A Wikipedia Look at

Point-and-click Adventure Games

VOL.02

Toonstruck

Developer Burst StudiosPublisher Virgin InteractiveDesigners Richard Hare

Jennifer McWilliamsOriginal release date November 30, 1996 Control Point-and-clickPlatforms MS-DOS

Microsoft WindowsMacintosh

Theme ComedyLength 14.7 hours

Toonstruck is an adventure game released in 1996 in which, although all the im-agery is drawn and scanned into the game, the protagonist Drew Blanc, played and voiced by Christopher Lloyd, is an actual video-captured representation of the actor (the name is a pun, since the character has “drawn a blank” on coming up with a new idea for a character). Drew’s sidekick, crudely named Flux Wildly, is a drawn character voiced by Dan Castellaneta. Toonstruck also features scan-line compressed FMV and was also one of the first video games to include stock music from APM Music, notably the classic “Spooky Scherzo” by Sam Fonteyn and “Lonely Hearts Club A” by David Bell.

Like an adventure game in the Roger Rabbit style. Drew Blanc ventures through the animated world consisting of very weird cartoon characters. The land is be-ing overrun by an evil doctor, and Drew must stop him.

The project began in October ‘93 and was completed over three years later in November ‘96. The total cost of production: over $8 million. The animation was produced at unnecessarily high levels of sophistication, exceeding even Disney movie quality. However, only 35% of this animation made it into the finished game. The game’s engine was based off of Westwood’s Kyrandia series’ engine, and required the project’s team to spend an extra 18 months ironing out bugs and glitches.

8.1

121

Clock Tower

Series Clock TowerDeveloper Human EntertainmentPublisher (JP) Human Entertainment

(NA/EU) ASCII EntertainmentDirector Hifumi KonoOriginal release date December 13, 1996Control GamepadPlatform PlayStation Theme HorrorLength 16.3 hours

Clock Tower, known in Japan as Clock Tower 2, is a survival horror point-and-click adventure game for the PlayStation. It is a sequel to Clock Tower for the SNES. There are two novels and a radio drama based on the game which were not released outside of Japan. Plans were made for the game to be ported to the Sega Saturn or the Nintendo 64, but eventually it was decided to port it on the Sony PlayStation.

One year on from the events of first game, Jennifer Simpson has been adopted by Helen Maxwell, the assistant of a renowned psychiatrist, and is currently under-going treatment in Oslo to help her cope with her experiences in the Clock Tower case and possibly shed some light on the mystery that was the Scissorman. The plot revolves around another survivor of the murders, a young boy named Ed-ward, and the sudden re-emergence of the Scissorman.

Clock Tower is a game with the player controlling a cursor to direct the character and give commands such as to investigate objects. The interface is akin to 90s era computer adventure games, but simplified to work better with a gamepad.

Clock Tower has become a cult classic. Many fans loved the twists of Scissor-man and the items to collect throughout the game as well as a good storyline and making the Scissorman a cult icon in the Horror genre. The game has gotten mixed to good reviews from various publishers.

7.6

122

Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned

Series Gabriel KnightDeveloper Sierra On-LinePublisher Sierra On-LineDesigner Jane JensenOriginal release date October 5, 1999 Engine SheepControl Point-and-clickPlatform Microsoft Windows Theme MysteryLength 20.2 hours

Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned is the third game in the Gabriel Knight series of point-and-click adventure games by Sierra Online. The game was designed by Jane Jensen, Gabriel Knight’s creator. In a departure from the previous two entries, the score is composed by David Henry, expand-ing on some of original composer Robert Holmes’s themes. The game also sees Tim Curry return in the role of Gabriel, although the voices of other reoccurring characters such as Grace Nakimura and Mosely have been recast.

