Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Amerzone - The Explorer's Legacy (1999) was the first graphical adventure game designed by Ben-
oît Sokal
Adventure games tried to use the full potential of new technologies. The beginning
of the CD-ROM era gave them a new energy, allowing the use of multimedia content
to improve the quality of virtual worlds. For a period of time, they were considered as
the most technically advanced genre in terms of video content, high-quality sound,
3Delements,andprofessionalanimation.Themostimportantthingwasthatofgame
designers perceiving their creation as a very serious thing something close to films
or good literature that required an excellent story and concept, interesting charac-
ters, intriguing turns, and very creative realization. Many of the games were simply,
figuratively speaking, geniuses, for example,
Blade Runner
(1997) from
Westwood
Studios
(a visual story and a masterpiece),
The Last Express
(1997) from
Jordan
Mechner
(the creator of the original Prince of Persia), and
The Neverhood
(1996)
from
The Neverho od, Inc
. (based on scenes totally sculpted from clay). One of my
favorite projects of that period of time was
Grim Fandango
(1998) from
LucasArts
,
which not only used a real-time 3D engine to draw character but also featured a per-
fect script and very smart dialogues. Developers were not afraid to explore boundar-
ies of the genre making bold experiments with stories and visual look. In such con-
ditions appeared stylish and surreal games such as
Phantasmagoria
(1995) from
Si-
erra On-Line
or amazing
Sanitarium
(1998) created by
DreamForge Intertainment
.
And after that the reality began to change. In the 2000s, the genre started to lose its
popularity. Projects with big budgets more often became commercial failures, des-
pite the fact that they were praised by critics. The golden era of adventure games
came to an end. But this did not mean that such games disappeared from scene
completely; they simply turned into a less mainstream product. For instance, many
interesting projects were created under the French software brand Microïds that is
mainly associated with name Benoît Sokal, a talented illustrator and game design-
er, who created the critically acclaimed game series, Syberia (2002 to 2004). These
games represented the technical direction chosen by authors of interactive adven-
tures in that period of time. They used fixed camera angles, prerendered static im-
