intel 80486 processor, or Apple Macintoshes running System 7. Cinemania 97 also had guided tours from numerous celebrities and online features which made use of an associated MSN website. It could be updated monthly over the Internet, which brought new movies, new material about older movies and new celebrity tours. | ||
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| Microsoft Musical Instruments | Doring Kindersley Limited / Microsoft Home | [top] | |
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This is one of the titles of the Microsoft Exploration Series. Microsoft presents an educational application, telling about history of music and musical instruments. It's a wonderful way for children/students/adults to hear actual sounds from so many different musical instruments. A great teaching tool! The program is filled with more than 200 musical instruments. Investigate the sounds and shapes of instruments from around the world. MS Musical Instruments includes hundreds of photos and 1,500 sound samples. Experience 2,000 masterpieces in detail from one of the world's finest art collections. Learn the artist's technique and delve into detailed biographies. A Sound Box offers the chance to explore each instrument, including its scales and unique sounds. Illustrations explain the various parts of each instrument, such as the bridge, jack socket, scratchplate, strings, neck, fret, machine heads, body and pickups for a guitar. The material is divided into four easy-to-navigate sections entitled Families of Instruments, Instruments of the World, Musical Ensembles, and a full index of A-Z Instruments. | ||
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| Mission UFO: A Solar System Odyssey | J and B Associates | [top] | |
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This is an educational game for kids to learn facts about our solar system but it still is some fun for the older people who are interested in some interesting facts about the planets and space missions. It is your task to find the UFO that comes exploring our solar system. You hunt it from planet to planet, always getting new hints on the current location from mission control. Mind that you don't run out of fuel and guess the planets to travel correctly. Finally you meet the UFO and the alien life form in charge for that UFO. He/she/it tells you a few facts from where he/she/it came and you are being promoted by the head of mission control and the UFO Division director from NASA. The graphics are nothing special but nice and the gameplay is fun. The sound mainly consists of some beeps and buzzes and the famous countdown (5 -4 - 3 - 2 - 1 - lift off) as real speech. The controls are just clicking with the mouse on the buttons on screen. Click on "radio" for hints, "nav chart" to choose your destination and "data bank" for information on our solar system. When you need some more hints use the hovercraft to reach the hint buttons on the planets surface. When you run out of fuel return to earth. | ||
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| Origin FX | Origin | [top] | |
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One of Origin's least known releases is a solid screensaver collection that features posters and scenes from famous Origin games (e.g. Wing Commander and Ultima). The screensaver modules are not as varied in style as LucasArts' underrated Star Wars Screen Entertainment-- they are mostly just slideshows including a lot of random graphical effects. What makes the package stands out, though, is the inclusion of many images and characters from Origin's popular games... you will see and hear Ultima 7's Guardian loom large on screen, booming his famous growls; many images in the package are from unreleased versions of games or posters. As an added bonus, it includes a module that plays the cinematic sequences when Wing Commander II is installed on your hard drive. Not that this can't be accomplished by using homemade hacks, but it's still quite neat. Overall, as a screensaver package, it doesn't really have any exciting module, even with 20 of them included. Modules based on algorithms (swirling circles, etc.) are only marginally better than standard ones included with Windows, and the graphics-based modules (those featuring game scenes and posters) become repetitive after a few times. Sierra's Johnny Castaway and LucasArts' Star Wars Screen Entertainment are both much better value for your money, leaving Origin FX at best a curious "miss" in Origin's otherwise stellar career. | ||
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| Paladin II | Omnitrend Software / Impressions | [top] | |
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This sequel using fantasy squad-based tactics also has better graphics than the original. The Order of Paladins are called upon at various times to undertake all sorts of tasks. As the young apprentice to the order, Brandon, it will be your job to lead a party of brave warriors through several unique and different quests on a variety of objectives. Characters may be imported from Omnitrend's original Paladin game or from Breach 2. Additionally a Quest builder tool is included to author your own game maps and objectives. | ||
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| Princess Maker | Gainax Co. Ltd. / CFK Co. Ltd. | [top] | |
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This is the first of Gainax' "princess-raising simulation" game series. You are a noble warrior who has just saved your kingdom from an invasion by the terrible Demon Lord. The grateful king offers you to choose any reward you wish for your brave deed. But instead of opting for half of the kingdom or the riches of the land, you ask the king for the permission to raise a poor little orphan girl named Maria. And so the game begins. You are the one who has to build Maria's future. Of course, you can do it in many ways. You can strive to make a real princess out of her, teach her good manners, study arts, to make her a brave fighter like yourself, or just a lazy bimbo who cares for nothing. Her destiny is in your hands.
See also: #Princess Maker: Refine Edition [J] |
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| Roger Ebert's Deluxe Computerized Movie Home Companion | Shryer Publishing | [top] | |
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The other home video guides supply frustrating one paragraph summaries, Ebert provides a full-length discussion, for reading before or after watching the movie. This software contains the only video reviews on the Publishers Weekly Annual Trade Paperback Bestseller List. Roger Ebert's nationally syndicated reviews appear in the Chicago Sun-Times, New York Daily News, and nearly 200 other newspapers. Your Source To Movie Reviews. The weekend has arrived. The major question of the evening is about to be addressed. What videos will satisfy the interests of everyone who will be viewing them? Solution: Roger Ebert's Deluxe Computerized Movie Home Companion. Finding a full-length movie review, by the nation's favorite film critic, has never been so easy. How the Infobase Works: Just type in a name, a title, a category, a rating, a year, or even a preferred length/minutes and instantly every movie relating to any of the above topics will appear on your computer screen. EASY - Requires only four steps once the software is loaded onto your hard drive or network. Steps: 1. Press the space bar. 2. Type in question or subject you are interested in searching and observe results. 3. Press enter key for full text retrieval of information. 4. Press tab key to review each new full text source of information. Every word indexed: Search by key word, subject, stars or phrase. Results of search: Reference gives section, page, or headings; Every group or indexed. This comprehensive, easy to use, computerized reference source contains: Over 1,300 full-length movie reviews; Interviews with the major stars and directors of the past year; Ebert's new selection of the ten greatest films of all time; Essays on movie issues of the past year; An expanded "Glossary of Movie Terms"; "How to attend a Film Festival"; A special section for the fiftieth anniversary of Citizen Kane; "A Movie Lover's Source List"; And much, much more. Let the only film critic ever to win the Pulitzer Prize give you direction in your video selection. | ||
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| San Diego Zoo Presents The Animals! | Arnowitz Studios / Mindscape Inc. | [top] | |
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The Animals!, brought to you by the San Diego Zoo, is an invitation for you and your family to explore the wild regions of the world from your desk and learn about many species of animals. From the main menu--a three-dimensional map of the San Diego Zoo--visitors can explore Tundra, the Montane, Tropical Rain, and Dry Forests, Deserts, Islands, Temperate Forests, the Taiga, and a Savannah. Each area introduces you to many of the natural inhabitants of that region. For more exploration, visit the Zoo Gardens to get a brief introduction to the 5,000-plus plants of the San Diego Zoo collection. In the research center, get a preview of the San Diego Zoo's Center for Reproduction of Endangered Species and learn of the efforts of this real-life team. In the Story Theater, dozens of slide shows and movies (over 60 minutes worth) expand your experience of animals and zoos. Play guessing games like Creature Features and the Watering Hole. Send the youngest visitors to the A to Z Gallery for an animal alphabet game. Visit the Kids Corner for a wide selection of animal and nature projects. | ||
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| Space Crusade | Gremlin Graphics Software Limited | [top] | |
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This is a science fiction strategy game converted from the Games Workshop/Milton Bradley boardgame, in which you control a commander and four marines who are sent on different missions aboard hostile alien starships. Your commander starts off as a sergeant, but he can work his way through the ranks. The game allows three players, each commanding one marine chapter each. The alien team is `played` by the computer. The game is a literal conversion of the board game in the same vein as Gremlin's earlier Hero Quest. It can be best described as a turn-based board game in which the player must fulfill the primary and secondary objectives to complete the mission, which usually involves elimination of entire alien force on board or destruction of mothership etc. This game features unique 3D close-ups during the battle scenes, a feature which was later adopted by games like the X-Com series. | ||
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| Storm Master | Silmarils | [top] | |
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Eoliae is a remote land where myth meets truth, and where winds shows only the power of gods moving armies from front to front, while diplomacy is still 'hanging' in the air full of crossing winds. The chaos was born as the Great master was murdered, and evil Sharkaan is threatening all of the Eoliae land. You must learn the power of the winds, gain the knowledge for trade and diplomacy, build windmills and strike your enemy where it hurts the most. Only try doing that and stay alive. It combines several genres: action, RPG, strategy and simulation. The role-playing has your character with characteristics which increase as the game progresses, the most important of which is Wind Power management. But the wind does not just reveal its secrets. The strategy has you taking care of the economy, trade and diplomacy in the territory entrusted to you, and (on a separate screen) on its defense. For this purpose it is necessary not only to train the troops, but also to build all sorts of defenses, like magic windmills or huge stationary catapults. Finally, a simulator is the unique antique fantastic aircraft. Before you fly it and fight it, you can pre-build according to the drawings (a drawing occupies the entire screen and simply amazing rendering quality). | ||
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| Tenka Touitsu [MAC] [J] | Yukihiro Kuroda, Muse Software Co. Ltd. / SystemSoft | [top] | |
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This is a strategy game, set in Japan with an ancient/classical/medieval theme. Approximately 400 years ago, Japan has one of the best stage settings. The instinctive devotion to raise some tactician and (win) in human beings have been waged. So far since prehistoric times, this is the origin of "strategy" here. Holding your own ground in nationwide various places. It's cold, and agile maneuver strategy. From the battle field, a siege unfolded. Countries might move in unison. Begin to walk on the way to unify the country. Ever-changing circumstances required. Castle place, reproduced on the basis of historical facts. He and his warlords, targeting. Full-fledged civil wars simulation game. Some, who worked on the game designer Yukihiro Kuroda Clearly was abetting. The wisdom legacy of our ancestors, that there are further important factors not necessarily decisive for the outcome. The nature of much fighting experience, but even in this age difference between the army always concerns. Not surprisingly, the number of enemy rely on only the intensity of the battle-hardened followers, and luck. What has been forged in battle, with their wisdom and leadership, this is an era for generals who run wild - a dream to an epic World boasted overwhelming power. When only the size of the army by the simple quality of these connect with the exquisite machine, changes multiplying, flexibility and decisiveness. And a strategist who led broad perspective. Warlords of his leadership. Pull it out fully, for example, military discipline and loyalty. | ||
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| Tomb, The | Nexus Software | [top] | |
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The Tomb is a clone of the arcade classic Tutankham, in which the player must avoid snakes and the like and collect treasure. | ||
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| Total Baseball | Creative Multimedia | [top] | |
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The most comprehensive baseball reference ever compiled and edited by John Thorn and Pete Palmer. A complete baseball library from 1871 to the 1991 World Series. Over 500 images of players, teams and ballparks. Sound clips from some of baseball's most memorable moments. More than 2,600 pages of text detailing: Statistics of over 13,000 players; Batting, pitching and fielding registers for all Major League players; The top 100 all-time, life-time and single season leaders in all categories; The Most Valuable Player, Cy Young, Rookie of the Year, and Hall of Fame Awards; Full team rosters including players, managers and owners; Detailed articles on a variety of subjects from Baseball Streaks and Feats to Scandals and Controversies. Instantly locate statistics or a history of award winners, view a photo of your favorite ballplayer in action and hear some of baseball's most exciting moments. For future reference, to use in speeches, research papers or simply to read, text portions of Total Baseball can be printed to a diskette or hard drive. It's a must for sports enthusiasts, casual armchair baseball fans, professional sports analysts, coaches, trivia buffs and children. It contains hundreds of images of famous (and not so famous) players, teams of yesteryear and today, stadiums and ballparks, in both black and white and full-color. It offers not only the numbers, but many fascinating stories behind the game. With DiscPassage software, you can search by word, phrase or subject, and the search terms will be. | ||
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| Wizkid: The Story of Wizball II | Sensible Software / Ocean Software Ltd. | [top] | |
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The Wiz and his cat Nifta have successfully restored colors to the world. Both got married (though most probably not to each other) and begot children: the Wiz had a son, Wizkid, and Nifta had eight kittens. Their peaceful life ended when the evil mouse magician Zark kidnapped the Wiz, Nifta, and all the kittens, imprisoning them in different parts of the world. Wizkid must venture into unknown realms and rescue his father together with the feline family. This sequel to Wizball deviates from the original in many ways. The screen does not scroll and Wizkid does not bounce around like his predecessor. The player has full control over Wizkid and his movements. He has to be moved around the screen, bashing into bricks (which come in different shapes and sizes) so that the flying bricks collide with the onscreen enemies. Once the screen is cleared of all the enemies, coins are dropped, which must be picked up quickly before they disappear and the player proceeds to the next screen. Killing multiple enemies with a single brick releases a bubble that will sometimes offer a nose (to juggle bricks) or teeth (letting Wizkid grab hold of bricks), but more often they turn into colored notes. These must be combined to form tunes, as patterned at the top of the screen. Once the player completes a tune, you are taken to a shop where you can buy items needed to progress to the next stage. If Wizkid has bashed all the bricks on a screen, but failed to remove all the enemies, the player may be taken to a puzzle screen, where he must solve Crossword 2091 for bonus money. The player has a number of words to put on the screen, but they must all overlap each other and use each other's letters. Each move has a time limit. If the player fails to complete the puzzle he is taken back to the level. When exiting a shop the player can choose either to exit as a head or a body, which is Wizkid with arms and legs. Assembled in this way, Wizkid is now limited by gravity and can jump around and use onscreen objects such as ringing bells or cranking wells. He may also come across interactive elements which he will need to use with items in his pockets. Most such levels require the player to solve inventory-based puzzles. | ||
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| Wreckers | Denton Designs / Audiogenic Software Ltd. | [top] | |
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This is an isometric sci-fi action game with strategy elements. Robotic droids roll quietly through the corridors of space station Beacon 04523N, automated computers calculate routes for interstellar traffic. Three human officers sleep in cryogenic tanks, awakened only for routine system checks – or in case of an emergency. With a hum, the cryogenic control springs on-line as Beacon’s long-range sensors detect incoming lifeforms. Controlling one of the on-board officers, the player has to defend the station against swarms of plasmodian spores (the “Wreckers”) showering down on Beacon and seeping into its four sections. While the spores approach, they can be sucked out of space with a gigantic hoover-like space hose. Once they settle onto the stations hull, jump into the space suit and spray infected areas with a cleansing agent. Undetected spores will seep into the station’s corridors, where the protagonist must hunt them down with a plasma shots and avoid being shot in return. In addition, up to ten droids are under the player's indirect control. Ranging from cleaners to fighters to engineers, these automatons will act independently, but can be sent to key locations within the station - i.e. infected areas. As the officer gains experience through battles, he will be promoted to higher ranks, enabling him to construct more efficient fighter robots in the station’s droid factory. Since plasmodians running rampant in the station will cause system malfunctions. The main goal in such cases is to clear infections quickly and make sure that Beacon continues to function properly. To make things worse, a self-destruct mechanism will detonate the station in sixty minutes unless all signs of spore activity cease. | ||
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Kids
| A.J.'s World of Discovery / Adibou: Accompagnement Scolaire 4-7 Ans | Bright Star Technology Inc / Coktel Vision | [top] | |
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This is an educational game where kids can play numerous mini-games: an Arkanoid clone; a funny face maker, where you can freely change facial features or randomly generate a face; a simple graphics program where you can draw pictures with a variety of tools and save them to disk; Matchbox car races; you can construct your own track and then race another person or a computer; a keyboard that teaches to type; a sticker book; several jigsaw puzzles, where you are rewarded with an animated picture after you finish piecing it together; educational mini-games that teach English and Maths; and it's also possible to grow your own garden by planting the seeds and then watch the flowers slowly grow over time. The game contains numerous amusing, silly animations and sounds. | ||