The story’s plot begins four years after the events of the previous game. Prince James of Albany reveals that his family is plagued by vampire like creatures they call “The Night Visitors”. Gabriel is hired as schattenjager to protect Prince James’ son Charlie from these vampires, but is thwarted as they manage to kid-nap the child regardless of being guarded by Gabriel, paralyzing him and forcing him to watch as the vampiric creatures entered the room and took the child in his sleep. Upon chasing down the shadowy figures, Gabriel is knocked uncon-scious by an unknown source but hears the words San Greal just before blacking out. Upon awakening, Gabriel heads to Rennes-le-Chateau and begins to piece together the puzzle that is the premise of Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the damned.

Each installment in the Gabriel Knight series has had a significant change in graphic design. Gabriel Knight 3 is the first game in the series to be in full 3D.

7.8

145

Clue Chronicles: Fatal Illusion

Series CluedoDeveloper EAI InteractivePublisher Atari Interactive, Inc.Producers Virginia Ellen McArthur

Shari SciglianoDesigner Matthew J. CostelloWriter Matthew J. CostelloOriginal release date November, 1999Control Point-and-clickPlatform Microsoft Windows Theme MysteryLength 8 hours

Clue Chronicles: Fatal Illusion, subtitled Mystery Series: Episode One, is a point-and-click adventure game based on the Cluedo franchise. It is also known as “Cluedo Chronicles: Le Masque Fatal” in France and “Cluedo Adventures: Tödliche Täuschung” in Germany. The game was distributed with a variety of different covers, the difference being the murder weapon prominently displayed.

The game is set in 1938, the player find themself, along with the upper echelon of society, on a river boat owned by an eccentric host. When the host is killed in plain view of the guests, it is up to the player find out who could have done it. New characters join the classic cast of six characters and is full of red herrings, mysteries and puzzles.

At this point, two other computer games had been released based on the Clue franchise (in 1992 and 1998), but this is the first one that “leaves the board game ‘feel’ behind and transforms into a murder mystery adventure game”.

The game was intended to be Episode 1 of the Clue Chronicles Mystery Series, this ended up being the only one produced after the series cancellation due to the decline interest of adventure games after 1999.

8.6

146

The Adventures of Fatman : Toxic Revenge

Developer SOCKO! EntertainmentPublisher SOCKO! EntertainmentComposer Mark Lovegrove Original release date May, 2003 Engine Adventure Game StudioControl Point-and-clickPlatforms Microsoft Windows

LinuxTheme Comedy

The Adventures of Fatman is a point and click adventure game created by US independent studio SOCKO! Entertainment. The game was designed by Michael Doak and produced using the popular freeware game creation software the Ad-venture Game Studio. Fatman was originally released as an independent com-mercial game, a first with AGS that has subsequently been followed by others such as The Shivah and Al Emmo. When Socko! Entertainment closed down in late 2003 they released the game under the freely distributed Creative Com-mons license (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives). Recently SOCKO! Entertainment has re-opened under the same name, and can be found at www.socko1.com.

The game consists of the user playing as the eponymous Fatman, superhero pro-tector of Shadowlawn, investigating an explosion at the ACNE chemical plant, and how exactly the CEO of Mary & Kate cosmetics was involved. The villain of the game is Toxicman, a mutated thug who has no apparent powers. The game features over 30 locations, and over 20 characters with 1,000 fully recorded lines of dialog, with an original soundtrack featuring over 50 tracks. The game also enables you to listen to an “Audio Commentary” while playing, for every loca-tion.

6.0

157

Apprentice

Series ApprenticeDeveloper Herculean Effort ProductionsPublisher Herculean Effort ProductionsOriginal release date July 10, 2003Engine Adventure Game StudioControl Point-and-clickPlatforms Microsoft Windows

LinuxTheme Fantasy

Apprentice is a PC point-and-click adventure game released by Herculean Effort Productions as freeware in 2003. It was created using Adventure Game Studio.

The game begins with a dream of a young wizard apprentice, Pib, in which he is confronted by Lord Ironcrow, the ruler of the region. In the dream, Ironcrow tries to persuade him to become a soldier. After refusing, Pib wakes up, scream-ing. His teacher comes to check that everything is all right, and informs him that today is a special day for Pib - it’s time he prepared his very first spell. The rest of the game is spent finding proper ingredients.

