The Cathedral (computer game)
| The Cathedral | |
|---|---|
| Studio | World forge |
| Publisher | Software 2000 |
| Senior Developer | Harald Evers |
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
1991 |
| platform | Amiga , DOS |
| genre | Text adventure |
| Game mode | Single player |
| control | Keyboard Mouse |
| medium | diskette |
| language | German |
| copy protection | Feelies |
The cathedral is a text adventure with graphics by the German development studio Weltenschmiede , which was published in 1991 by Software 2000 for the Amiga and DOS PCs.
action
On the occasion of the 850th anniversary of the fictional town of Schönau in the Rhineland, the player is taking part in a tour of the local St. Paul's Cathedral when he meets his former school friend Dani, who is also visiting the cathedral. The two forget the time and are locked in the building, which was built in the 15th century, at the end of the tour. While exploring the cathedral, they come across a wad of letters from the 15th century suggesting that Victor Paz, the builder of the cathedral, incorporated 15 deadly traps into his work to appeal to the Catholic Church in general and to the bishop of the time To avenge Sebastian von Altenburg in particular for the murder of one of his relatives as part of the Inquisition - it turns out that Paz is a half-brother of Jan Hus . Five traps should be triggered in three specific years. The player must clear the 15 traps and travel back in time; next to 1992 there are also 1881 and 1437 years that Paz chose for his revenge. In 1992 Dani is at the player's side, in 1881 the butler Jasper and in 1437 the monk Daniel.
Game principle and technology
The cathedral is a text adventure, which means that the environment and events are displayed as screen text and the visualization is largely up to the player's imagination. In contrast to classic text adventures, which have no graphic decoration whatsoever, The Cathedral comes up with a picture of the respective environment and a point-and-click interface with which simple commands can be created with the mouse. For referencing objects, however, keyboard entries that are processed by a parser must be used. The game has a time limit; after a certain number of moves the traps of the respective age strike, which ends the game.
Production notes
The cathedral is the middle game in a trilogy of text adventures by the manufacturer Weltenschmiede; The hourglass appeared in 1990 and Hexuma in 1992. All three adventures deal with the topics of time travel and multi-dimensionality. The cathedral is one of eight games that the publisher Software 2000 titled "Artventure", which should indicate the high quality of the so-called adventure games. The game packaging of Die Cathedral included so-called "Feelies", items that match the game, such as fictional documents or gimmicks , which often allow a deeper insight into the game world. In the case of The Cathedral , the game was accompanied by a poster, a brochure with the history of St. Paul's Cathedral as well as ancient letters and blueprints that were referenced in the game and thus represented copy protection.
In 1993 Evers published a novel about the game, The Cathedral. The secret of a vengeance .
reception
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Since the development of the MacVenture engine in 1985 there have been adventures that rely on a graphical user interface instead of text input, and since the appearance of Maniac Mansion in 1987, graphic adventures have enjoyed great popularity and replaced text adventures as the previously dominant product within the adventure genre from. At the time of the release of The Cathedral , The Secret of Monkey Island was already a game on the market that provided a technical standard for control in adventure games until the late 1990s. A text adventure had a difficult time in 1991, the genre had become commercially unattractive. Representatives who were successful in terms of content were still positively received in the specialist press.
The specialist magazine Adventure Treff praised the atmosphere, puzzles and supplements of the game and only criticized the simple visual presentation. The PC Joker noted "exciting texts" and an "intelligent parser", an "original plot", "crisp puzzles" and "opulent extras". The magazine noted the lack of background music negatively. The ASM drew parallels to older text adventures from companies such as Infocom or Magnetic Scrolls and described the cathedral as "sophisticated adventure food for gourmets". Boris Schneider-Johne praised the Power Play story and puzzles, but complained about logical errors in the gameplay, which he attributed to inadequate quality control.
Web links
- The cathedral at MobyGames (English)
- Complete solution in the IF Archive
Individual evidence
- ^ DNB entry of the novel.
- ↑ a b Review on Adventure Treff. Retrieved July 1, 2015 .
- ↑ Review in Amiga Joker special issue # 4. Retrieved January 2, 2016 .
- ↑ a b Review in the ASM. Retrieved July 1, 2015 .
- ↑ a b Review in PC Joker 6/91. Retrieved January 2, 2016 .
- ↑ a b review in Power Play. Retrieved September 22, 2015 .