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| Adventure Math | Epic MegaGames, Inc. | [top] | |
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Adventure Math has easily the best graphics and sound of any DOS math game. Wave synthesis even produces a voice that says the numbers as you type them. In the normal game, you answer math questions in a form where one of the numbers from the question and the answer are provided, and you have to provide the other number, such as "5 + ? = 8" instead of the usual "5 + 3 = ?" format. Answer enough questions correctly and you can play a bonus level, in which you have a space ship at the bottom of the screen, a math problem to solve, and three answers at the top of the screen. Objects are bouncing around on the screen, so you have to shoot the correct answer and avoid being destroyed by the bouncing objects. There are 10 difficulty levels, designed to engage children between Grades 1 and 5. Unlike Mather, this game will not provide a challenge for adults. The shareware version includes only addition and subtraction questions, the registered "Deluxe" version adds multiplication, division, and a timer. | ||
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| Adventures of Pinocchio, The | MicroMedia Publishers Inc. / New Media Schoolhouse | [top] | |
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Pinocchio, the little wooden boy with a lot of heart. Now the story of the little wooden puppet in all of his exciting adventures comes to life through the magic of CD-ROM. Over one hundred original illustrations blended with enchanting animations bring the reader into Pinnochio's world. Follow his as he encounters come crafty card sharks (and frogs) in a dangerous game of poker. Walk through the splendor of 19th century Italy on a tour of the authentic architecture of the period. Finally, witness the hapless puppet's climatic encounter with a giant dog fish. An all new interpretation of Carlo Collodi's original makes for a multimedia learning experience that will enchant readers of all ages. | ||
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| Alphabet Blocks | Bright Star Technology / Sierra On-Line | [top] | |
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Challenge your child's mind and his or her imagination. Take a voyage into exciting worlds of discovery. Familiar, dry, or difficult subjects will never be the same again once you have been on a Sierra Discovery Series adventure. Now any child who can use a mouse can learn to read. Alphabet Blocks is a revolutionary educational program that teaches your child all the letters and sounds of the alphabet using proven learning methods and the latest computer technology. In this fun, engaging introduction to alphabet sounds and names, two computer friends- a cheerful chimp and jolly jack-in-the-box- gently coach your child through the basic rules of the "game" of reading. Kids have a great time as these two infinitely patient tutors offer practice questions and encouragement in the only program on the subject to use accurate, synchronous facial expressions and digitized speech. It helps make the transition to reading easy and can give your child a significant head start in reading proficiency. It's real education that's real fun. Features: Four games that teach - letter names, letter sounds, word sounds, letter recognition, mouse control, vowel/consonant recognition, and following directions; Positive reinforcement instruction, with vocal and animated reward sequences; Intelligent recognition and coaching of problem areas; State-of-the-art production values, including full-color animation and digitized sound. You will learn: Alphabet, Phonics, Vocabulary, Reading, ... and much more. | ||
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| Awesome Adventures of Victor Vector and Yondo: The Vampire's Coffin | Sanctuary Woods, Inc. | [top] | |
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One of a series of fully interactive comic book adventures for kids where you play as the heroic Victor Vector and his digital Saint-Bernard dog Yondo. They are field agents of The Museum of Fantastic Phenomena, and travel through time collecting unique items. In the games, the arch-villain Ram Axis, a virus spawned in the great crash of 2093, will often pop up in disguise in order to prevent their efforts. Players explore a virtual environment by clicking on the onscreen knobs and directional controls to move through the game. They click on images to talk to people, collect treasure and other items that may boost or diminish their energy level or are needed to solve puzzles. Information can also be retrieved from Yondo's data bank collar. In this episode, they battle ghouls, specters, zombies and vampires to retrieve the Vampire's Coffin from the resting place of the dreaded Count Dracula. Kids can learn about vampire folklore and central Europe in the late eighteenth century throughout the game, and see clips from classic horror films as well. | ||
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| Barbie | Imagineering Inc. / Hi-Tech Expressions Inc. | [top] | |
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This is the first Barbie PC game. Barbie has a big day tomorrow, so she needs to get a good nights rest. She has strange dreams about all her planned activities. She must traverse five levels made up of a total of thirteen stages to make it through the night. Barbie travels through various location in the mall, at the beach and in the soda shop trying to make it from the left side of each level to the right. Each level is populated with animals and with living objects of the sort you would find in that location. She can jump with the A button and throw crystals with the B button. The longer you hold the button down, the farther each crystal is thrown. She has three kinds of crystals, each of which has a different effect. One makes creatures help her, one defeats them and one has varying effects. | ||
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| Barney Bear Goes to School | Free Spirit Software Inc. | [top] | |
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This is an educational game for children aged two to six. It consists of two parts: the first one is a story book where the player has to help Barney Bear to wake up and get ready for school. The story is told through narrated pictures and for each one the player can interact with the scene by clicking on various objects. To continue the story a specific object has to be clicked on. The second part takes place in the school which contains various activities. This include three games: Spell It! - A picture along with the right spelling will be displayed and the player has to type it in by clicking on the right letters; How Many? - An object is drawn a certain number of times and the player has to count them and click on the correct number; Coloring Book - The player can fill the areas of several colourless pictures. | ||
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| Berenstain Bears, The: Learning Essentials | Compton's NewMedia | [top] | |
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This is an edutainment program that targets preshoolers, starring characters from the famous children books of the same name. The program is a compilation of three separate programs that teach puzzles (jigsaw), colors, and music. The game doesn't quite teach as much as let kids play with the concepts. Berenstain Bears Colors, for example, is basically just an interactive coloring book similar to Compton's earlier Wild Learning Safari, except with the famous bears as main characters. Likewise, Berenstain Bears Puzzle is just a collection of jigsaw puzzles based on scenes from the book. The only obvious edutainment value I can see in the game is Berenstain Bears Music, which lets kids compose their own music, and therefore teaches musical notes (albeit in a roundabout way). Overall, though, one could argue that preschoolers learn better by playing than by actually learning, so this program may be considered ideal ;) It's not as varied as Broderbund's classic preschooler package The Playroom, but it's well worth a look especially for young fans of the good-natured bears. | ||
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| Danny Glover Tells Aesop’s Fables | Sidewalk Studios / Philips Media | [top] | |
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Actor Danny Glover and jazz great Ron Carter combine their talents on these 24 fables and it includes mazes & puzzles for ages 6 and up. Kids can also read along with Danny. The Aesop's Fables included are: Androcles & The Lion, The Crow & The Pitcher, The Frog & The OX, The Fox & The Stork, The Shepherd’s Boy, The Tortoise & The Hare, The Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing and 17 more. | ||
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| Disney's Beauty and the Beast: Be Our Guest | Infogrames Entertainment, S.A. / Walt Disney Computer Software, Inc. | [top] | |
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This is a translation of the classic Disney animated movie Beauty and the Beast. It takes place on a special day at the Beast's dark and remote castle. After years of hopeless frustration, the Beast, formerly a handsome prince, finally has a chance to break the spell that keeps him in his feral state. All he has to do is win the love of the bookish, but beautiful Belle before the last petal falls from an enchanted rose. To enable this blossoming romance to take full bloom, you must play five different games to help Beast's friends prepare a grand ball in Belle's honor. Help Mrs. Potts make cakes, aid Lumiere in practicing his famous Cherry Dance, help Wardrobe sort dyed pieces of cloth as they come off the line, assist Cogsworth in creating a musical score and give Feather Duster a hand as she matches up the right bouquets to decorate the ballroom. It offers two levels of difficulty (easy and adventure) and two modes of play (practice and normal). Activities are designed as animated puzzles and memory challenges with the interface supporting mouse point-and-click input. The game is presented in colorful graphics and animations with a midi soundtrack and is aimed at children. A 1994 release contains full voice acting. | ||
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| First Letters & Words | Smart Works | [top] | |
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The SmartWorks Bear teaches young children letter and word recognition. With his help, children recognize and use both the upper and lower case letters of the alphabet and begin reading whole words. His amazing speech capabilities help them mde-penbentiy solve problems by hearing, seeing, and reading words and simple sentences.for ages 3 to 7. | ||
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| Follow The Reader: Mickey Mouse Storybook Adventure | Disney Software | [top] | |
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This is a vibrant and simple, Disney storybook-game that follows Mickey Mouse through his day. It's intention was to introduce children to the first stages of reading through an easy, no-wrong-answers interface. As an interactive storybook, it allows users to build stories by selecting Mickey's actions, such as calling his friends, feeding Pluto, or going to the beach, from premade lists. Once completed, the story can be saved and printed so children can replay it and follow along with their printed copy. | ||
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| Fun School 4: For 5 to 7 Year Olds | Europress Software Ltd. | [top] | |
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Freddy the Frog presents six games designed to help school-starting children build on their numeracy and literacy skills. The rules for each game are explained in the form of short stories. Controls primarily use the cursor keys and enter. Freddie is building a house, but can only add a log to his work if you solve a maths question. In the library, a list of book titles must be sorted into alphabetical order. Successfully ordering letter and number sequences on the basketball court results in shots going in. Knowing which word is the opposite of the displayed one will help Freddy's diving. In the shop you have to identify which coins pay for which items, and then total up a shopping load and work out which coins pay for it. There is also a simple typing test included. | ||
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| Fun School 4: For The Under 5s | Europress Software Ltd. / Coktel Vision | [top] | |
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This is an educational game part of the Fun School series with this version aimed at the under fives. There are six games and activities that allows the child to spend the day with Teddy and each activity has varying skill levels. The six activities are: Teddy's House - Teddy's house is being painted but the painters don't know which colours to use so the child decides which colour to use for various parts of the house. After the painting is completed the child then has to tell the computer what colour certain objects are before being told a colour and what object to paint. Fun Train - Teddy is at the fun fair in the park and the child has to decide if a picture matches the picture on the train as well as words matching pictures. Teddy Paint - This activity allows the child to use a simple art package to draw pictures with. Teddy's Book's - It is time for bed and Teddy is having a sleep over with his friends. Daddy Ted is reading them a book from a shelf over the bed. The child has to decide which book Daddy is reading from the gap in the books on the shelf. Teddy's Karaoke - This activity allows the child to sing various nursery rhymes from a choice of songs. The child can hear the song with the words on the screen. A bouncing ball bounces in time on the words to help the child follow the song. Addition - Teddy is at school and has to do additions from the blackboard. The child is presented with a number of objects and the child has to say how many. Other skill levels has the child adding the objects before the pictures are removed and just the sum appears. | ||
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| IBM Scopri & Impara [It] | Britannica Software / Coktel Vision | [top] | |
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Turn on your personal computer when the child comes back from school, it will be a study companion and a playmate for him. Instead of watching television, children can play with Berenstain bears and learn to count, to create their own stories with words and colorful pictures! Or maybe with Adibou they will build a landscape, a road or they will sow plants in a garden and more. For them it will be fun, but you will discover the educational side. From every angle Scopri & Impara IBM is a great investment in your family's future! | ||
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| Kid Works 2 | Davidson & Associates, Inc. | [top] | |
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This creativity kit that writes, paints, and talks. It features a Paint-like program, an icon creator, a story writer, as well as a story player so that your kids can have their own creations be read to them in a soothing and manly voice. Great for letting their imagination run wild and helping develop a strong creative edge. This program was designed specifically for young children. The program takes an alphabetical approach that encourages children to build early reading skills while they learn key locations. Three activities provide a playful, interactive environment that helps children progress from learning key positions to typing smoothly and accurately. | ||
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| Little Mermaid & Beauty and the Beast Fairy Tale Factory | Pelican / Hi-Tech Expressions | [top] | |
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Imagine The Little Mermaid falling in love with The Beast...The Beauty becoming friends with The Little Mermaid...or The Beast protecting The Little Mermaid from The Sea Witch. Design, create and print your very own classics. Children of all ages will love these favorite storybook classics. They can choose from over one hundred fantastic, high-quality images to rec-create the classics or write their very own fairy tales. They can even add speech bubbles and type in their own dialogue. Using the easy-to-use text processor your aspiring authors will be writing fabulous sories all day long. Fairy Tale Factory will build your children's writing skills in ways you never imagined. Prints out in a wide variety of sizes, from pocket-sized Mini Books to "hang-them-on-the-walls" Big Book posters. Features: 100 pieces of clip art; 20 full screen backgrounds; built-in word processor with seven fonts, italic, bold and outline; prints out whatever you create in four sizes including Poster; supports a full-line of black and color printers; compatability with Dinosaur Designer, Comic Book Creator and Spooky Kooky Monster Maker gives you a huge library of art to choose from; includes parent/child activity guide. | ||
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| Mario Is Missing! | Software Toolworks, Inc., The | [top] | |
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Bowser, the token bad guy from the Mario Bros. series, is up to no good again in this educational game designed to teach children geography. This time he's set up his headquarters in Antarctica and created portals to 25 famous cities around the world, so that his Koopas can wreak havoc in our own world. He's also kidnapped Mario, hence the title of this game. You play as Luigi who must foil Bowser's plans by entering through each of the portals, tracking down the Koopas who have stolen famous artifacts, and looking for clues about your location. Once you've set everything right and determined where you are, you call Yoshi on your Globulator so he can track you down. You need Yoshi's help to eat the Pokey (a cactus-like creature) that's guarding the return portal, and when Luigi returns he can close the portal forever. By exploring these 25 cities, children can familiarize themselves with the landmarks and artifacts that each city has. When Luigi returns the stolen artifacts to the proper places he can even take photographs of them. There is also an add-on disk you can purchase that adds ten additional cities to the game (it originally retailed for $24.95). | ||
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| Math Climbers | ComputerEasy | [top] | |
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This is an educational game that builds math skills. Choose one of seven levels, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, mixed math, algebra I, or algebra II, and practice any base number from 1 to 99. Your computer creates math problems that continue to scale the wall until you an- swer them correctly. Math Climbers is a challenging educational game for all ages. Features: Seven math levels - addition, subtrac- tion, multiplication, division, mixed math, algebra I, algebra II; Base number from 1 to 99; Problems as easy as 1 + 1, or as hard as (268 A) x 3 = 840; Colorful graphics; On-line HELP makes it easy to use without instructions; For grades 1 through 8; Minimum requirements - 128K Memory (IBM); Single Disk Drive. | ||
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| Math Rescue | Redwood Games / Apogee Software, Ltd. | [top] | |
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Sort of a sequel to Word Rescue, the mean bad aliens Gruzzles are at it again, this time stealing the numbers of the world. It is up to you to explore, slime gruzzles, solve arithmetic problems and explode garbage trucks (which are being used to cart off the numbers). Collect cool prizes, replenish buckets of slime and rack up points while you practice your number facts. Choose to be a boy or a girl. An educational/side-scroller game, Math Rescue has very little gameplay differences with its predecessor, save for the fact that you now solve mathematical puzzles. There are floating boxes in the air, which, if touched, will transport the player inside it, where they must solve a math problem to get points. It includes three episodes in total, called Visit Volcanos and Ice Caves, Follow the Gruzzles into Space and See Candy Land, respectively. Only the first episode is distributed as shareware, while the others are available commercially. Each episode contains 15 levels.