The project was started as a side project while the makers worked on The Find, introducing the player to the game world and some of its characters. Therefore the game was criticised for its shortness and a lack of any real storyline. Further-more, the dream sequence at the beginning of the game bears no relevance to the rest of the game. Nevertheless, Apprentice was praised for its high production values. It is even mentioned as a good example of a game created with Adven-ture Game Studio in the book Gaming Hacks published by O’Reilly Media and it won four AGS Awards in 2003 for Best Room Art, Best Character Art, Best Animation and Best Music.

The Apprentice series is planned as a trilogy. The second part Apprentice II: The Knight’s Move was released in 2004. The release date of the last part, Apprentice III: Checkmate! is not yet known.

5.0

158

5 Days a Stranger

Series Chzo MythosDeveloper Ben “Yahtzee” CroshawPublisher Ben “Yahtzee” CroshawOriginal release date September 29, 2003 Engine Adventure Game Studio Control Point-and-clickPlatforms Microsoft Windows

Linux Theme HorrorLength 8.3 hours

The Chzo Mythos is the collective title given to a series of four amateur, indie adventure games created by Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw using the Adventure Game Studio development tool. The games are, in order of release and intended play-order, 5 Days a Stranger, 7 Days a Skeptic, Trilby’s Notes and 6 Days a Sacrifice. Chronologically, the games do not follow the same pattern. The series is also sometimes called the DeFoe series, after one of the main characters; the Trilby series, after another main character; or the “X Days a Sauerkraut,” based on Cro-shaw’s own references. The author commentary for 6 Days a Sacrifice confirms Chzo Mythos as Yahtzee’s intended title, despite referring to it several times on the official sites as the “John Defoe Quadrilogy”.

5 Days a Stranger chronicles the story of a gentleman thief known as Trilby and four others fighting an unknown terror in DeFoe Manor. The story progresses over 5 days, with more story being revealed each day. Dream sequences typically space out the transitions between the events of different days.

An intuitive version of the AGS interface ties in with the unique feel of the game. The game has been translated into German, Finnish, Hungarian, Turkish, Italian, and Russian.

The game won awards for best game created with the AGS engine in 2003, best gameplay, best dialog scripting, best puzzles, and best scripting. The game has also had many good reviews on adventure game sites.

7.8

159

Glass Rose

Developer CingCapcom Production Studio 3

Publisher CapcomOriginal release date November 6, 2003Control GamepadPlatform PlayStation 2Theme MysteryLength 8 hours

Glass Rose, Hepburn: Garasu no Bara in Ja-pan, is a psychological horror point-and-click adventure video game by Cing and Capcom’s Production Studio 3. It was released in Japan and Europe.

Glass Rose primarily takes place in a remote Japanese mansion in 1929. The player assumes the role of an amateur reporter named Takashi Kagetani. While exploring an abandoned mansion with his friend Emi in the year 2003, he is knocked unconscious by a supernatural force and awakens seventy years in the past, where the mansion has been restored to its former glory. In order to return to his own time, Takashi is forced to explore the mansion and interact with its denizens, the Yoshinodou family.

The game never received a U.S. release, only translated from its original Japa-nese language for Europe. In Japan, the marketing push was centred around the main character being modelled and voiced by Masahiro Matsuoka, actor and drummer of the band Tokio. American actors were used for the English version of Glass Rose, and this is a fairly standard Japanese-to-English dub job. Voices might not be perfect, but they are serviceable.

6.8

160

Touché: The Adventures of the Fifth MusketeerTreehouse, theTrilby’s NotesUncle Henry’s PlayhouseUninvitedUniverseVampyre Story, aWalking Dead, theWallace & Gromit’s Grand AdventuresWhispered World, theWolf Among Us, theX-Files Game, theYesterdayYoomurjak’s RingZak McKracken and the Alien MindbendersZack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros’ TreasureZork: Grand Inquisitor

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