Normality
| Normality | |
|---|---|
| Studio | Gremlin Interactive |
| Publisher |
 Gremlin Interactive Interplay
|
| Senior Developer | Adrian Carless Mark Glossop |
| composer | Chris Adams Neil Biggin Patrick Phelan |
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
June 1996 |
| platform | DOS , Linux , MacOS , Windows |
| Game engine | True 3D |
| genre | Adventure |
| language | German English French |
Normality ( German norm ) is a comedic science fiction - Adventure of the British manufacturer Gremlin Interactive from the year 1996th
action
Kent Knutson, a teenager, lives in Neutropolis, a dictator-ruled, dystopian city-state where individuality, amusement, and the display of emotions are prohibited by the authorities. Before the start of the plot, Knutson had spent a week in prison for whistling a happy song, where information about a resistance group had been leaked to him by an unknown inmate. After serving his sentence, he is given additional house arrest and the obligation to constantly watch state television programs. He decides to track down the resistance group and join them, assuming he will find people of similar sentiments there. If he succeeds in this, he receives the order to eliminate the dictator of Neutropolis, Paul Nystalux.
Game principle and technology
Normality is a first-person - Point-and-click adventure , that is, the representation of the action takes place from the perspective of the player. The camera can be rotated freely in all directions. The movement of the camera as well as movement within the game world takes place with the mouse while the left button is pressed. With the right mouse button the player can initiate actions that let the game character interact with his environment. Knutson can find objects, apply them to the environment or other objects and communicate with NPCs . Visually, the interaction with the environment takes place via a stylized voodoo doll with the appearance of the protagonist: When you right-click on an object, this is displayed, and a left-click on a body part of the doll initiates an action associated with the body part referenced object recorded, for example, viewed by clicking on the doll's eyes. Alternatively, keyboard shortcuts can be used for all actions . As the story progresses, additional locations will be unlocked, of which there are over 120 in total. Cutscenes are shown in pre-rendered game graphics, but in a third-person perspective , so that the player sees his game character act like in a film.
Production notes
While the development studio Gremlin invested little money in voice recordings of the game characters, Interplay , which had acquired the marketing rights for the North American market , decided to completely re-create the synchronization and use better-known speakers. The role of the game character was z. B. taken over by Corey Feldman . The True-3D engine developed by the programmer Antony Crowther was used in the same year for the Gremlin action adventure Realms of the Haunting , which was also distributed by Interplay.
From 2011 versions for Microsoft Windows , MacOS and Linux appeared as downloads via the online distributor GOG.com , which can run on modern systems, but display the graphics of the original version.
Producer and designer Adrian "Ade" Carless later worked as a designer a. a. for Infogrames , Eidos and Rockstar Vancouver and is now a freelancer in the game design sector. Senior programmer Graeme Ing is the head of quality control at Daybreak Game Company , where he worked as a programmer on EverQuest and published several science fiction novels. Musician Patrick Phelan had previously composed for well-known game titles such as Lotus III: The Ultimate Challenge or Zool and is now working as a producer for Sumo Digital , where he a. a. Driver 76 was responsible.
reception
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The German magazine PC Joker noted "detailed 3D rooms", a perspective correct representation, "cranky figures and (a) trashy scenario", but also "labyrinthine rooms", wooden animations and a poor quality German synchronization compared to the original English version. The magazine saw the story as a mix of the Terry Gilliam film Brazil and the George Orwell novel 1984 and concluded that Normality was an original, fun and well-crafted adventure game. The trade magazine Adventure Gamers praised the overall entertaining story as well as the mostly inventory-based puzzles and criticized the not very subtle humor, but above all the cast of the game character with Corey Feldman, whose "excessively stretched, terribly exaggerated surfer accent" had triggered the wish in the reviewer "To pierce the eardrums with a ballpoint pen". Adventure Gamers compared the protagonist Kent Knutson to a "stoned Harrison Bergeron ". Overall, the game is entertaining, but doesn't leave a lasting impression. The online magazine GameSpot , on the other hand, praised the noticeable enthusiasm of spokesman Feldman, but criticized the animations of the NPCs and minor inconsistencies in the technical interaction with the game environment. Overall, the game is worth the money. The specialist magazine Adventure Classic Gaming associated the story of the game with Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's Brave New World in a retrospective, and compared the game world with that of Beneath a Steel Sky . The trade magazine criticized irritating camera perspectives that would make some puzzles unnecessarily difficult. It positively highlighted the Gremlin development studio's willingness to innovate, but noted that the implementation of the game environments and music sometimes had a repetitive effect.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ A b c Manfred Duy: Normality . In: PC Joker . No. 9/96 . Joker-Verlag, September 1996, ZDB -ID 1278969-0 , p. 78-79 ( scan [accessed January 11, 2017]).
- ^ Adrian Carless. Game Design Consultant. (No longer available online.) In: adriancarless.com. Archived from the original on January 10, 2017 ; accessed on January 11, 2017 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Normality for PC. In: GameRankings . CBS Interactive , accessed January 11, 2017 .
- ^ A b Kevin Hoelscher: Normality review. In: Adventure Gamers. April 3, 2003, accessed January 11, 2017 .
- ↑ a b Stephen Poole: Normality Review. In: GameSpot . CBS Interactive , August 23, 1996, accessed January 11, 2017 .
- ^ Gustavo Calvo-Simmons: Normality. In: Adventure Classic Gaming. March 23, 2008, accessed January 11, 2017 .