See also: #Math Rescue Plus |
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| Math Rescue Plus | Redwood Games | [top] | |
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This is an expansion pack to Math Rescue, featuring 45 new levels, additional word problems and three different music tracks. There are no changes to the graphics or storyline. It is a standalone game that does not require the original title to play. | ||
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| Mega Math | Jeff Tunnell Productions / Sierra On-Line Inc. | [top] | |
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One of the least known Sierra game ever, Mega Math is the last title in short-lived Turbo Learning series. This decent math game stars Quarky and Quaysoo, two spunky aliens from Jeff Tunnell's earlier Turbo Science. The scope of the game is much more limited this time around: kids will learn simple algebra through 3 mini games, and take tests to advance to the next level. The mini games feel a bit redundant because they all teach the same concepts at the same time (e.g. addition), with little gameplay variation (for instance, you press the correct answer on your keyboard in all 3 games. The differences between them are just how the answers and equations are shown). Kids will therefore probably get bored with the games before too long. More gameplay variations (as in Learning Company's Super Solvers: Outnumbered!) would have made Mega Math a stronger and more replayable game. As it is, it's just an okay educational game that's fun for a while, but gets boring once you've seen all the mini games and zany antics of cartoon characters. Turbo Science is much better. | ||
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| MetroGnomes' Music | The Learning Company, Inc. | [top] | |
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Join the Metrognomes in a charming medley of musical activities that help children get in tune with music basics. Come play in the land of the Metrognomes. A chiming mushroom house, a tuneful flower garden, a melody festival, the Gnome Town parade, and a musical picnic blanket give children the exposure to music that experts believe will enhance their development and mastery of language. Share your children's excitement as they sing and play with the Metrognomes in their wonderful world of music. Five delightful activities teach children music basics, including: Recognizing high and low pitch; Listening for the form of a song; Internalizing rhythm and beat; Creating new music by changing notes and rhythms; Learning traditional nursery and folk songs. Based on the respected Orff approach, which teaches music through active play and discovery. Rich graphics, enchanting sound, and surprise animations delight youngsters for hours. | ||
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| Mickey's 123's: The Big Surprise Party | Distinctive Software / Disney Software | [top] | |
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This is a wonderful game that followed on the heels of Disney's earlier Mickey's ABC: A Day at The Fair. It teaches the basic concept of numbers to nine to toddlers ages 0 - 3 in a fun, engaging way. The goal is to help Mickey organize a surprise birthday party for one of his friends. He has to go to a toy store to buy a present, buy food at the supermarket, and choose who to invite. Each of these activities are full of opportunities for number lessons. On the way to each location, for instance, kids can press any number key to give Mickey a ride - via a vehicle with that many wheels on it (e.g. pressing "3" will give him a tricycle, with 3 wheels). Inside the supermarket, pressing a number key will make Mickey buy that many items (hamburgers, fries, etc.). Whenever a number key is pressed, Mickey will start counting from one to that number, with big flashcards and clear pronunciation. The game is not long, but kids will have too much fun organizing the party and seeing funny antics of various Disney characters (Goofy, Donald Duck, and many more) to realize that they are learning. By the time the party is over, kids will likely be able to count from one to nine, and recognize what each number looks like. If they need more practice, they can always organize another party for another friend in the Disney town. With great VGA graphics, smooth animations, excellent digitized voices, and user-friendly gameplay, it's a great game for toddlers who are just learning to talk. | ||
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| Mickey's ABC's: A Day at the Fair | Distinctive Software, Inc. / Walt Disney Computer Software, Inc. | [top] | |
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This is an educational game for pre-schoolers, aimed to familiarize them with the alphabet. The game is a licensed product featuring Mickey Mouse and other Disney characters. The player has the choice between two scenarios, Mickey's home and the fair. In each of those, Mickey can perform 26 actions; each representing a letter from the alphabet. For example, if the letter "i" is pressed at the fair, Mickey eats ice cream. | ||
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| Millie's Math House | Theatrix Interactive, Inc. / Edmark Corporation | [top] | |
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Millie's Math House is the first game in Edmark's early line-up of educational games designed for very young children to use. The interface is completely point-and-click, with little to no text and instructions are given verbally. The player is taken directly to the main page where Millie perches on a desk in front of a row of cubicles, each of which takes the player to a math or pre-math activity. There are seven different activities in this game, and each activity has two modes; Explore and Discover and Question and Answer. The first mode encourages the player to click around and experiment, emphasizing that he is in charge. In Question and Answer mode, which is entered by clicking the animal inside the picture frame, a character will ask the player to perform tasks related to the current area. The following descriptions apply to Question and Answer Mode only: Little, Middle, & Big - the player is presented with three characters and an array of variously-sized shoes; each character will ask him to find a pair that fits their particular size. Mouse House - after the player selects a simple or complex blueprint for a house, Frank Lloyd Mouse will ask him to find all the shapes to build it, one by one. What's My Number? - standing concealed behind a curtain, Dorothy Duck tells the player how many objects she has; the player must select the same number and place them on the stage. Bing & Boing - bouncy creature Boing creates a picture pattern and repeats it with something missing; the player is asked to finish it. Each picture also has its own associated sound, and if the player has a microphone he can replace the sounds with his own. Build-A-Bug - the rabbit shows the player a plan for the number of body parts the bug should have (3 eyes, 8 legs, for example); the player must click the correct number from the top of the screen and the body part from the left. Number Machine - Annie the worm will ask the player to find a specific number on the cash register. Choosing the icons on the bottom right will raise the numbers on the keys up to 30. Cookie Factory - Harley the horse wants a specific number of jellybeans on his cookie; the player must press the dispenser the correct number of times. The game allows any number of tries in Question and Answer mode, the player is not penalized for wrong answers at any time. Parents are given several configuration options (Ctrl/Alt + A in Windows, Option/Command + A on a Mac), allowing them to disable music, printing, set the volume, allow exiting, or enable single switch input, which moves the arrow from choice to choice on screen with a click to indicate a selection. The game was originally designed for ages 2 - 5; with the inclusion of simple addition and subtraction and new levels in the updated version the age range may be extended. | ||
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| Mixed-Up Mother Goose Enhanced | Sierra On-Line, Inc. | [top] | |
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This was Sierra's first ever CD-ROM title. It's a totally rewritten version of the original Mixed Up Mother Goose, featuring enhanced MIDI soundtrack, VGA graphics, complete digitized speech along with improved animations and a few other goodies. The rhymes, whose tune was played in the previous versions, were given voices, each of them being sung separately, with the appropriate actions accompanying the music. The interface was updated and became much easier and faster to navigate. The player was also given a map of the land, if he or she should ever feel lost in the nursery rhyme world. You can use it to instantly "warp" to any location previously visited, and there's also an autosave function. This edition came out as a CD version with full digital speech, and as a floppy version in which only the rhymes were digitally recorded. It was one of the very first games ever made specifically for CD-ROM distribution, although the whole game is only a few dozen megabytes long (most CD-ROM titles at the time were simply re-releases of floppy titles, with no enhancements). | ||
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| Mutanoid Word Challenge | Legacy Software | [top] | |
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Out of this world features. Improve your spelling and vocabulary skills in this flexible and creative contest of wits. Type in as many words as you can, anywhere on the gameboard, with scrambled letters and wildcards. Multiple definitions and hints are provided, as well as a 65,000 word on-disk dictionary, four levels of difficulty, and an adjustable game timer. No two games are ever alike. Play against human or alien opponents. Splat Gelatoids on floating trash in the arcade style superbonus round. Glop or be glopped at tournament time. Fifteen minutes of digitized speech, whizzing spaceships, exploding cubes, dropping glop and more dot this looney landscape. Funny humor, wisecracking Mutanoid aliens, realistic sound effects, and a playful musical score will delight and instruct the whole family. | ||
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| Noddy's Playtime | The Jumping Bean Co. | [top] | |
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This is an edutainment game aimed at children between 3 to 8 years old. The game is based around Enid Blyton's Noddy books, and the accompanying TV series. It consists of several mini-games, accessed by a driving section where the player drives Noddy's car between different places in Toytown. The games are: Railway Station (memory game), Post Office (maths), Market Place (reading), Chimney House (music), Noah's Ark (jigsaw puzzle), Farm Yard (matching), N & B Works (odd-one-out) and Noddy's Paint Pot (art). The different ages that the game is aimed at are catered for by having three different difficulty levels which make the games harder for older children. | ||
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| Our House Featuring the Family Circus | Context Systems | [top] | |
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Bill Keane's famed "Family Circus" newspaper cartoon characters take kids on a tour of a house much like your own. They'll see objects in various rooms come alive ... learn the names and discover how they work. During their tour some 400 stories will tell them what home life was like in the 1920, 1860 and 1780s. | ||
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| Paper Bag Princess, The | Discis | [top] | |
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Once upon a time a beautiful Princess and a handsome Prince lived in a castle. Suddenly the castle is destroyed by a fierce dragon. In this delightful tale our heroine learns an important lesson about love. This is based on the Robert Munsch book. A reading and English language development medium with text and illustrations that may be explored at the reader’s own pace. Clicking the mouse on any word or picture element retrieves pronunciations, syllables, second-language translations, or places words in a list. Enhanced by sound effects and music. | ||
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| Peter Pan & Robin Hood Fairy Tale Factory | Hi-Tech Expressions, Inc. | [top] | |
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Come join in the fun with Peter Pan, Tinkerbell and Robin Hood on adventure after adventure. Imagine how it would be if Robin Hood could fly or if Peter Pan could grow up and become one of the merry men... the possibilities are endless. Fairy Tale Factory will build your children's writing skills in ways you never imagined! Children of all ages will love these all time favorite storybook classics. They can choose from over one hundred fantastic high quality graphic images to re-create the classics or write their very own fairy tales. They can even add speech bubbles and type their own dialogue! Using the easy-to-use text processor your aspiring authors will be writing fabulous fables all day long. Prints out in a wide variety of sizes, from pocket-sized mini-books to "hang-them-on-the-walls" big book posters. Features: 100 Pieces of clip-art; 20 Full screen backgrounds; Built-in text processor with seven fonts, italic, bold, and outline; Prints out whatever you create in four sizes including poster; Supports a full line of black and color printers; Compatibility with Dinosaur Designer, Comic Book Creator and Spooky, Kooky Monster Maker, gives you a huge library of art to choose from; Includes parent/child activity guide. | ||
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| Putt-Putt Joins The Parade | Humongous Entertainment | [top] | |
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This is the first game in the kids adventure series. Putt-Putt, an adorable purple car, wants to join the Cartown Parade. But, first he must earn money for a carwash, find a balloon, and get a pet (Pep, the puppy). Children ages 3 to 8 have a great time delivering groceries and mowing lawns and learn good lessons like waiting for the green light before crossing the road. Each screen has a multitude of fun things to click on, as well. It's a part of the Junior Adventure Series from Humongous. This is one of the earlier Putt-Putt CD's and it reminds us of watching the early Mickey Mouse or the first Barney before he became famous (he was blue not purple and had a flat nose). Other tasks include: making money by delivering things for the grocer or cutting peoples lawns to pay for a required paint job and car wash (The car parade entry people are very picky). | ||
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| Quarky & Quaysoo's Turbo Science | Jeff Tunnell Productions / Sierra On-Line, Inc. | [top] | |
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he indian-originated space elf Quarky O'Ghandi and his sister Quaysoo organized a team Los Turbos to beat well-known Das Liquidators, Cool City Maulers, and Valiant Cube. Answering correctly on questions, you as member of Los Turbos must earn money to move between check points, and to win a race. A several won races raise your rank and add chances to win a Turbo Science championship. A pleasant surprise by master puzzler Jeff Tunnell, this is "edutainment" at its best. Essentially a science trivia games for kids, this game puts a new spin on the ideas with wacky cartoon characters, colorful locales, and different scientific gadgets (e.g. thermometer, barometer, etc.) that can be used on various objects in the screen to learn about their properties. Questions are all multiple-choice, with some surprises near the end. Overall, this is one of the strongest educational titles ever released, and it shows off Jeff's versatility as an astute game designer. | ||
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| Reader Rabbit's Ready for Letters | The Learning Company | [top] | |
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This is part of the Reader Rabbit's series of educational software series. It includes 6 activities to learn and improve early language skills for kids. The Music Pond: Find the hidden animals; Isolate musical sounds; Conduct the critter concert; Sing along with the concert. Grandma's Kitchen: Explore storage places that open and close; Find ingredients for Grandma; Try to remember where you saw an ingredient; Guess which ingredients go into each treat. The Mix-and-Match Bedroom: Discover what to decorate; Change patterns; Look for themes and patterns; Mix and match patterns; Play with toys in the toy box. The ABC Bathroom: Help Reader Rabbit match ABC's to put together puzzles; Practice recognizing letters by sound and sight; Explore the bathroom for things to do. The Picture Parlor: Explore the room for things you can animate, or turn on and off; Make the photos in the album match their captions; Practice using words that tell relative positions and size. Grandpa's Workshop: Help Grandpa find what he needs to make pictures; Compare objects by shape, size, and color; Make finer and finer comparisons. | ||
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| Ready, Set, Read With Bananas & Jack / Beginning Reading | Bright Star Technology / Sierra On-Line | [top] | |
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Here's an educational program for your kids featuring two personal reading coaches: a talking chimpanzee named Bananas and a talking jack-in-the-box named Jack. When your child answers a question correctly, Bananas and Jack dance and cheer. If your child answers incorrectly, they will encourage your child to try again. Challenge your child's mind and imagination. Take a voyage into exciting worlds of discovery. No subject will ever be the same once your child has been on a Sierra Discovery Series adventure. Your child will learn: Phonics - Talking characters cheerfully guide your child through each lesson; Alphabetizing - They offer help and encouragement; Story reading - and make important reading skills fun to learn; And much more. Empower your child's mind with talking toys. Your early reader will love this entertaining and effective way to for children age 4 to 7 to learn basic reading skills. In this fun, engaging sequel to Alphabet Blocks, two computer friends- a cheerful chimp and a jolly jack-in-the-box- gently coach your child through the first steps in reading. Kids have a great time as these two exceptionally patient coaches come alive asking questions, delivering encouragement and providing positive feedback. It uses proven educational techniques that make reading fun. This engaging program gives your child a significant head start in reading proficiency. Features: Engaging personal instruction with lively talking toys; Six reading lessons selected for age level and learning abilities: two-letter sounds, rhyming words, building words, sight words, alphabetizing, and story reading; Positive reinforcement instruction, with vocal and animated reward sequences; State-of-the-art production values, including full-color animation and clear, pleasant digitized sound, music, and voices; Easy-to-use, point and click controls suitable for any child who can use a mouse. | ||
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| Rodney's Funscreen | Art in the Box / Activision, Inc. | [top] | |
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This is an early children's game designed by Rodney Greenblat, later responsible for the art in the Parappa the Rapper series. The game has five activities that can be accessed directly from the main menu. The aim of these mini-games is to teach preschool kids how to use the computer. In Dinky's House, the child player has to click on the closed windows of the character's house, trying to find him behind the curtains. Clicking on the door icon shows the house interior, where clicking on furniture and other parts of the scenery shows an animation of Dinky doing something. In Guess-o-Matic, the player has to find the drawing displayed at the bottom, by clicking on a series of cards with question marks. In Barber Joe, the child can select from three head drawings of a boy called Joe, a girl named Jane and the dog Woof to paint over with the available drawing tools at the left side of the screen. In Alphabeeps, the kid has to click on the first letter from the name of the object, animal or thing shown at the top of the screen. As a reward and incentive for correct answers, an animated monster gets closer to an object, hopping across the screen until finally reaching and interacting with it. In Too Many Monsters, the top of the screen shows a group of monsters, and the child has to click on the corresponding number of them at the bottom. | ||
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| Rodney's Wonder Window | Voyager Company | [top] | |
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This is an assortment of 24 colorful activities and interactive animations. Watch alien suburban houses fall from the sky, grow a digital house plant, study the mating habits of Tooli Bugs, visit the Probe and Poke Pet Shop, control the rotations of a weird 3d head; Take a trip to the "Probe and Poke Pet Shop," order "Data Shorts" in your favorite fabric; Watch a movie of Chip and Peg's adventures in Shapeland, Try to figure out what Mr. Rotato Head is all about and more. Grown ups -- and their kids -- can't get enough of Rodney's weird and wacky CD-Rom Universe. The same artist that made these later went on to do Parappa The Rapper. | ||
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| Sleeping Beauty, The: A Multimedia Storybook | Judith K. Jones / Ebook Inc | [top] | |
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This is one of a series of multimedia interactive cd-roms of the classic fairy tale. This talking Multimedia Storybook, designed specifically for the Multimedia Personal Computer, immerses the reader in the world of make-believe. Kings and Queens, Princesses and Witches and a hundred year spell involve children and parents alike, in a story they will want to return to again and again. Using a combination of original Animation, Art and Music, kids enjoy a fascinating array of moving pictures. beautiful music and colorful graphics. The story can be interactively read (the complete narration is recorded on the disc) and has highlighted text used to define difficult words. Associated sounds include trumpets blasting, fireworks exploding, the roar of lightning and much more! The disc is also designed so the story narration and music tracks can be enjoyed by playing on a standard audio CD player. | ||
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| Snap Dragon | MECC | [top] | |
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In this educational game you should help Snap Dragon, accompanied by his friend Teddy Bear, to make his photo album. Choosing one of the six locations (bathroom, underwater, farm, camping, bedroom, space), you should sort several items (4-10) on the screen and make a shots to add new photos to album. Animation of movable items and characters is present, entertaining the kid player. The Coloring Book with the 12 images available to paint is present also as another side of the game. During the painting, the image may be printed. | ||
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| Snoopy's Game Club | Accolade Inc. | [top] | |
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This is a small collection (3 in total) of mini games for kids: SNOOPY's Animated Puzzles - are jigsaw-puzzles of animated pictures featuring Snoopy and the gang. You can choose how many pieces to break the picture in (from 4 - 64 pieces) and when completed, you will get to see a short little cut-scene. CHARLIE BROWN's Picture Pairs - concentration-like card game where players flip over cards that are placed face down and try to make as many matches as possible. You have a choice of choosing between picture cards (cards that have Peanut characters on it), or alphabet cards. You can choose to play by yourself, against a friend or against the computer. WOODSTOCK's Look-Alikes - a matching game where many similar but not quite-the-same objects are displayed and you have to match the two that are exactly alike. You can select the number of objects displayed (18, 16 or 12). | ||
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| Spooky Kooky Monster Maker | Pelican Software / Hi-Tech Expressions Inc. | [top] | |
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This is an educational program for kids, designed to improve the creativity and writing skills. The main entertainment aspect of the game is creating own monster and writing a story (myth) about it. The creation process takes place on one of numerous available arenas and includes adding all varieties of body parts, monster voice or scary gadgets. Kids may write a story about their creation, using the fully adjustable text editor. The game includes a printing feature. | ||
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| Super Mario Bros. & Friends: When I Grow Up | Brian A. Rice, Inc. / Merit Software | [top] | |
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This computer coloring book is another part in the Electric Crayon series and it has 29 pictures of different Super Mario Bros "and their friends" occupations to color. Pictures could be colored from a palette of 16 colors. A mix button would "mix" the current color with the 15 other colors and give a total of 256 colors. Choosing a color and clicking in the picture do a color fill in the area clicked. The finished, or in progress, coloring was automatically saved to disk. Player may also remove all colors applied previously to start coloring from the very beginning. Each picture has an educational description of the occupation, such as who the waitress, scientist, lawyer, or racer, etc., are to choose when player grow up. Several pictures have animation sequences. Pictures could be printed with, or without, a monthly calendar, description, message, banner, etc. | ||
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| Super Solvers: Treasure Cove! | The Learning Company | [top] | |
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The Master of Mischief destroys the Rainbow Bridge, dropping its shining jewels to the bottom of the sea, and evil Goobies are seeping out of the sea floor! With out this bridge The Master of Mischeif, and his lab on Invention Isle, cannot be reached from Treasure Mountain! This means he can continue to release Goobies without interference from those troublesome elves. As the Super Seeker you must rebuild the bridge with the gems you find on the seafloor and use your bubble pump to capture Goobies, and playful Sea Stars that will help you, by giving you clues on to where you can find the gems, and will help you restore your light. Along the way you will see many fascinating sea creatures, and many surprises. Science is the main teaching in the game along with letter and word recognition is seen here along with phonetics and vocabulary building/use. Math is also represented by addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and reasoning. In 1994, an enhanced and more Windows-friendly version was released on CD-ROM. | ||
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| Super Solvers: Treasure MathStorm! | The Learning Company | [top] | |
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Treasure MathStorm! is an educational game designed for kids ages 6 to 8. The Master of Mischief has invented a machine that changes the weather and froze Treasure Mountain! Your goal is to restore the mountain by locating different treasures on the mountain and returning them to the castle at the top. When all the treasures have been restored, the king will have his power back and all of the ice will melt. In order to find treasures and make your way up the mountain, you will need to help the elves solve a variety of math problems. When problems are successfully solved, the elves will then give you clues about treasures, some money which can be used to purchase items in the shops, or some items to help you reach the next level of the mountain. The math problems can include addition, subtraction, multiplication, telling time, counting money, and more. When you have located the treasures and brought them to the castle, you may then advance to a more difficult skill level. | ||
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| Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends | Peakstar Software / Alternative Software Ltd. | [top] | |
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Control Thomas the Tank Engine as he's got to take special trips he has to organize: Take children to the seaside, medicine to the hospital or deliver the mail. Beware of dead ends, level crossings, other trains and vehicles through your route. Based on the famous television and railway series, this game is designed for ages 3 and up. | ||
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| Time Riders in American History | Learning Company, The | [top] | |
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The notorious Dr. Thanatopsis Dread, to lend credibility to his bid for world domination, has employed devious means to convince the world that grand American accomplishments (1492-1905) are actually the work of his distinguished ancestors. The mysterious Benefactor has invited YOU! to join a crack team of whiz kids in his subterranean lab at Sea Cliff Manor to help restore the historical record to the (more-or-less) legitimacy we know today. Playing much like a an enhanced remake of Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego? this game will see you wearing a rut in the virtual floor of Sea Cliff Manor, beating paths between Amanda's room (with its TimeLine machine, to establish whens), Josh's chamber (featuring the GeoFax, to get a better sense of where), and the time-traveling booth of a robot cat, who conducts and then projects interviews gotten back in the timestream to help get a fix on the biographical information regarding who was at the heart of the contentious event. Abundant in-game help, lavish production values, compelling cut-scenes and scores of easter eggs all help to demonstrate how seriously developer the Learning Company took their business. | ||
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| Word Rescue | Redwood Games / Apogee Software | [top] | |
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The story centers on creatures called "The Gruzzles" who can't read. Because the Gruzzles cannot read, they steal words out of books, preventing others from reading as well. Playing as a boy or girl, the player must help Benny Bookworm take back all the stolen words and match them with their meanings so he may put them back in the books. The game revolves around matching words with their pictures, introducing simple vocabulary such as "sit", "purple", "one", "hat", etc., while avoiding various dangers. Like many Apogee games of the time, it includes 3 episodes, with only the first episode playable in the shareware version: Episode 1 - Visit Gruzzleville and the Castle, Episode 2 - Explore GruzzleBad Caverns, Episode 3 - See the spooky Haunted House. The player moves around the screen in a platform shooter style environment. The player must avoid dangers such as Gruzzles, waterfalls, dripping slime, fire, and bottomless pits. Once all 7 words are matched, Benny Bookworm magically turns the player's collected words into a key, which is used to open the door in the level which takes the player to the next level. However, if the player matches a word with the wrong picture, a "Gruzzle" appears and the player must press the Space bar to order Benny the Bookworm to pour slime on it to make it go away permanently. Touching a Gruzzle will result in having to start the level over. The player only has a limited supply of slime but slime can be replenished by touching slime buckets or completing the mystery word. One word from the level is randomly chosen at the beginning of each level to be the mystery word, and the letters of that word are placed in a seemingly random order around the level, despite the fact that they are in the same places every time. If the player completes the word by collecting the letters of that word in order, they are given bonus points. Bonus points can also be collected by touching books, sliming Gruzzles and matching words with their pictures. Depending on the difficulty level, there are also a set number of Gruzzles on each level.
