Paradise (computer game)
| Paradise | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Studio | White Birds Productions | ||
| Publisher |
 Dtp entertainment Micro Application Ubisoft   
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| Senior Developer | Benoît Sokal | ||
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
April 21, 2006 | ||
| platform | iOS , Nintendo DS , Windows | ||
| Game engine | Opalium | ||
| genre | Adventure | ||
| Game mode | Single player | ||
| control | Keyboard & mouse | ||
| medium | CD-ROM , DVD-ROM , memory card , download | ||
| language | German English French | ||
| Age rating |
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Paradise is a computer game by the French computer game developer White Birds Productions from 2006. The adventure is based on the four-volume comic series of the same name by the Belgian comic artist Benoît Sokal . The player controls a young woman who, after a plane crash in the fictional African kingdom of Maurania, gets caught up in the battle between the king and the rebels. A version released in 2008 for the Nintendo DS handheld console is entitled The Last King of Africa .
action
The player takes on the role of 21-year-old Ann who lives with her mother in Switzerland. Ann's mother was the wife of Rodon, king of the fictional African kingdom of Maurania. 13 years ago Ann's mother fled to Switzerland from her husband, a chronically suspicious tyrant. Rodon's power in Maurania is now crumbling, and rebels are on the rise, supported by a neighboring state. In addition, Rodon is fatally ill. He has retired to a battleship anchored off the coast of the country . Fixated on the idea of handing over his power to his daughter, he lets her ask for one last meeting. Ann reluctantly complies with the request and flies to Maurania. Before the plane even reached the capital, it was shot down by the rebels over a remote region. Ann survived the crash with only minor injuries, but suffered severe amnesia and could not remember her name or the purpose of her trip. Residents of the region find her and take her to the city of Madargane to the palace of the local prince, where she is looked after. This is where the game starts.
The prince is holding a black leopard surrounded by a mythical aura. When Ann meets the animal, she is sure that she has met him before. The prince also notices a connection between the woman and the animal and orders Ann to bring the leopard back to its place of birth. Ann occupied this task throughout the game. Your journey begins in the North African city of Mandargane. Later she comes across the Baobab people, whose members use a whistle to communicate, spend their entire lives on the trees of the Mauranian jungle and never set foot on the ground. In an emerald mine, Ann has to deal with a dictatorial overseer. Due to amnesia-related ignorance of her parentage, she then joins the Mauranian rebels. Eventually she arrives at her father's battleship, which resembles a floating city. There she penetrates to her father and shoots him.
Game principle and technology
Paradise is a so-called 2.5D point-and-click adventure. For polygons composite, three-dimensional characters move before pre-rendered 2D scenes. With the mouse, the player gives his character action commands, moves him from place to place, examines the scenery, analyzes and combines found objects as well as hints and statements from other characters. Dialogues with NPCs are led through a selection menu with topics in the form of keywords. As the story progresses, more locations will be unlocked. Occasionally the player has to take on the role of the black leopard; these game sections only consist of movement through the game world, interaction with the same is not possible as a leopard. The sequences, in which the player takes on the role of the leopard, require skill instead of reflection from the player, are in contrast to the rest of the game in 3D and are calculated accordingly in real time.
Production notes
The game is written by Benoît Sokal, a Belgian comic artist. In 2002 he designed the three-part Syberia adventure series for the French publisher Microïds and later founded his own company White Birds Productions . Paradise was the company's first published title. In the manual, Sokal explains that the theme of the game is based on his childhood. He spent this in Belgium, which exercised colonial rule over what was then the Belgian Congo until Sokal was six years old. Stories about Africa and especially the "wild" Congo would have fascinated Sokal back then, and this fascination would have remained. When designing the city of Madargane, he processed impressions of a vacation in Marrakech as well as the work of the French painter Auguste Delacroix . According to Sokal, the central motif of the game is the love-hate relationship between a father and his daughter. The author compared his work with a " Greek tragedy set in Africa".
The version published in April 2006 was criticized by gamers and the media for various programming and design errors. The publisher Dtp entertainment therefore ordered improvements for the German market before launching the game. In 2009 Dtp published the game again as part of a further exploitation of the license, namely as part of a package with the Sokal titles Syberia and Syberia II as Adventure Collection 1 ; the package established a nine-part series of re-release packages from the publisher.
From 2005 to 2008 Sokal created four comic books on the game together with illustrator Brice Bingono and colorist Jean-François Bruckner, which were published by the Belgian publisher Casterman and in 2010 also republished in a one-volume complete version. A one-volume, 200-page German edition was published on April 1, 2009 by Splitter-Verlag in Bielefeld . In 2006, Sokal published the illustrated book Lost Paradise of Maurania with concept drawings and background information on the game in collaboration with the French writer and media journalist Gérard Pangon .
In 2008 a port of the game for the Nintendo DS was released under the title The Last King of Africa (original title: Last King of Africa ) . In 2010 a version for mobile devices with the iOS operating system was published, which was divided into two parts .
reception
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Paradise received mixed to negative reviews. The review database Metacritic aggregates 17 reviews to an average value of 57. The specialist magazine Adventure-Treff found that the story opens up to the player in the course of the game, but that the actions of the character remain largely unaffected. It praised the "photo-realistic rendered " graphics; Sokal's creations seem “removed from reality” and are highly original, but the game world is largely empty and low in animation. 4Players found that the story had potential, but was told in a lengthy manner and did not leave a lasting impression. The characters have no depth. The magazine also noted massive technical problems, including crashes. Promised were the cinematic cut scenes .
literature
- Benoît Sokal: Paradise . Splitter, 2009, ISBN 978-3-940864-15-4 .
- Benoît Sokal: Lost Paradise of Maurania . Casterman, Tournai 2006, ISBN 2-203-34607-8 .
- Markus Müller: Paradise: The official solution . Medienagentur Müller, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-89956-521-5 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b AdventureGamers.com: Paradise hands-on. Retrieved September 18, 2019 .
- ↑ Adventure-Island.nl: Interviews: Benoit Sokal ( Memento from August 21, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ a b c Adventure-Treff.de: Test: Paradise. Retrieved September 16, 2019 .
- ↑ Gamestar.de: dtp Entertainment - Announces adventure collections. Retrieved September 18, 2019 .
- ↑ http://www.bedetheque.com/serie-12319-BD-Paradise.html
- ↑ a b 4Players.de: Test: Paradise. Retrieved September 18, 2019 .
- ↑ Gamestar.de: Summary: Paradise ( Memento from August 3, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ a b Metacritic.com: Paradise. Retrieved September 13, 2019 .