Lure of the Temptress
| Lure of the Temptress | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Studio | Revolution software | ||
| Publisher |
 Virgin Interactive Konami
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| Senior Developer | Charles Cecil | ||
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
June 1992 | ||
| platform | Amiga , DOS , ST | ||
| Game engine | Virtual theater | ||
| genre | Point-and-click adventure | ||
| control | mouse | ||
| medium | diskette | ||
| language | German, English, French, Italian, Spanish | ||
| Age rating |
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Lure of the Temptress (in German as: The lure of the Temptress ) is a point-and-click adventure of the British developer Revolution Software . It was published in June 1992 by Virgin Interactive (Europe) and Konami (North America) for Commodore Amiga , Atari ST and MS-DOS .
action
The player takes on the role of Diermot, a young farmer who serves as a driver for the royal hunting party . One night a messenger brings the king the news that a rebellion has broken out in the distant town of Turnvale. The royal entourage leaves immediately, Diermot is unintentionally part of the train. Once in Turnvale, the news turns out to be a trap: Instead of encountering rebellious farmers, the king's men are gutted by man-eating Skorl, who are under the rule of the sorceress Selena. The king dies in battle. Diermot falls from his horse during the battle, hits his head and passes out. The Skorl take him to the prison in the city of Turnvale, which they rule. There Diermot comes to and the player takes control of the action.
With the help of fellow prisoner Ratpouch, Diermot escapes from prison. In Turnvale he has to find his way around and learn to differentiate between people who have come to terms with the Skorl and those who offer covert resistance. As the game progresses, Diermot finds out that a dragon sleeping in a cave near the city can help in the liberation of Turnvales. After he has awakened the dragon from his sleep, he explains that the city of Turnvale is ruled by a demon who has usurped the figure of the sorceress Selena. The dragon equips Diermot with the enchanted gemstone "Eye of Gathryn", with whose help Selena can finally be defeated.
Gameplay
Lure of the Temptress is a 2D point-and-click adventure . The locations of the game, over 50 in number, are shown as hand-drawn still images, some of which are animated. With the mouse, the player can move Diermot through the locations and use the mouse buttons to initiate actions that allow the game character to interact with his environment. Diermot can find objects, apply them to the environment or other objects and communicate with NPCs . The player can give NPCs commands and even chains of command, which are worked through by the NPC one after the other, which enables to a limited extent existing puzzles based on cooperation. In the last third and at the very end of the game, two small combat interludes were implemented, which the player must master with skill.
Development history
In 1990 Charles Cecil and Tony Warriner, who had met as game designers at Artic Computing, decided to set up their own business. Together with David Sykes and Noirin Carmody (now Cecil's wife) they founded Revolution Software . Cecil had already worked on adventures for Artic, and so the first Revolution project in this genre should be based. Cecil's goal was to write a game that doesn't take itself seriously, but has a serious backstory. The name of the game has no serious background, but was chosen by the designated publisher Mirrorsoft from a number of suggestions. At that time, the game design did not yet envisage a sorceress, so the role of Selena had to be integrated into the script afterwards.
For the company's first project, the virtual theater engine was programmed, which in particular enabled NPCs to act independently of the game, something that no other game had done at the time. The background music for the game was designed by Richard Joseph . Dave Gibbons created the background graphics.
Lure of the Temptress cost approximately £ 20,000 to develop . The financing was originally provided by Mirrorsoft , which, however, had to file for bankruptcy a little later. It was finally published by Virgin Interactive . The first version published was for PCs; Versions for Amiga and ST followed.
In April 2003, Revolution Software made Lure of the Temptress available to the general public as freeware . The game can be downloaded from the developer's homepage.
reception
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The Amiga Joker praised the complex system of interaction with NPCs and described the game as an "all-round convincing debut adventure", where only the lack of color of the graphics was criticized. The ASM awarded Lure of the Temptress the award “Game of the Month”, highlighted the story and the atmosphere “in which one completely forgets the real world”, and found only the controls to be criticized. Computer Gaming World praised the game's humor and atmospheric graphics, but criticized the small size. The Power Play emphasized the character depth of the NPCs and criticized their erratic wandering around the premises as well as an unnecessary action at the end of the game.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Background article in Edge magazine ( Memento from February 27, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Neil Jackson: Lure of the Temptress . In: Amiga format . No. 36 , July 1992, p. 80–81 ( abime.net [accessed August 30, 2020]).
- ↑ a b Max Magenauer: Lure of the Temptress . In: Amiga Joker . No. 9/92 . Joker-Verlag, September 1992, p. 32 ( kultboy.com [accessed August 30, 2020]).
- ↑ a b Antje Hink: Game of the Month: Lure of the Temptress - Seduction . In: ASM . No. 8/92 , August 1992, pp. 6-8 ( kultboy.com [accessed August 30, 2020]).
- ↑ a b Richard Eisenmenger: In the Service of Her Majesty - Lure of the Temptress . In: Power Play . No. 8/92 , August 1992, pp. 101 ( kultboy.com [accessed August 30, 2020]).
- ↑ Computer Gaming World # 104, March 1993, p. 100, available online