See also: #Word Rescue Plus |
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| Zug's Adventures On Eco Island / Eco-Saurus | First Byte / ZugWare | [top] | |
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This is an excellent edutainment title designed to teach kids about environmental conservation. You join friendly dinosaur Zug as an Environmental Conservation Official (E.C.O.) on a mission to save Eco Island and rescue his alien friend M-Kar. By conserving energy and collecting recyclable materials from local inhabitants, you will help restore Eco Island, rebuild M-Kar's spacecraft, and provide enough power to fuel his flight home. The game is very easy to learn: just use the mouse to pick up the garbage on each screen and puts them in the right recycle bin (or just throw the trash away if it's non-recyclable). You will meet many colorful inhabitants of Eco Island, each of whom even can speak, albeit with the robotlike sound similar to Sound Blaster's early Dr. Sbaitso. Kids will be attracted by the fun gameplay, funny cartoon dinosaurs, and very nice VGA graphics. The game could have used a more in-depth database, but as a title developed for youngsters (preschoolers and primary school level), it has the right balance of education and fun to keep kids glued to the screen. | ||
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| Zug's Dinosaur World | First Byte Software | [top] | |
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Four activities are designed to introduce children to basic reading, problem-solving and visual discrimination skills. Varying levels of difficulty. For ages 4 to 9. It's a collection of educational, dinosaur-themed mini-activities, featuring use of First Byte's "version 4" speech driver, based on their SmoothTalker synthesis engine. | ||
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| Zug's Race Through Space | First Byte / ZugWare | [top] | |
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The solar system is the focus of this "talking" program for children ages 5 to 12. Zug uses digitized color photographs and a game-type format to teach players about the Sun, the nine planets and their moons, and asteroids, comets and meteors. Zug the Talking Megasaurus is the hero of a continuing series of programs from First Byte, a company that was among the first to use text-to-speech synthesis. In other words, the Zug programs talk. The best results are in computers equipped with a sound card (see below). Zug first appeared in "Spell-a-Saurus," now renamed "Zug's Spelling Adventures," and "Eco-Saurus," now called "Zug's Adventures on Eco Island," both highly regarded programs. In this program, Zug and his sidekick, M-Kar, are competing with the reprehensible Mr. Bronto in an interplanetary catering business. Given a single clue, the players must research various facts about the solar system to get the delivery to its proper destination before Mr. Bronto can steal the order. The photographs were supplied by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. | ||
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Adult
| Dalk [J] | Alice Soft | [top] | |
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A young man gets involved in a struggle between the gods Martis and Mira. Serving Martis, he believes that in order to restore the balance he has to unseal this deity, the protector of all women. Fourteen chosen girls must fight alongside the hero, venturing into the depth of a sacred mountain and helping him to defeat countless monsters who live there. Made by the creators of Rance series, Dalk is an erotic RPG. However, it is more heavy on strategy element than Rance games. Town navigation is done from first-person view. You choose your party members among the 14 available girls, and take them to fight in the mountain. Once you enter the dungeon, the game switches to top-down view, and you advance in turn-based mode, assigning commands to your party and waiting for the enemy party to move. You can attack when an enemy is in range, or cast spells with your magic users. In 2008, the game was made freeware. | ||
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| De-Ja II [J] | Elf | [top] | |
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This starts where the previous game ended. The young researcher and archaeologist Ryuusuke Hatsushiba has solved the mystery of the ancient jewels, became a hero, and conquered the heart of the pretty Gachako. The Japanese Archaeological Society has chosen a new president instead of the old man Hyuga. But it's not the end of Ryuusuke's adventures. Suspicious circumstances surrounding the change of the president, new mysterious artifacts brought by clients, troubles concerning Gachako's friends, and (most importantly) more pretty ladies to haunt Ryuusuke's imagination - everything makes him forget his articles and his collections... Like its predecessor, it's a Japanese-style adventure. The interface has been enhanced compared to the first game. Most of the commands are still done via the extensive verb menus and object sub-menus; once again, it is usually necessary to use those commands several times in order to gain new information and thus advance the story. However, in certain places, icon-based interface becomes available, with point-and-click interaction. The icons include traditional talking, touching, as well as less common commands such as hitting, and even an icon depicting a condom, for... err... scientific activities that are closer to anatomy than archeology. In 2004, a Windows release of De-Ja Multipack 1&2 was released with full voices. | ||
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| Doukyuusei: Bangin' Summer | Elf Co. Ltd., Shiravune | [top] | |
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This is a classic dating-sim where you play as a high school student during his last summer vacation of high school and has fourteen girls to pick to have a romantic relationship with. To do so with a little luck and effort, you will have to meet with them, talk to them, date them, to capture the heart of the girl of your choice. But be careful for you are not the only one who is pursuing some of the girls. Diligence is important, However there's no harm in also making as many woman as you can fall for you right? The player takes the role of a high-school student (default name Takurou) in a Japanese town; his parents have just moved into a large mansion in a good district. The boy has to go to the new school, but his mind is preoccupied with one subject only: pretty girls. Instead of studying hard, Takurou decides to explore the city and to find out more about its female inhabitants. It's more interactive than most other Japanese adventures, utilizing point-and-click interface (with context-sensitive icons for talking, touching, etc.) and featuring free top-down navigation through the town and the school building. The hero can enter restaurants, shops, cafe houses, etc. It is also possible to take a train to another district and explore it. The game has an internal clock; a visit to any location (including separate rooms of a building, etc.) "costs" twenty minutes of the game time. The purpose of the game is to learn where and when the fourteen "datable" girls usually are. Many of the conversations with the girls feature multiple answers; the success in many cases depends on the player's choices. The game has scenes with nudity and explicit sexual situations. A Windows version was later released in 1999 and an English version came out in 2022. | ||
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| Penthouse Hot Numbers | reLINE Software / Magic Bytes | [top] | |
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This is basically the same game as the publisher's previous Sexy Droids with new pictures; this time nude photographs from 15 Penthouse models. Two opponents (the second either human or AI) compete on a 8x8 grid field. The players take turns and each one clicks on a field which has two effects: a part of the photograph is revealed and the player gets positive or negative points; depending on the field's colour. The catch is that one player can move the cursor only horizontally and the other is restricted to vertical movements. The game ends when no more moves are possible and the player with the most points wins. | ||
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Role-Playing Games
| Abandoned Places: A Time for Heroes | ArtGame / International Computer Entertainment Ltd. | [top] | |
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In this RPG, you play the role of four heroes whose mission is to save their world, Kalynthia, from the evil arch mage Bronagh. Most of the time, while exploring the over world, the game is shown in a 2D top-down view. It gives you much freedom: there's more to do than just stick to the main quest. Towns have a static interface where you reach the wished location by pressing the according symbol. e.g. a church for healing up or a sage for hints. During dungeon crawls the game switches to a 3D view and plays similar to Dungeon Master. As usual for this kind of games you see the dungeon in a small windows while your characters are shown on the right hand side of the screen. Dungeon sequences are completely in real-time. This includes combat which basically consists of clicking on a character's weapon or magic spell and then clicking on the monster. After every usage of a weapon/spell you have to wait a certain time until you can use it again. | ||
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| Amberstar | Thalion Software GmbH | [top] | |
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A thousand years ago, a young Black Magician named Tar valiantly fought the demon lord Thornahuun, who was revealed to be his own father. However, Thornahuun managed to possess his son's soul and corrupt it. Tar declared himself Lord Tarbos and brought terror to the land of Lyramion, before being locked away in a secure prison on the world's red moon. Now, a sorcerer named Marmion is trying to release him, with the intention of spreading horror through the land. A lone adventurer from the town of Twinlake must gather thirteen pieces of a powerful artifact known as Amberstar to prevent that from happening. Amberstar is a role-playing game which uses a top-down view for overworld travel and most indoor locations, and switches to a first-person pseudo-3D perspective when exploring cities and dungeons. Initially the player creates a single protagonist with randomly assigned attributes and no class designation. During the course of the game, additional characters (up to six active party members) can be found in different cities and other locations and recruited. Some of these characters already belong to established classes and come with their own abilities. Guilds of various classes (fighter, paladin, ranger, mage, monk, and thief) can be visited, where the protagonist and his class-less companions (if any) can be promoted. Choice of classes affects attributes, character growth, imposes equipment restrictions, etc. When leveling up, characters can train in specific locations, increasing attributes of the player's choice. Enemy encounters may occur at specific points in the overworld, or by approaching a visible enemy in a dungeon. The view then switches to overhead, with the combatants displayed on a small grid next to a window graphically presenting the enemies. The fighting is turn-based and offers various defensive and offensive options, including tactical movement on the grid and 90 different spells. Although certain items must be procured and quests completed, the game is largely non-linear, and the player is free to roam the world of Lyramion from the onset. Besides traveling on foot, horses can be bought for safe crossing of shallow water, boats and rafts for sailing, and additional means of transportation as the game advances. The game features a multiple-topic conversation system with prominent NPCs, side quests to undertake, an auto-mapping feature in towns, a day-and-night cycle that may affect NPC movements and shop schedules, and usage of rations when camping to restore lost life points. Progress can be saved at any time, but there is only one save slot that is automatically overwritten. | ||
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| Angband | Angband Development Team | [top] | |
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Angband is a dungeon-crawling roguelike computer game derived from Umoria. It is based on the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien, in which Angband is the fortress of Morgoth. The game revolves around exploring a 100-level dungeon, in which the player seeks to amass enough power and equipment to ultimately defeat Morgoth. A new dungeon level is randomly generated each time the player enters a new level for the first time; so no two games are the same. It has been described by GameSetWatch as "perhaps the purest representation of roguelike tactics in any game". Angband gameplay is combat and tactics based, with inventory management as an important aspect of gameplay. Angband games can last for weeks. The game is fiendishly difficult, and players can play for years without getting even a third of the way through the game. | ||
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| Buck Rogers: Matrix Cubed | Strategic Simulations, Inc. | [top] | |
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Following the events of the previous game (Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday), N.E.O. the New Earth Organization, has gained some notoriety for defeating the forces of R.A.M., The Russo-American Mercantile. Because of this, the heroes of that mission are sent to diplomatic talks on Venus and N.E.O. stands to recruit a powerful new ally. However it isn't long before trouble starts, and an assassination attempt is planned against the Venusian minister. This is only the beginning of a plot embroiled with the mysterious Matrix Device, which can turn matter into energy. Naturally these adventures will take the NEO agents all over the solar system. Matrix Cubed is an RPG navigated in first person for most places but with an overhead view for combat and ship navigation. Players will create (or import) a party of up to six characters and assign statistics, abilities and equipment. Players move their party in a first person maze of corridors, open area and rooms. Certain encounters will allow the player to make choices based on the party skills. In the case of combat, the player and enemy forces each have a turn, controlled on an overhead map. | ||
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| Captive | Mindscape International Ltd. | [top] | |
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You awake in prison, without the memory of who you are, where you are and why you are imprisoned. In the corner of your cell you find a briefcase computer, which gives you the control over a unit of four droids. Now you must use these droids to find yourself, and free yourself. Captive has a sci-fi setting, but resembles more a fantasy RPGs with robots and droids. With the help of the droids you explore tech-dungeons and seek information, which leads to the next planet(s) on a path, the end of which is your cell. The movement and fighting is similar to games like Eye of the Beholder, but you can buy droid parts in shops beside the usual weapons and items. The droids haven't levels like in "normal" role-playing games; you must buy upgrades for the different parts of the droids, which make them stronger and faster. You can also buy a variety of chips, which allow the droids to see in darkness, invert the gravity or simple to shield a little period of time. | ||
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| Challenge of the Five Realms | MicroProse Software, Inc. / Microplay Software | [top] | |
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Subtitled Spellbound in the World of Nhagardia, this Microprose title came out the same year as their more popular work, Darklands. It is a top-down 256-color VGA role-playing game with a few unique twists. As Prince of Alonia, the player controls a party of up to 10 (!) characters, battling the evil lord Grimnoth in a standard fantasy setting. The game features "Ultima-style" character generation, in which the player's answers to situational questions help determine the protagonist's character type (diplomat, warrior, thief, or wizard) and attributes. An immense number of skills and attributes, akin to that of Daggerfall, add variety to the gameplay, allowing puzzles to be solved in different ways. Dawdling endlessly in side quests to build up your party is not a good idea, as the player has 100 days to stop the encroaching Plague of Darkness, whose spread is shown graphically in the interface. Under the "PAL system", characters not only have their own personalities (aggressive, cowardly), but will speak up and volunteer for tasks they are best-suited to perform (e.g., lockpicking, bribery). | ||
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| Dark Queen of Krynn, The | MicroMagic, Inc. / Strategic Simulations, Inc. | [top] | |
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The is the third and last part in the Dragonlance RPG series using the standard game engine found in the Goldbox series (with slight enhancements). Evil, after failing two times before, finally tries to defeat Good and conquer the world of Krynn. This time, the Dark Queen herself will take command over the forces of Evil. Her aim is to enter Krynn, which would ultimately lead to the defeat of Good. The party's task is to prevent this. Characters from Death Knights of Krynn can be transferred. Graphics were improved, as the game could now display 256 colors. The game was more combat heavy than the previous releases in the series and there was less time spent in exploration mode. While the tone of the release was epic in scale, ultimately leading to an encounter with the dark goddess Takhisis, the game was marred by significant bugs. | ||
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| Darklands | MicroProse Software, Inc. | [top] | |
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Darklands is an epic Role Playing Game set in medieval Germany. You can begin by either selecting a pre-made party (quickstart) or by creating your own characters. Creating your characters is quite interesting, as you begin when they're 10 and choose a career path for them. The more time you choose at a certain career path, in 5 year periods, the better your character will become, and this is all before the adventure begins. Whilst in a city or other inhabited area, you're given choices on how to proceed, sort of like a which-way book. This is the way you'll communicate and move about within towns and castles. Once you've left a city, you're taken to the travel screen, which is a real time map of Germany with a lone figure representing your party. Here you travel around the countryside, getting into adventures and meeting friends and enemies. Combat (speaking of enemies) is real time, but you can pause the action to give orders, so it's sort of Pseudo-Turn Based. The game has an epic scope, and can go on for as long as you'd like it to. The main goal is to collect as much fame for you and your party as possible, because the more fame you have the better quests you'll receive, and the better the rewards. | ||
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| Defender of Boston: The Rock Island Mystery | Tim Wisseman | [top] | |
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Defender of Boston: The Rock Island Mystery is a role-playing game where the player takes on the role of a private investigator, located in Boston in the year 1921. His assignment is to go to an island called Rock Island to solve a mysterious disappearance of one Fred Black and a dangerous artifact described in the assignment brief as "The Thing", which has terrible powers for any mere mortal to control. The game begins with character development of a numerous amount of skills where you must allocate points for those skills. There is a wide array of skills from standard issue such as strength, dexterity, to more complex skills such as chemistry and ninjutsu. The interface is similar to most interactive fiction with graphic games with some additional features such as character stats, a clock, and several buttons for skills and other uses. An additional feature is using several objects and combining it into a new item. The ingredients of the object are automatically available in the skill menu, so you only have to find the appropriate ingredients during your travels. Combat occurs in real time, in the same way as travelling in the open. | ||
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| Four Crystals of Trazere, The / Legend | Mindscape, Inc. | [top] | |
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The Four Crystals of Trazere is an epic fantasy adventure through the land of Trazere. Armies of mutants are marauding through the land and it's up to the heroes to scour the cities, dungeons, and wilderness looking for clues to the source of the evil. The party moves from location to location on a strategic map avoiding (or ambushing) enemy patrols and armies while trying to find the clues and items they need in isometric dungeons and cities. The game also features an intricate magic system that lets players design and customize spells. | ||
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| GayBlade | RJ Best Inc. | [top] | |
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This was the first LGBT themed game on PC. It's a Wizardry-style first-person dungeon crawler has the player controlling a team of LGBT heroes as they try to rescue the Empress Nelda from Lord Nanahcub and his evil forces. The character classes and items are all affectionate parodies of early 90s gay stereotypes, while the villains are parodies of the early 90s anti-LGBT political movement. When the author went unpaid for developing Citadel of the Dead for another publisher, he developed this using its source code as a basis. Thought to be a lost game, a copy was finally located in 2019 and can now be played online or downloaded. Features: Exciting 256-color graphics; Cool digitized sound effects; Dozens of magic & cleric spells to work with; Over 75 different weapons, equipment and accessories to find; Over 100 different & horrifying creatures to do battle with; And more. Version 2.5's new features: also runs on 16 gray scale and multi-monitor systems; You can now equip items in the Castle before entering the Dungeon; More animation for spells, and creatures; Item icons now make an identifying sound when equipped; Windows are now centered on monitors; Interface improvements make the game easier to play. | ||
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| Hero Quest + Hero Quest: Return of the Witch Lord | Gremlin Graphics Software Limited | [top] | |
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This bundled title was the only release on PC of the expansion pack which had been released individually on other systems. The expansion pack comes with a set of new quests and adapted from a similar expansion to the original board game. This time the quests follow an ongoing storyline. The Witch Lord is back, and the heroes enter the ruined city Kalos to find and defeat him. This expansion plays similarly to the original game, but as the manual warns, it is more difficult. | ||
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| Ishar: Legend of the Fortress | Silmarils | [top] | |
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This is the sequel to the Crystals of Arborea. Morgoth and Morgula, the black god and his witch wife who were defeated in the previous game, had a child, Krogh. Their evil progeny is based in the fortress Ishar, which means "unknown" in the elven tongue, and has plans to reduce to population of Kendoria to slavery. The player takes the role of a traveler who, with the aid of up to five companions, battles through the fortress to defeat Krogh and stop the spread of the powers of chaos. Unlike its predecessor, Ishar is viewed entirely from first-person perspective, and its combat is action-oriented rather than turn-based. It boasts exceptional 3D graphics for their times, huge gameworld, alternate solutions to puzzles, and --best of all-- different personalities and goals of your party members that make gameplay tenfold more colorful and fun. | ||
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| Legend Of Power Book, The [K] | Soft-World International | [top] | |
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This was the second Gold Award winning diskette games in China, to commercialize the world through software package. After the launch of this game, it was the first with a background in Chinese martial arts adventure game which mixed some action elements. The protagonist Lin Yun seeks revenge for his father. He must go into the arena of the Tathagata King boxing tournnament in order to eliminate the White Evil. Behind the bookcase in his teacher's room hangs a half sheet of an ancient map. The other half is stored in the Shaolin temple. This map indicates the position of scrolls texts about Diamond Fist of Buddha, which are, in modern terms, the intellectual property of the teachings of the sect Wudang. Lin Yun also has to find the sacred relics of the Buddha. Entire sections of the game screen are drawn with pen and ink rendering. This is truly a masterpiece of Asian RPGs with wonderful historical and artistic motifs. The graphics format was quite revolutionary for the time. All the action takes place continuously as in a 2D-stage in a conventional side-view like a picture, scenery or fighting game genre. You can go to houses, taverns, gates, etc., in and out of different buildings and corridors, buy horses, gamble... Interactivity is very rich. Commands in your RPG-menu are quite a bit: you can search - for example, the contents of your opponent's pockets (perhaps already unconscious), use an item, keep or give items, talk to a person, and change settings. In addition to fighting games, the game will teach little lessons in geography of ancient China. You consistently visit four Chinese provinces of Jiangxi, Hunan, Sichuan, Qinghai. There are also 10 musical themes. | ||
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| Legends of Valour | Synthetic Dimensions / Strategic Simulations, Inc. | [top] | |
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The city of Mittledorf is in chaos - an evil cousin of the King is oppressing the people. Your cousin Sven is not evil though, so when he disappears, you head to Mitteldorf to try to track him down. Legends of Valour is a role-playing game using a similar movement system to Ultima Underworld. You walk through the world in real time, passing texture-mapped buildings. The complex gameworld is over a mile squared and includes 40 miles of underground tunnels, as well a thousands of characters getting on with their daily business. When designing your character, you can customise his or her looks, and this affects your likelihood of being befriended or fought. To make any inroads into finding Sven, you will need to join professional Guilds and complete quests. You have spells available to you, but will need to acquire more as the game progresses. The UK version of the game was subtitled 'Volume 1 - The Dawning', as indeed, there were more chapters planned (they never materialised). | ||
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| Magic Candle III, The | Mindcraft Software, Inc. | [top] | |
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This is another game in the Magic Candle series of top-down RPG's that bears more than a slight resemblance to the old Ultima games. These games feature several other innovations over the Ultima series of games, the best example being a more complex party management system which makes it possible to divide your party of adventurers and give each party a different task. Compared to earlier games in the series, The Magic Candle III features little more than further enhanced VGA graphics and a new storyline. In The Magic Candle III, you and your party of adventurers, which can be transferred from the previous Magic Candle games, must stop a mysterious "blight" that is spreading through the country. | ||
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| Moonstone: A Hard Day's Knight | Mindscape International Ltd. | [top] | |
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Something's happening in these lands, and the only hope seems to be the moonstone. You, as a chosen knight from the druids are about to find it and bring it back. The game can be played from 1 to 4 players at once, with no difference between solo and multiplayer as no matter how many players play, the story stays the same for everyone. However, if you choose to play with only one player/knight, the other three will be the computer rivals. Wandering through the map, you can visit enchanted places, towns where you can buy equipment or try your luck in gambling, but mostly visited places on the map will be cabins which represents the places where certain enemy beasts are. Each spot has about two or more beasts which after defeating them can be rewarding in a certain way, depending on game's randomize placement. Also, for example, if the place has three beasts and you kill two before you die, next time you (or some other player) go back there, there'll be only one beast left to fight. It's also possible for two players to run into each other and, once defeating the other, the one who prevails can steal the other player's money and/or weapons. Thus, searching for the moonstone begins, but that's only half of the story. The rest unfolds once you find it. | ||
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| Prophecy of the Shadow | Strategic Simulations, Inc. | [top] | |
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A long foretold prophecy is about to be fulfilled. The Shadow Lords are on the verge of entering our world. The hero has to find a way to break the string of events, that are foretold by the prophecy. Magic is dying in the land, and the use of it is illegal - practitioners are hunted by Mage Hunters. And worst of all, the hero's master was treacherously killed by a poisoned dirk, and the hero is blamed for his death. This is a fantasy role-playing game from SSI, published in the "post AD&D" era of the company. The player is controlling a single character in a 2D interface, using an engine specifically designed for this project. The protagonist has three main statistics: strength, magic, and agility (which influences his chances of dodging an enemy attack). In order to cast spells, the hero must learn them from magical tomes found in the game, and equip a catalyst that allows him to use them in combat. The combat takes place in the same area as the exploration, and is real-time: the player must select commands while the enemies are acting. The story is told using still pictures, text, and small animated sequences that used digitized actors superimposed over 3D rendered scenes. It was designed to entice new gamers into the RPG genre: very simple character creation and stats, appealing VGA graphics and "cinematic" cut-scenes, mouse-driven interface, and easy combat. | ||
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| Realms of Arkania: Blade of Destiny | Attic Entertainment Software GmbH / Sir-tech Software, Inc., U.S. Gold | [top] | |
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The first game in the Realms of Arkania trilogy. It combines all the best characteristics of that times RPG’s, like an extensive story line, first person view mode, cave exploring, scenery and (of course) freedom over your own actions. This game was an immediate hit when it was first released, forcing the producers to make a new English version almost over night! (The game was originally intended only for Germany). This delayed the sequel to the game, Star Trail, for a whole year. The game is incredibly huge for the time it was made. A lot of work was put into creating the world, including history, geography, folklore, races and NPC’s (non-player characters). The story is epic, as all RPG’s… You play the role of six different people; all looking for adventure and fame that arrives in the city of Thorwal. After a while, you are sent to the real quest of the game: hunt for the sword of legendary warlord Hetman Hyggelik. In order to find it, you will have to travel the world in search for pieces of a map, drawn by one of Hyggelik’s warriors. This map, naturally, shows the location of the sword. This game partially relies on its manual. You will need the manual if you want to make your own characters (recommended), as it holds the minimum requirements in the attribute values of each type of hero.
See also: #2013 3D remake, #Realms of Arkania: Blade of Destiny HD |
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| Samurai Mech [MAC] [J] | Hulinks | [top] | |
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A sci-fantasy CRPG where players take on the role of an inexperienced samurai having recently traveled from Earth to an orbital archipelago built during Japan's golden age of technology. Emphasis rests on making connections, buying/modifying equipment/parts to increase your power in battle, and learning how to wield a sword using the game's unique turn-based battle interface allowing for specific gestures and stances. Remembered for being one of a rarefied few Mac games made in Japan, the game was due for localization outside the country but a deal never came to pass. The game was designed for KanjiTalk. While it was a monochrome screen, it was a masterpiece that takes 40 hours to clear up, 7 floppy disks. The setting that the Meiji Restoration does not occur until the 26th century and the Edo shogunate continues governance. The shogunate, who suffers from population problems, builds colonies on the floating continents found in near-space and makes mass migrations. In the basement of the space city named "Oedo", numerous remains of machines left by the super advanced ancient civilization are sleeping. They are called "Mech", and in Oedo the technical civilization using this Mec has developed. The player is a young man who wants to be a samurai who lives in the town of Oedo, "Shenzhen". Sometime Fukagawa was attacked by a mysterious ninja group, and as a result, the player is involved in plotting over the mysterious Mech that sleeps deep under Oedo deeply. SF entertainment era play RPG. | ||
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| Shadowlands | Teque London Ltd. / Domark Software Ltd. | [top] | |
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Viewed isometrically, this role-playing game saw you leading a party of four intrepid souls on a mission to restore peace to the land. Sixteen levels awaited them, all filled with traps and monsters. Spells could be collected as the game went on, and multiple ones cast in quick succession. The characters could be split, and sent off on different routes and tasks to save time. The game's title was inspired by its innovative use of light, or rather of darkness. Nothing could be seen without the torches your characters had; these meant that vision faded outside their circular arc. You had to manoeuvre the torch around to reveal secret areas, and it could be used to ward off some monsters, although it alerted others to your presence. | ||
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| Spelljammer: Pirates of Realmspace | Cybertech / Strategic Simulations, Inc. | [top] | |
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Based on the 2nd Edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) Spelljammer rulebook, Spelljammer: Pirates of Realmspace leads the player into a fantasy world to a pilot a ship (spelljammer) that may travel into Realmspace and visit eight worlds of inner and outer planets for exploration and trade. In this game, the player captains a spelljammer ship, consisting of several crew members and officers (which may be equipped with items) as well as the player's main character. Gameplay primarily consists of trading goods between one planet and another as well as completing quests available at each planet. During the course of space travel (first person perspective), the player while travelling in wildspace, may encounter other spelljammer vessels. If the player determines the vessel is hostile, space combat may commence by attacking (or being attacked) by said vessel. Combat consists of two different areas: Vessel-To-Vessel combat, where the player can battle other spelljammers with the ship's weapons. These weapons (depending on the spelljammer type) consists of ranged weapons (catapult, ballista); ramming, shearing attacks, and grappling the enemy vessel to board it. Hand-to-Hand combat, where the player boards or is boarded by an enemy vessel after a successful grappling attempt (top-down perspective) In hand-to-hand combat, participants are divided into the ship's mates and the ship's crew. The player has complete control of the ship's mates, whereas the artificial intelligence (AI) takes control of the ship's crew. Victory is decided when all of the enemy mates and crew are destroyed. Achieving victory over an enemy vessel will result in the possibility of the player changing ships, as there are various different spelljammer ships in the game. These spelljammer ships may later be repaired or upgraded with weapons/accessories in any planet port. | ||
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| Summoning, The | Event Horizon Software, Inc. / Strategic Simulations, Inc. | [top] | |
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The Summoning is a single-character fantasy role-playing adventure, set inside a huge labyrinth with 40 different levels and hordes of mean monsters. Use steel, magic and wit to fight, cast and puzzle your way through the evil that lies within. Struggle to survive and grow strong enough to fight and defeat Shadow Weaver, the villain responsible for the evil spreading across the land. | ||
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| Treasures of the Savage Frontier | Beyond Software, Inc. / Strategic Simulations, Inc. | [top] | |
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The Heroes of Ascore have been magically summoned to help old dwarven allies retake the city of Llorkh from the foul Zhentarim legions. After that, there are more dangers that lurk in the wilds of the Savage Frontier. The sequel to Gateway to the Savage Frontier is a role-playing game using SSI's standard Gold Box gameplay system. You can import existing characters from playing the first game. The game is viewed form above, as you move your party into mystery, buildings and combat. The game now includes weather changes that affect movement and NPC interaction. | ||
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| Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss | Blue Sky Productions / ORIGIN Systems | [top] | |
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You are the Avatar. Once again you return to Britannia. Upon your arrival, you witness the kidnapping of Baron Almric's daughter. Found guilty of the crime, you are thrown into the Great Stygian Abyss with the choice of either finding the girl or rotting in the dungeon. On your journey you have to get along with the many inhabitants of the dungeon, who are survivors of a failed colony, and eventually find out that there's much more to this kidnapping than meets the eye. This was the first RPG that had fluid first-person movement in a 3D environment, revolutionizing the genre. Unlike earlier first-person RPGs like Dungeon Master and Eye of the Beholder, the player can move in every direction and the graphics are updated continually. The dungeon also is not made entirely of corridors and rooms arranged in a rectangular fashion but has a lot of variety: slopes, stairs, bridges and more. The combat system is action-oriented. The player has to draw his weapon and aim at his opponent in real time. The magic system is based on runes that can be found in the Abyss. If combined in the right order, they produce a magical effect. As the Abyss is populated by more than just monsters, there are also various dialogue sequences with NPCs, who one can also barter with. It's an "unsung hero" of the FPS genre, probably because it was also a RPG, and perhaps the first game to belong to it properly. The player character could defeat enemies with projectile weapons (bows, crossbows) or with melee weapons (swords, cudgels, etc.). Technologies such as walls of varying heights, non-perpendicular walls, inclined surfaces, and swimming were ahead of their time. This superior engine was later used for System Shock. A moderate commercial success, it was soon overshadowed by subsequent titles that nonetheless used inferior technology. |
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| Ultima VII, Part One: The Black Gate + The Forge of Virtue | ORIGIN Systems, Inc. | [top] | |
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The Avatar sees a strange message on his computer screen. An unknown being who calls himself the Guardian claims that Britannia has entered a true age of enlightenment, and soon everyone, including the Avatar himself, shall bow before the new lord. At this moment, a moongate materializes, and the Avatar steps through it into Britannia. He emerges in the city of Trinsic, where his old friend Iolo tells him that two hundred years have passed since his last visit. A horrible ritualistic murder has just occurred - the body of the local blacksmith was found in the stables. The Avatar learns that a new organization known as the Fellowship has been recruiting more and more followers recently. The champion of Britannia must solve the murder and find out about the Fellowship's true purpose, while still pursued by the ominous warnings of the mysterious Guardian. Ultima VII: The Black Gate features revamped graphics and controls. The traditional Ultima top-down view of the world now fills the entire screen, with other informational windows overlaid on top of it only when necessary. Both world interaction and dialogue are fully mouse-controlled. Objects can be physically interacted with by dragging them with the mouse. Objects can also be stacked upon each other, and some puzzles are based on this feature. The tactical combat system of previous Ultima games has been replaced with a real-time system where only general strategies can be set and party members fight automatically, the player taking control of the Avatar alone. The game's world is vast, populated by many non-playable characters with their own schedules. There are more extensive dialogue trees and individual conversation topics compared to the series' previous installments. Ultima VII: The Forge of Virtue is an add-on disk to Ultima VII: The Black Gate that adds new areas and quests to the game. Once the disk is installed and a previous game is loaded (or a new one begun), an earthquake shakes Britannia, signalling the rising of the Isle of Fire from the oceans. The Isle was last seen in Ultima III, serving as the stronghold of Exodus. And while Exodus was destroyed, some of his essence remains in the Dark Core, which must be destroyed to rid Britannia of his evil once and for all. To accomplish this, several tests of virtue must be passed, originally designed by Lord British as part of the Quest of the Avatar. The rewards of completing the add-on's quests are plentiful and can make the main game easier: the Avatar's stats will be raised to their maximum and a new, powerful weapon will be made available, able to vanquish even the most dangerous foes with a single strike. See also: #Ultima Collection | ||
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| UnReal World | Sami Maaranen (creator), Erkka Lehmus (co-designer) / Enormous Elk | [top] | |
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The cult classic open-ended wilderness survival roguelike RPG taking place in the ancient North. Throughout the years, UnReal World has been praised for its incredible depth, realism, atmosphere and immersion. Lose yourself in the most intricate, detailed and enchanting iron-age game world. A cult classic Finnish game that has been in development since the 90s. This is a combination of survival simulator and low-fantasy rogue-like. The game is set in Iron Age Finland - roughly 1000 A.D. - when Finnish people were pagan tribes living on hunting, fishing, farming and trading furs. It has strong emphasis on survival; to keep your character fed and warm is a challenge in itself, especially when the winter hits with freezing temperatures. If you like, you can choose a tutorial-like game-course, which offers you small tasks one after one. These are good for learning the basics of the game, but otherwise the game is essentially open-ended; there is no final objective, no ready-made storyline to follow. Just wander the forests and make your living, settle down and build a farm of your own, be a peaceful fisher hermit, or equip a band of companions and go raiding and looting. The game begins with character creation. The player can choose a tribe for his character. This affects the overall attributes and skills. There are skill points to be used to improve chosen skills. And, for a each new character the game generates a huge random map with rivers, lakes, mountains, mires, forests and farmhouses with fields and pastures. The final stage of character creation offers a variety of starting scenarios to choose from. For example, you can start the game in an easy situation where you have just left your home at the age of 16, and go wandering to the unknown places. Or, you can start as poor enslaved youngster, who just tries to flee his captors. The game itself is turn based with tile graphics. You can travel around in a map mode where the scale is 100m/tile. You zoom in to scale of 2m/tile, when you encounter a creature, enter a settled area, or just want to explore the surroundings in more detail. In zoomed-in mode you can pick berries and mushroom, go fishing, chop down trees and split firewood, build a shelter or a cabin, hunt animals and cut the meat and tan the hide, cook food etc. Almost all of the activities are affected by character skills. They range from timbercraft and survival to swimming and climbing and on to weapon skills. The combat system is simulated in detail. Each wound is separately tracked; you can have a major puncture in your left arm, a bruise in your right elbow, and a shallow tear in your abdomen etc. Penalty from wounds, fatigue and carried load affects your performance. And the same goes for animals and NPC's. So aiming for legs can be a deadly tactics, making the opponent to fall down in which case it is easier to land a lethal blow. Creatures leave tracks when they move around, so it is possible to track down a fleeing animal. A creature with bleeding wounds leaves a blood-scape, which is easier to follow. And if the bleeding is serious, it is enough to just follow the prey until it collapses from blood loss. Humans can try to treat wounds with water and bandages and various herbs. Also you can seek help from sages and wise men. But recovery always takes time; a seriously wounded character can't even walk and is forced to crawl for safety. That is when a stock-pile of dried and smoked meat comes handy. Fighting is always a serious matter, as upon death the character data is deleted, so it effectively is a perma-death. | ||
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| Wizardry 7: Crusaders of the Dark Savant | Sir-tech Software, Inc. / U.S. Gold Ltd. | [top] | |
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This is a direct sequel to the previous game where at the end, the party of heroes finally acquired the Cosmic Forge. However, before they were able to decide what to do with it, it was taken away by a servant of the Cosmic Lords, the cyborg Aletheides. It appears that the Cosmic Forge was in fact a clue to the location of the Astral Dominae, the artifact of life, somewhere on the planet Guardia, which has now been revealed to the universe. The heroes then travel to Guardia, which is populated by many races and organizations with their own agendas, including the rhinoceros-like Imperial Umpani Federation and the spidery T'Rang affiliated with a malevolent being known as the Dark Savant, whose goal is to get rid of the Cosmic Lords. All these factions are looking for the Astral Dominae, finding which is the primary goal of the game. Depending on the decisions made by the player in the previous game (should he opt to import the party from there), the game will have different openings and begin in different locations. However, regardless of the initial premise, the player is free to follow or betray whatever faction he was supposed to be allied with. The gameplay system is very similar to that of its predecessor, retaining the races, the classes, the skills and the magic system it introduced to the series. The trademark first-person exploration and turn-based combat are present as well. A few skills have been added, including swimming and climbing, as well as diplomacy. The latter reflects the more important role dialogues and interaction with NPCs play in the game compared to the previous installments of the series. The setting has undergone the most drastic change, with the party of medieval warriors being transferred into a sci-fi environment. As a result, firearms have been added as available weapons. An upgraded version called Wizardry Gold was released in 1996 on a CD. Enhancements to the base game include: full Windows 95 support, new graphics and animations, new sound effects and digital speech for narratives, mouse driven interface, automap feature, on-line manual, and in-game interactive hint guide. | ||
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Platformers
| Catch 'Em | Prestige Softwareentwicklung GmbH / Global Software | [top] | |
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Jeff the Zookeeper isn't too good at his job in this side-scrolling platformer. Hordes of monkeys have escaped from the zoo, and he must return them, alive. He does this by tempting them with bananas, of which he has a finite supply, before hitting them with a baseball bat to stun them (logically, tranquillizer darts would make more sense, but this way the game involves getting close to the monkeys, making things tougher), before boxing them up (again, the number of boxes is limited) to return safely to the zoo. The levels on which this must be done consist of a number of platforms, ladders, ledges and the like, and are played against a time limit. Falls stun Jeff, potentially allowing the monkeys time to escape, or drop banana skins to disrupt him. | ||
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| Clyde's Adventure | Moonlite Software | [top] | |
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This platform game's objective is to travel through each of the castles, collect the special treasure, all of the gems and find the exit. It's by the developer of Hocus Pocus. There are no enemies although there are a large number of traps, switches and teleporters to complicate things. Clyde, the main character, has a supply of energy that depletes whenever he walks, jumps, or falls from a great height. If his energy reaches 0, it causes Clyde to die with a shriek. He has a wand that can temporarily remove some bricks and light bombs that can permanently destroy others. There are two chapters to the game, each containing 16 castles. Part one ("The Lost Treasure of Tahookaboo") is shareware, while part two ("The Vanished King") was only available on registration. However, the full registered game is now freeware. | ||
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| Commander Keen in Keen Dreams | id Software, Inc. / Softdisk Publishing | [top] | |
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Keen dreams is a side-scrolling shooter like the rest of the games in the Commander Keen series. Sitting at the table with his parents, Billy Blaze just won't eat his vegetables and is sent to bed. Soon he falls asleep and has horrible nightmares about vegetables attacking him and he doesn't even have his stun pistol! A Tater Trooper explains to Keen that he was brought to the land of Tuberia by the Dream Machine and that his new master is the massive potato Boobus Tuber. Thus begins Keen's journey to save himself and escape from Tuberia. To succeed Keen needs to defeat Boobus Tuber and destroy the Dream Machine. It won't be easy! This is sometimes referred to as the "Lost Episode" of Commander Keen. According to Joe Siegler of Apogee, he called Keen Dreams as the "Keen Episode 3.5." The reason stated for this is that Keen Dreams falls between the Invasion of the Vorticons series (comprising Keen 1:Marooned on Mars, Keen 2:The Earth Explodes & Keen 3:Keen Must Die) and the Goodbye galaxy series (comprising Keen 4:Secret of the Oracle & Keen 5:The Armageddon Machine). | ||
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| Cool Croc Twins, The | Arcade Masters | [top] | |
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This is a platform game where, as one of the cool crocodile twins Punk and Funk, you try to reach the beautiful crocodile girl. To do so, you'll have to complete over 60 levels. Each level is made of a bunch of thin, floating platforms. When you approach the edge of a platform, you do not fall off - rather, you begin walking upside-down on the other side! Instead of jumping, you "reverse the gravity" of your croc, causing him to fall up or down until he lands on a platform. You goal on each level is to light up all the bulbs by bumping them with your head. If you hit the bulb three times it will be completely lit up. Some bulbs are invisible on higher levels. There are also foes who want to stop you and who sabotage your efforts by bumping into the bulbs you've lit, turning them off. Your foes can walk on both sides of the platforms just as you and can jump from platform to platform just as you, so watch out! The game can be played by 2 players, so if you are Funk then your friend is Punk and you can challenge each other in scores. | ||
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| Cool World | Twilight / Ocean Software Ltd. | [top] | |
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This is a licensed game based on the live action/animation movie "Cool World" that starred Kim Basinger. You play Frank Harris and your task is to stop Holli Would from entering the real world. You accomplish the levels by shooting doodles and collecting coins. The doodles are quite fun to watch: they are moving objects from the real world into cool world, and the more doodles that make it through to the real world, the more objects they will be able to push back to cool world. The danger bar at the bottom of the screen shows the number of doodles in the real world. When the bar is full, the imbalance is far too great and it's game over. You destroy the doodles by shooting and sucking them up with your handy pen, return the objects to the real world - all under a pretty strict time limit. Gameplay is set in 4 Worlds with 4 levels each. Same as the movie, the game is based in cartoon graphics. | ||
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| Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure: Forbidden Planet | Apogee Software, Ltd. | [top] | |
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On a trip with his parents to every kid's favorite place in the universe (Disney World, of course), Cosmo becomes stranded on a planet, his parents vanished. You direct him as he runs and jumps through different lands, such as alien tropics, haunted forest, ice cave, and future world, to find his parents. Along the way he encounters the various platform baddies that he must either jump to death in the classic style or destroy with bombs. Bombs are also useful for finding secrets. Cosmo is also armed with suction cup arms which he can use to climb up tall walls. There are 3 episodes in the game series in which Cosmo must navigate through 10 alien-themed levels. The first episode is the free shareware demo and the other two are only available if you buy and register the game. At the end of the first episode, Cosmo unexpectedly gets swallowed by a large alligator-like creature. The story continues in the second episode, where Cosmo ends up in the creature's body and has to find a way out. At the end of the second episode, Cosmo finds the city where he thinks his parents might have been taken. In the final episode, Cosmo finds his parents. | ||
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| Electro Man / Electro Body | xLand Games / Epic MegaGames, Inc. | [top] | |
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This is a platform game with puzzle elements. It was originally released in Poland by xLand in 1992, and later published by Epic MegaGames in the United States in 1993; apart from the changed title, the Electro Man release contains some changes, such as upgraded graphics. You have to guide Jacek, the Electro Man, around the levels, using such things as teleporters, while shooting enemies and collecting weapon power-ups. This latter activity is essential - over a period of time, your weapon downgrades itself, until you can't actually fire at all. The game features in total 8 levels, on which there are three microchips that must be collected in order to proceed to the next. The difficulty level is very steep, and each death sets you back to your previously visited checkpoint, but fortunately already collected microchips stay collected. Checkpoints also serve as an additional difficulty factor, as once touched, they remove all your weapons, leaving you unarmed. Unlike many platformers, you can't control your jumping mid-air, and the main protagonist can only jump and fall at a given angle. This proves an extra challenge as when there are enemies above or below you, perfect timing is essential in order to succeed. The game suffers from almost no sound at all, and only the last level, which really is just a credit to the producers, has music. In 2006 it was released as freeware but in a version that works only in DOSBox. | ||
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| Fire & Ice | Graftgold Creative Software / Renegade Software | [top] | |
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The background story of Fire & Ice is quick to tell: A coyote (you) runs, throwing ice cubes, through various worlds. In the levels you must jump on platforms and kill your enemies. The enemies (for example, birds and penguins) can be shot with your ice cubes; they become frozen, so you smash them. Sometimes they leave part of a key behind after they're destroyed. The complete key, assembled from all the pieces, opens the door to the next world. In this "jump & run" you can also get some power-ups. You can find some coyote puppies; these puppies follow you, are invulnerable, and also shoot enemies. In higher regions you find some snow-flakes; enough of these and you get a great snowball for freezing more enemies on the screen. | ||
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| First Samurai | Vivid Image / Ubi Soft Entertainment Software, Piko Interactive LLC | [top] | |
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This is a platform action game very much similar to other platform games, but with a medieval oriental touch to it in addition to various unique features. Arriving in the new unknown land, you are defenseless hence your fists and kicks. But as you journey forth, you'll find your trusty magical sword as well as throwing weapons such as knives and axes. With your martial art skills, your enemy best beware with those sudden moves that may prove fatal. It offers a wide array of weapons, special items and other objects. Combat is usually melee, either relying on your punch or kicks or using the magical sword to slash some pretty skillful blows in whatever direction possible. Monsters are forever regenerating but food for health is plentiful. It actually takes an effort to be killed. A huge game with 10 levels full of puzzles to solve. | ||
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| Harald Hårdtand: Kampen om de rene tænder [Da] | Silver Rock Productions / Colgate-Palmolive A/S | [top] | |
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This is a surprisingly good Danish advergame for Colgate in which you play an anthropomorphic tooth fighting bacteria with toothbrush and paste. As each level starts there are a number of holes (visualized as huts) in the teeth you must protect, from which bacteria emerge. The bacteria go through several stages that get progressively harder to kill, but in the first stage they are able to multiply and so the problem gets rapidly out of hand. Closing these holes and stemming the flow of new enemies is therefore the first order of business. Once you've used your toothbrush to dispatch these cavities, you must hunt down the remaining bacteria, using shots of toothpaste to kill them. Along the way you can pick up power-ups that will replenish your health, ammo or give you double damage. | ||
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| Home Alone 2: Lost in New York | Manley & Associates, Inc. / Capstone Software | [top] | |
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This is a sequel to the prevous Home Alone platformer. As in the film of the same name, this Kevin McCallister is lost in New York and must avoid the criminals Harry and Marv through 4 levels of gameplay. This version comes con a set of weapons to use against the thugs like the super somersault or the punch gun. | ||
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| Humans, The | Imagitec Design Inc. / GameTek, Inc. | [top] | |
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The Humans transports you to the dawn of civilization. Through a series of coordination-based challenges, the player must control a band of humans through ever increasing levels of difficulty and various stages of evolution. It's a dinosaur-eat-dinosaur world and The Humans' success or failure in mastering new survival tools will determine how far up the evolution scale mankind climbs. Reminiscent of Psygnosis's Lemmings, logic and coordination play a large part as you advance from screen to screen and are rewarded with a "level" code allowing re-entry to the game at the current level of progress. The game consists of eighty timed levels of play with three possible skill settings for a total of 240 challenges. Your job in this action puzzler is to help prehistoric man to evolve by helping them discover tools, the wheel, weapons, or even fire. Each level in the game will have a given task to help in this, and you are allotted a number of characters who must accomplish the task. The player can switch from person to person while moving the characters around each scrolling puzzle, and teamwork is essential to success. Tasks can include finding objects (like a spear) on the screen, or trying to reach a specific destination which may require the use of objects you have discovered so far. Each level has a time limit, when time runs out the level can be restarted. | ||
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| Humans, The: Insult To Injury / Humans 2: The Jurassic Levels | Imagitec Design Inc. / GameTek, Inc. | [top] | |
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Available in both stand-alone and add-on forms, The Jurassic Levels is presumably named to cash in on the then-current Jurassic Park hype. It contains 80 additional levels for the Lemmings-influenced puzzler. The objects collected during the first game are available from the start, so puzzles are immediately more complex. | ||
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| Jill of the Jungle: Jill Goes Underground | Epic MegaGames, Inc. | [top] | |
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Jill of the Jungle 2 is the second in the Jill of the Jungle trilogy. It follows the same concept, but includes new graphics, somewhat improved animation and completely new levels and musical soundtrack. In this particular game, after having explored the depth of the mysterious jungle, Jill proceeds into Montezuma's castle and indeed goes underground in the attempt to rescue her Prince. Gameplay is side-viewed and platform-style, with hazards to overcome include fiure-breathing enemies and spikes. Jill can transform into various creatures to help her escape; when in human form she is limited ot her trusty knife. | ||
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| Jill of the Jungle: Jill Saves The Prince | Epic MegaGames, Inc. | [top] | |
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The final installment in the Jill of the Jungle trilogy features improved animations, new graphics, new music, new levels and a myriad of new enemies. It also features a map-based world which does not exist in the first two games. The story thus far: after having explored the jungle and defeated the forced of darkness in the first two games, Jill must endure another quest in order to save the jungle from being destroyed: Jill must save the prince, who has been kidnapped by an evil green lizardman who wishes to destroy the jungle and build condos instead. Unless Jill saves the prince, he will succeed in his evil cause. | ||
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| Lost Vikings, The | Silicon & Synapse, Inc. / Interplay Productions, Inc. | [top] | |
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This is one of the most charming and unique puzzle games you'll ever come across, despite some console-style quirks. Three stalwart Vikings are accidentally sucked into an alien spaceship during one of their pillaging voyages... and find themselves in unknown land. It is up to you, of course, to guide them home. Gameplay is best described as puzzle-based platform, similar to Lemmings or The Humans: the goal in each level is to get all three Vikings to the exit. To do that requires co-ordinating and timing the use of the Vikings' unique skills. Eric can jump, run and bash through walls with his tough helmet. Olaf has a shield which can block attacks, function as an air glider or as a step to stand on. Baleog can shoot things with his arrows or kill things with his sword. He can also flip switches from afar by shooting them with an arrow. You will have to use the three Vikings as a team, if you hope to get past the increasingly difficult levels and puzzles, switching back and forth between them as necessary. Needless to say, each new level is more difficult than the last, and timing as well as reflexes (i.e. quickly switching between Vikings) become critical to success. Hint buttons strategically placed throughout the game aid you through tough spots, especially in later levels. The Vikings have a "health bar" which can be regenerated by eating food found on the level, and can sustain some damage from aliens' attack. This allows for multiple solutions to some puzzles. As icing on the cake, there are many different, diverse worlds to explore, ranging from Prehistoria, to Egypt, The Great Factory, Wacky World and more. The Vikings come alive as they talk, bicker, and fight each other in humorous cartoon captions between levels. In 2011, Timothy Leonard made a free remake. In 2014, the game was made freeware. | ||
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| Mega Man 3: The Robots are Revolting | Hi-Tech Expressions, Inc. / Capcom | [top] | |
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Dr. Wily seeks once more to conquer the earth with his robotic creations and it's up to Megaman to stop him. This time, Megaman will face the likes of six different robot masters and the monsters within their levels. These bosses are Torch Man, Blade Man, Oil Man, Bit Man, Shark Man and Wave Man. Mega Man 3 is a side-scroller platform game. Megaman's main abilities are his ability to fire energy shots from his arm and his jumping ability. When Megaman confronts a boss, he must bring their energy meter down to zero at which point they are destroyed and Megaman can claim a special weapon unique to that boss. Megaman is also able to swim in this particular game. Instead of creating a faithful port, Hi-Tech reduced the excellent anime characters that NES fans have come to know and love to laughable animated blobs - with Mega Man himself looking like a broken-doll version of Commander Keen ... a cabbage patch doll gone awry, so to speak. The graphics are dull, and even the innovative gameplay that lets Mega Man transform himself into different robot types can't save the game from mediocrity. Overall, a good example of how to botch a blockbuster console license. | ||
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| Nicky Boom | Microïds | [top] | |
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The sorceress Zoldrane kidnapped and casted an evil spell upon your grandfather. She wants to force him to reveal the secrets of the forest people, of whom he is the custodian. As Nicky, you must find a way to defeat Zoldrane, and get an elixir from her chest that will cure grandfather. But Zoldrane has changed all the peaceful creatures of the forest into guards, who try to stop Nicky from ever reaching her castle. During the travels, Nicky is able to move around the levels, jump over obstacles, and duck to avoid flying threats. Nicky must collect gems, flying bombs, dynamite, keys, and other specific objects. These are used for tasks such as building a bridge over a river throwing logs, climbing ladders, using teleporters, or to break walls to find secret areas. Enemy creatures are taken out by throwing apple remnants at them or jumping on them. Nicky's energy is drained if he makes contact with them in any other way. As you do all this, a score is calculated, and then listed in the high score table. Passwords are offered to allow you to resume from a previously-reached level. | ||
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| Ninja Rabbits | Flair Software Ltd. / MicroValue Ltd. | [top] | |
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The protagonist is an anthropomorphic rabbit with dark brown fur, a stick, and a ninja costume. He has to save a factory from destruction. The protagonist has a carrot as a life bar. As he takes damage, his carrot bar gets eaten. When his health bar is empty, he falls to the grounds and loses a life. He starts the game with 3 lives. He can go only to the right but sometimes down into sewers. He can use either his hands, feet, or stick to attack. Enemies include flying dragons, street thugs, other ninja, bears, frogs, and other anthropomorphic animals, one of the enemies resembles Raphael from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, in the second level of the game, one of the enemies resembles Splinter. | ||
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| Onesimus: A Quest for Freedom | Ark Multimedia Publishing | [top] | |
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You are Onesimus, a slave of Philemon. You want to escape from slavery and be free. For freedom you must go to Rome. There you must find the apostle Paul. He will teach you how to become a Christian. Only then will you discover true freedom. This game uses the Jill of the Jungle engine. Just like in that game you must find keys to open doors, apples to maintain your health and knifes to ward off dangerous animals. | ||
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| Phylox | Beavis Soft / Epic MegaGames | [top] | |
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Phylox is one of the (if not THE) oldest games written by Beavis Soft, the creators of Skunny, a legend among shareware enthusiasts. Rather than a fox, you play something of an astronaut here in a very fashionable yellow suit. You crash on a halfly deserted planet and of course the only way to interact with the local monsters is weapons fire. The hovering chair is an innovation, though. It is a true shoot-em-up featuring 256 colour graphics (Real ones!) and some of the best animated characters you have ever seen. Be sure to check it out (also because of the keeewl name). | ||
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| Popeye 2 | Bizarre Developments / Alternative Software Ltd. | [top] | |
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Strange happenings are afoot once again in Sweethaven and only Popeye can make it right. In Popeye 2, our spinach lovin' hero must once again rescue Olive Oyl and make mincemeat of Bluto while looking after Swee'Pea, feeding Wimpy and keeping an eye on Jeep. Popeye has four different levels to traverse through. His initial adventure takes him to a construction site where bouncing springs, falling girders and open welding flames impede his progress. Rolling barrels, and bombs which must be touched to be put out also stand to cause harm. In every level scattered hamburgers must be collected in order for Popeye to get past Wimpy who is often hanging out somewhere near the top of every vertically scrolling platform level. There are also feats of strength that Popeye must perform by beating up a punching robot-type thing with the aid of Spinach. Once past all these obstacles Popeye can move on to the next level. The second level takes Popeye into the urban jungle where he must climb the side of the Biff Spinach building and avoid the same obstacles as in the previous levels. In the third level falling girders are replaced with giant bananas as Popeye finds himself in a jungle. Coconut throwing monkeys hang from ledges and snoozing tigers and snakes decorate the trees. The fourth and final level of the game finds Popeye climbing the masts of the S.S. Trev and the S.S. Andy as he makes his way to a final confrontation with Bluto and rescue Olive Oyl. Popeye is able to jump around and occasionally when the situation calls for it punch his way through this vertical platformer. Bonus points are rewarded for finding Swee'Pea and Jeep. He can take multiple hits before he takes a curtain call but thankfully is unharmed by long drops. The player should beware as Popeye has only one life to get through the four levels of this adventure. | ||
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| Risky Woods | Dinamic Software / Zeus Software / Electronic Arts, Inc. | [top] | |
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Unusually for Electronic Arts in the early 90s, this was a platform -shooter game with little or no adventuring or strategy elements. The game scrolls sideways, and has sections where precision jumps are required, either to clear rivers or collect bonuses. You carry a dagger to deal with the enemies, and must avoid contact with them. When killed, they leave coins to be collected - these are spent in the shop sections. Death loses you most of your coins, but they can usually be retrieved if they land on solid ground - making it better to be killed in combat than by drowning. | ||
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| Secret Agent | Apogee Software, Ltd. | [top] | |
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As Agent 006, you are the world's only hope: the terrorist organization known as the D.V.S. has captured the blueprints to a new, powerful weapon known as the "Red Rock Rover". Your mission is to infiltrate an island occupied by the D.V.S. and retrieve the first part of the blueprints. This is a side-scrolling platform game, where your objective is to complete 15 levels, allowing you to gain access to the "main fortress" which is the 16th level. On each level, you have to find and destroy a radar dish, and also find a bundle of dynamite and place it at the exit to blow it open. On your way, you'll be threatened by human henchmen and robots, as well as various hazards, such as spikes, deadly laser beams (which have to be de-activated by finding a floppy disk and bringing it to a computer terminal) or pools of acid. The only weapon you have is a rifle which can be used to kill most opponents, though some are immune to bullets or require a little more than shooting blindly if you want to kill them! Agent 006 has three health points, and losing all three will kill him (though you have unlimited lives) - not to mention that some hazards kill instantly! You'll also have to make good use of pushable barrels which you can occasionally find: they'll be used as stepping-stones to reach higher ground, but make sure you don't drop them into a pit from which they cannot be retrieved. There's a variety of objects to collect - ammunition, bonus objects that give score (such as bags of money, briefcases, walkie-talkies etc.), and an opportunity to get a big score bonus: on each level, if you find three letters S, P, Y and collect them in the exactly right order, you'll get a lot of points - but it won't be easy! You can also find a few power-ups: boots that speed you up for a while, goggles that makes a few more platforms appear (thus giving you access to unreachable spots), an "increased shot power" item which allows you to fire faster, but also a question mark which reverses your movement for a moment (very confusing) or a "1/2" fraction which slows you down. A free fan-made remake titled Special Agent by David Newton & J Freude was released in 2006.
See also: #Secret Agent HD |
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| Sooty & Sweep | Peakstar Software / Alternative Software | [top] | |
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Sooty and Sweep are two famous characters from British children TV that have appeared in various shows for more than fifty years. This platformer is the first game featuring the characters and they have got themselves into some problems. Originally on Commodore 64 & ZX Spectrum in 1989, this version similar to the Amiga has better graphics. Matthew has gone out and left Sooty in charge of the house. Problem is that Sweep has left all his old bones all over the house and left the door to the garden open so that all kinds of bugs have gotten in. The game simply involves collecting all of the bones while avoiding the creepy crawlies that are occupying the house. The player can choose to play as either Sooty or Sweep and they differ in the weapon they use. Sooty uses a magic wand while Sweep uses a water pistol. They both have the same effect on the enemies though, stunning them for a few seconds so that the player can move past. Different items can be picked up. Keys are needed to unlock doors, sticky buns can be used to attract the bugs, magic boxes recharges the wand while water bottles refill the water pistol. There is also a two player mode where Sooty and Sweep compete in getting the largest score. This is done by snatching each others bones and by throwing custard pies. | ||
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| Super Cauldron | Titus France SA | [top] | |
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Cauldron and Cauldron II were successful games in the 8-bit days, and this moved the series forward and on PC. You play a witch (although the character looks decidedly masculine, for no apparent reason), and have to negotiate four worlds, each split into bite-size chunks. The levels are populated with bats, trolls and snakes, which have programmed attack patterns and follow you off the screen. You can collect and cast up to 12 spells, which are accessed using the cursor or function keys (the manual amusingly refers to Amigas having F11 and F12 keys, which they don't). These include upgraded weapons (the default one isn't especially powerful), and help such as magic staircases and a metal melter. Some sections of water kill you, other identical ones take you to different sections. | ||
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| Trolls | Flair Software Ltd. / Capstone Software | [top] | |
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This platform game features the small blue-haired cutesy creatures that were popular around the time (although surely not with most computer game buyers?). You play a Troll roaming the levels in the hope of rescuing as many baby trolls as possible - each level gives you a set minimum to retrieve before you can leave via the Pigstop. Initially you have no weapons, and contact with the nasties costs you energy, but a Yo-Yo can be collected, which can be used not only to kill enemies, but also to smash blocks away and open up paths, and even (with practice) tied to a ledge to allow you to swing across a gap.Throughout the levels you will find the letters B,O,N,U,S and G released from bonus balloons or on killing an enemy - if at the end of a level your letters spell out Bonus or Bogus you go to the appropriate extra level. The former has a chance to gain extra lives, the latter must be escaped quickly to avoid losing a life. | ||
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| Yojeong Jeonsa Dwijuk [K] | Makkoya Entertainment Co. Ltd. / SKC Soft Land | [top] | |
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This tells the tale of a boy nicknamed Dwijuk ("messy"), who miraculously finds himself in the role of a Fairy Knight, entrusted with the protection of innocents from monsters. The game is a side-scrolling platformer with light role-playing elements, similar in concept to some installments of the Wonder Boy series. Much of the game consists of exploring fairly vast stages populated by regular enemies and bosses. A few friendly characters will sell the hero weapons, armor, and items such as keys and potions. The protagonist acquires a basic projectile weapon early in the game, but can find and buy better gear as the game advances. | ||
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Casual Games
| 3D Pinball | Microvalue / Villa Crespo Software, Inc. | [top] | |
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3D Pinball is an arcade pinball style game with 3-D effect for 1-4 players. This game also enable to select Ball acceleration (1-4) and overall speed (1-4). You begin the game with four balls and need to score as many points as possible by hitting the ball into the various bumpers and targets on the pinball table with flippers. You can see the ball's 3-D perspective by 3-D effect when you're playing. | ||
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| Aquanoid | Karsten Finger, Stefan Heineke | [top] | |
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This is a straight Breakout variant. The player controls a paddle which is positioned at the bottom of the screen and can move left and right. At the upper part of the screen are a variety of blocks and the goal is to destroy them all by bouncing a ball between the blocks and the paddle - when the player fails to bounce the ball back a life is lost. When the ball touches a block. it disappears. However, there are different blocks with varying properties, e.g. some may require multiple hits or can't be destroyed at all. In some occasions, a destroyed blocks drops a power up which has an effect on the gameplay when picked up with the paddle. | ||
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| Archer Maclean's Pool | Virgin Games Ltd. | [top] | |
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Using the game engine from Jimmy White's Whirlwind Snooker, this game recreates pool in minute detail. A bold 3D graphics engine with realistic physics and millions of shot permutations (in terms of direction, speed and spin) is at the heart of it. Three versions of pool are offered - UK and US 8-ball as well as the fast-paced all-action 9-ball game. There are 20 computer opponents, with the hardest of them being almost unbeatable, as well as two-player and trick-shot modes. Unlike the original release of Whirlwind Snooker, you can save more than one game on the disk at a time. | ||
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| Battle Chess 4000 | Interplay Productions, Inc. | [top] | |
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The Battle Chess series took the basic game of chess and added animations for each battle between pieces, bringing the game to a wider audience, with no intention of providing something for Kasparov to spar with. This edition follows the same premise, but with a futuristic science-fiction feel. Pieces are animated from clay models, with a new range of animations. The game can be played in 2D mode as an alternative. The game's artificial intelligence learns your strategies and game plan as it plays with you, and there are over 30,000 distinct moves in the library of openings. | ||
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| Beat the House | Bridge Publications, Spirit of Discovery | [top] | |
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A game with the feel of a real casino, the player may wander around the overhead view of the joint, and indulge in blackjack, roulette, slots, or video poker to win virtual cash. It teaches players how to win at various casino gambling games by explaining several methods of strategy, including card counting. Games include craps, poker, roulette, blackjack, and video poker. Players can choose to play against up to three opponents depending on the game. The program includes a built-in recommendation function (online tutor) that explains which bets are more profitable and why. Additionally, the odds of specific bets coming in and which are more likely to come up are also discussed and explained. These recommendations can be optioned off at will, which converts the program from teaching to entertainment mode. Unlike real casino establishments, going broke in Beat the House doesn't mean you have to thumb a ride home. The option to simply start over with a new stack of chips takes the sting out of losing. | ||
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| Brainies, The / Tiny Skweeks / The Tinies | Atreid Concept SA / Kalisto, Inline Design | [top] | |
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This puzzle game has 101 levels, in which you have to guide a varying number of Brainies of four different colors onto a spot that matches their color. You control a cross-hair, and press fire while over a Brainy to take or give up control of its motion. Running out of time costs you a life. The challenge lies in the fact that you can only control the direction in which a Brainy will walk. Once this is set, he will continue to walk until he hits a wall, an obstacle or another Brainy. To make things a bit more complicated, there are various obstacles like arrows that change the direction a Brainy is walking in and items than can optionally be picked up. | ||
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| Cogito | Atreid Concept SA / Kalisto | [top] | |
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In this game based on Rubik's Cube concept and similar to Cubulus, you have to recreate the shape shown at the bottom of each screen by moving the column vector (Up/Down) or row vector (Left/Right). Gameplay in Cogito consists of 120 screens and 10 different shapes. The time it takes to complete each is recorded as is the number of moves. Completing the level gives you the password to start from a desired level in the future. You may start a new game, or open a saved one. Speed is set to Slow, Medium, or Quick. The background themes in the game include Alien, Planet, Happyland, and Ludyland. Your gameplay is accompanied by optional background music. | ||
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| Cribbage Master | Ninga Software Corporation | [top] | |
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Play Cribbage against one of six different computer players ranking from most experienced to most inexperienced. The game has a "computer misses" option which will make the computer miss counting it's points randomly. It can be set to have the computer player speak it's points as it counts them up. The player can also choose how scores are displayed on screen as well as the length of time messages are displayed on screen and how long automatic actions such as computer shuffling take. If a player is new to Cribbage having the extra options which slow things down and display how the computer is counting enabled can help the player better understand what is going on. | ||
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| Deluxe Trivial Pursuit | Oxford Digital Enterprises / Domark Software | [top] | |
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This is an improved new version of Trivial Pursuit, featuring among others 3,000 new questions, VGA 256-color graphics, music and sound effects, and a fully animated quizmaster. The interface is intuitive, although the addition of cartoon characters who ask questions is a bit redundant (the game shifts to a view of a room when you select a category). | ||
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| Expert Puzzles & Mazes | Rinzai Satori Productions / Expert Software | [top] | |
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Three exciting games to bring you hours of fun. Picture Puzzle - Reconstruct beautiful on-screen images with Picture Puzzle. Various levels of play. 3-D Maze - Explore the mysterious world inside the maze. The maze is different each time you play. Satori - A mysterious Oriental tile game. An innovative and exciting twist on Solitaire. Expert Picture Puzzle allows the player to choose one of three PCX files to split into pieces and reassemble. Between 25- and 256-piece puzzles can be created, and presumably other PCX files of the correct size could be used. Pieces can be all laid out from the start and swapped by clicking on them, or taken out of the "box" and placed one at a time. 3D-Maze: Expert Edition puts the player in the challenging position of being inside a randomly generated maze. Maze size can be varied from 4x4 (16 positions) to any dimensions allowing up to 6,400 positions (such as 80x80). There is always just one path out. A compass is offered, telling you which way is north, and at each step you are told whether you are closer or further from the exit. This proximity, however, is "as the crow flies," not necessarily as you will need to move. Most helpful are markers which can be dropped to tell you when your sense of deja vu is justified. Lest these markers make it too easy, 1-9 maze monsters wander the maze and clean up any markers they come across. When they come across you, they put you back in the center of the maze where you started. Finding the treasure hidden in the maze will make you immune to one encounter with a maze monster. 3D-Maze offers a novice mode which allows the player to look at the map on the screen or even print it. A clock ticks away the seconds so you can log your best times, with allowances made for different rendering times on different computers. Up to nine players can compete in the same maze, hot-seat style. PC speaker sounds lend a little multimedia to this otherwise silent collection. | ||
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| Gear Works | Idea Software / Hollyware Entertainment | [top] | |
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This top-down puzzle game starts with a screen featuring a number of red cogs at different parts of the screen, and a grid of pegs (which become less complete on later levels). Your task on each level is to use a number of gears of one of 3 different sizes to ensure that all the cogs are linked together. All this has to be completed before the engine overheats. Making life harder are two creatures with the peculiar name "Poffins". One of these goes around removing pegs, and the other causes the engine to overheat further. They can be shot out of the way, or have gears placed over them to stop them. There's also a bonus round, which is a fruit machine, only with cogs and other things from the game rather than fruit. | ||
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| Go Simulator | Ishi Press International | [top] | |
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This is one of the better PC versions of Go, a classic Japanese boardgame. The goal is simple: capture your opponent's pieces by surrounding them with your pieces. You win if you have more pieces left on the board than your opponent does. Like Chess, however, special conditions in the rules add another layer of depth to this fascinating game. This version features a strong computer opponent and excellent on-line tutorial and tips. | ||
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| Grand Slam Bridge II | Electronic Arts Canada / Cybron, Inc., Electronic Arts, Inc. | [top] | |
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The second installment in the series is a remake of Grand Slam Bridge with modern abilities of its time such as VGA graphics, music and animations. It represents a card game Bridge with rules of Contract Bridge. For both partners a set of bidding conventions, which include Cue Bid, Weak Two-Bid, 5 Card Major, 4 Card Major, Jacoby Transfer, Gambling NT, and Unusual NT, may be adjusted. The game progress may be saved/restored. Overall statistics for each player in the system are stored and may be displayed. The multiple options allow to adjust the gameplay such as rotate the table or change the TableTop, adjust conventions, give certain cards to certain hands to simulate some cases, set the hands visibility, choose the human/computer player for each hand, etc. Hints, tutorial, and help on playing the Bridge are also provided. The game is allowed for up to 4 human players. | ||
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| Hangman | Microforum Manufacturing Inc. | [top] | |
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This is a word-guessing game based on the original paper and pencil version played by at least two players. The game shows you a series of blank spaces. You have a certain number of guesses; every time you guess wrong, a drawing of a hanged man will keep being drawn until a certain amount of mistakes are made. Once you lose, the drawing will be finished and the hanged man will literally be a hangman. This version of the game comes with two different word lists (Basic and Advanced) and also allows you to create up to six different word lists with whatever words you choose. It will also show you a hint if you press the F1 key, or outright show you the word if you press F2 (but that's cheating, so please don't do it.) | ||
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| Heartlight | xLand Games / Epic MegaGames | [top] | |
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A game that's very similar to Boulder Dash - the basic idea of collecting things while avoiding being crushed is the same. The protagonist of the game is a dwarf named Mosiek, who decided to marry Rachel. A necessary condition, however, is showing the cunning and skill. He goes to a magical world in order to collect all the hearts. Assisting in completing the task are bombs and balloons, disturb stones and walls. In each level player must collect all the hearts, in order to open a door-portal to the next stage. The game features 64 levels. | ||
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| Heaven & Earth | Software Resources International / Buena Vista Software | [top] | |
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From the makers of Ishido: The Way of Stones comes an even bigger collection of brain teasers. An original card game, a visual puzzle game and a physical pendulum puzzle rolled into one. Players can tackle hundreds of puzzles individually or in a sequential "Pilgrimage" where their progress is rewarded with zen koans. It was later made freeware by the creator. | ||
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| Media's Labyrinth / Ramona's Labyrinth [G] | Arno Damberger / Media verlagsgesellschaft | [top] | |
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Find the right exit from a maze of corridors, corners, paths and alleys. The aim is to find the quickest and easiest way out in a limited time. Enter the PC maze for "big and small". You start at the starting point with a certain amount of air ration, which depends on the difficulty of the maze. Every movement you make in the corridors reduces the supply. So your principle is: make as few wrong moves as possible through the maze. However, if you can't see a way out of your debacle, you can look down on the maze from above to find your current position. However, depending on how long it takes, this will cost you a lot of important air. During the game, you will be asked general questions at certain intervals. Once you have answered 10 questions correctly, you can look at the maze from above and determine your current position without losing your air supply. You can also score points. If you answer questions incorrectly, however, your view of the labyrinth will be impaired! Have fun puzzling it out. | ||
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| Microsoft Entertainment Pack 4 | Microsoft Corporation | [top] | |
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Designed for Microsoft Windows environment, these casual games act as stress relief for that busy office. Titles include: Chess, Go Figure! (mathematics theme), Tic-Tac-Drop (puzzle game), Maxwell's Maniac (pong clone), Dr. Black Jack, JezzBall (Qix clone - trap bouncing balls), ... and the licensed Epyx game Chip's Challenge. | ||
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| Minesweeper | Microsoft Corporation | [top] | |
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This is a puzzle game in which the player is presented with a board filled with mines, without knowing what fields they occupy. When the player clicks on a field a number appears on it, indicating how many mines are located in the fields nearest to it. The player then clicks on other fields, trying to avoid mines. If the player makes a mistake, the mine will explode and the game is over. The game features three difficulty levels, distinguished by the size of the board - the bigger the board, the higher the difficulty level. The game originates from the 1960s in the earliest mainframe games, and has been written for many computing platforms in use today. It has many variations and offshoots. Versions of Minesweeper are frequently bundled with operating systems and GUIs, including Minesweeper for OS/2, Minesweeper in Windows, KMines in KDE (Unix-like OSes), Gnomine in GNOME and MineHunt in Palm OS. Many clones can be found on the Internet. | ||
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| Monopoly Deluxe | Virgin Games, Inc. | [top] | |
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Trade Up! The game you grew up with has grown up too. It's more mercenary than your lawyer, shrewder than your accountant, greedier than the IRS and tougher than your granny. Get ready for the most challenging game of Monopoly you've ever played. Combining 90's technical know-how with plenty of good old-fashioned fun, the bestselling boardgame of all time is back and better then ever with completely revamped levels of difficulty and greatly enhanced graphics for your computer. Enjoy the thrill and excitement of wheeling and dealing as you amass, or reluctantly part with, great fortunes buying and selling railroads, utilities and properties of all types. This game's a must for the library of any true gamer or future real estate tycoon. Get more Deluxe for your bucks with these features: Easy-as-pie interface; Dazzling animations of all ten tokens; Ability to play by traditional or custom-designed rules; Game Activity Log that keeps track of all previous moves; Supports most major sound boards. | ||
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| Oxyd | Dongleware Verlags GmbH | [top] | |
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You control a black orb that is trapped in a puzzle like labyrinth. A level is called a landscape and there are 200 landscapes to solve. The main gameplay element consists of opening the so-called oxydstones. You can bump against a oxydstone and a colored symbol will appear. Uncover two of the same colors and they will stay open, making it a memory-like game. Open all oxydstones to solve a landscape. To make things more interesting there are walls, pitfalls, quicksand, one-way walls, breakable tiles, reflecting lasers (for Deflektor-like puzzle solving), movable blocks (for Sokoban-like puzzle solving), tiles that crumble away when roll over them, doors, switches etc. Some of the landscapes contain items that you can pick up and use. Items include pieces of paper with hints, umbrellas that give you the ability to float, bombs to blow up walls, a spring to jump across gaps. To mix up the gameplay, every tenth landscape is a meditation landscape where you simultaneously control several green orbs. Manoeuvre each of the orbs into a pit to solve these landscapes. | ||
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| Pushover | Red Rat Software Ltd / Ocean Software Ltd. | [top] | |
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You're playing a small ant that is willing to help a friend in rather inconvenient situation. Apparently, your friend, doggie, likes to eat cookies that has his picture on their box, and he got himself so carried away that he lost the balance, and a bag of cookies fell deep down into an ant-hill. Now, you're goin' in, in a mission of solving puzzles, and retrieving the cookies for your friend. Now, this ant-hill is a bit different from the ones you saw, and especially from the one you live in. It's path is filled up with boulders, and all the gates, and you must travel the quest to find the cookies. After each different place inside, you'll fins a small bag of cookie, and bring it back to your friend doggie. The main quest consists of you carrying your-size boulders, and placing them in a well imagined line, so when you push the exact one, all must fall, and the one that marks the end must fall the last, or the door will stay shut permanently. Beside we know that ants are very easy, and can live almost every fall, you cannot practice that, so if you jusp from a little bit too high position, don't expect much, but to retry the level. Every block, or boulder in a game has a different markings. Like for example, the yellow ones are bricks you can push, and they will just as easily fall, and push, or not, the brick in front of it. The red ones will do the opposite, you cannot push them, and if the yellow, or any other brick hits it, it'll continue falling back to the other side. Some bricks explode when you push them, or other brick hits them, and that way they leave the hole, so your brick can continue spining, or yet again, not. Some spin without stop, 'til they hit some other brick that can fall, some replaces the spaces, like building a bridge on that place, some go high and when hit the top, they stick to it, and push, or not, the brick in front of them. Anyway, that's the game basics. Each level gives you the new code/password, so you can continue from the position where you ended each time you type that code. Perspective of your ant is like in any other platform game, and you control it with arrow keys, or joystick. But beware, the time is clicking, so you'll have to solve each level in a hurry. | ||
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| Rampart | Atari Games Corporation / Electronic Arts, Inc. | [top] | |
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Tetris meets shoot-'em-up, Rampart is a game combining strategy and artillery action. Build your castle from Tetris-style pieces, place your cannons, bombard the enemy, try to repair, do it all over again. The original arcade release has a single-player and a two-player mode; later revisions incorporate three-player gameplay. | ||
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| Rompicapo Vol. 1 [It] | Andrea Muttoni / Finson | [top] | |
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Brain Teaser Volume 1 contains three puzzles that will keep you glued to the screen for hours. It includes the famous "Game of 15". Games are run in three-dimensional VGA graphics. The use of the mouse is also foreseen to make the game even faster and more enjoyable. If you're tired of the same old video games and looking for some clever entertainment, these computer puzzle games are just for you! | ||
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| Rompicapo Vol. 2 [It] | Andrea Muttoni / Finson | [top] | |
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Brain Teaser Volume 2 - The feature that offers intelligent entertainment as an alternative to the usual video games is maintained. Three games are also offered in this volume: "Line up the quintet". “Capture a Tiger” and “Go Round and Round.” If you are unable to complete the game, the program gives you the opportunity to view the solution. | ||
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| S.C.Out | Atreid Concept SA / Inline Design, Kalisto | [top] | |
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Navigate your way through 101 increasingly complex and deadly levels to destroy the evil icon that is hidden in each one. Of course, to do that, you'll need a bomb, which you'll have to find first. You'll also have to collect keys, missiles, batteries, mirrors and other tools to help you deal with the obstacles in the maze. It's a Chip's Challenge - style game that features an option to create and play your own levels. The premise is simple: navigate your ship on a 2D board to the exit. On the way, you will need to collect keys, toggle switches, and deal with obstacles such as one-way arrows and more. The game's level editor tool is versatile and easy to use, so you can make up for the game's lack of challenge by creating your own levels. | ||
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| Scrabble: The Deluxe Computer Edition - Windows Edition | Virgin Interactive Entertainment, Inc. | [top] | |
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Scrabble for Windows is a great Windows 3.1 update of previous Scrabble games that Mastertronic (which later was acquired by Virgin and became "Virgin Mastertronic" label) had been developing since 1987 under license from Hasbro, before Hasbro finally decided to develop their own PC versions starting from 1999. This is definitely the best Scrabble game until Hasbro's 1999 release. Two to four players, any of which can be computer-controlled, compete in this classic word board game. For its time, the AI is quite competent, and the game offers a lot of options that extend the game beyond its basic premise. There is a built-in anagram solver and a good concise on-line dictionary. You can even change details like telling the game to center tiles for you, disallow 2-letter words, and see other players' racks. This gives lets you play against 9 skill levels of computer opponents, or another human player. The game also allows for an Arbitrator who can view all players' racks as well as edit the board. There is a timer that you can activate to increase the challenge... there are 13 settings from 10 seconds to 1 hour per turn, as well as off. The game also has two word lookup features for finding words that your letters can create. Both features use the Official Scrabble Dictionary, where you can also view and edit the definitions. | ||
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| Segyun-jeon [K] | Makkoya Entertainment Co. Ltd. | [top] | |
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This is a board game similar in concept to Reversi and notable for being the first game with VGA graphics released in Korea. The player competes against an AI opponent, each controlling blue or red blob-like creatures on a grid. The opponents place blobs on squares in turns with the goal of "capturing" adjacent enemy blobs and turning them into their own color. A stage ends when all the blobs have been turned to the same color. Unlike traditional Reversi variants, each stage has different starting formation, and is distinguished by various difficulty levels. | ||
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| Solitaire's Journey | Quantum Quality Productions | [top] | |
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One-hundred and five solitaire games rendered in beautiful graphics (for 1992). Games have full rules and will allow different users to "log into" the game and keep averages and high scores. Players can also build their own "tournaments" by selecting a sub-set of the games and playing for the highest score. "Quests" allow users to play solitaire games to navigate through a graphical house to find treasure. | ||
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| Take a Break! Crosswords | Dynamix, Inc., N8 Productions / Sierra On-Line, Inc. | [top] | |
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This is a collection of puzzles licensed from Dell. Volume I represents the 375 crossword puzzles from Dell Magazines, where you have to put the word, which is an answer for the certain question, in vertical or horizontal line of table. These words have common letters because of crossing and it allows to remember the word by available letters in already resolved words. There are 3 difficulty levels (Easy, Medium, Hard) and 4 sizes of puzzles (13x13, 15x15, 17x17, 19x19) as well as 3 skills of players (Apprentice, Puzzler, Fanatic). The interactivity of the game is achieved by the choosing the word; autochecking the answered word; selecting hints, scoring taking into account the difficulty level, size of puzzle, time of solving, hint using, correct answers, and player's skill; opening, saving and restoring the puzzles. Little beautiful elf Wanda is watching as you progress, comments on your actions, and congratulates you with animations starring herself. | ||
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| Tetris Classic | Sphere / Spectrum Holobyte, Inc. | [top] | |
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An enhanced remake of the classic puzzle game Tetris in which you control the position and rotation of falling blocks and try to assemble and clear lines of blocks as they fall before the play area gets flooded. The release doesn't make any changes to the original formula, but instead brings the game up to date technology-wise and features completely new VGA graphics and full digitized sound, with new backgrounds and tunes based on Russian mythology and folk tales. Additionally the game features 2-player simultaneous gameplay, with both competitive (in two separate play areas) or cooperative (with two sets of falling pieces in an extra-large play area) modes. | ||
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| Xmas Lemmings 92 | DMA Design Limited / Psygnosis Limited | [top] | |
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This edition of Xmas Lemmings is another free demo intended to promote Lemmings and Oh No! More Lemmings. It includes four entirely new Christmas-themed levels, in the same style as the 1991 demo: Jingle Bells and other Christmas songs as background music and the Lemmings moving through snowscapes dressed in Santa outfits. The holiday levels from the earlier demo were comparatively easy, but this one also includes some brain teasers comparable to levels from the main games' higher difficulties. | ||
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