Simon the Sorcerer

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Simon the Sorcerer
Simonthesorcerer1-logo.png
Studio Adventure Soft
Publisher Adventure Soft
Senior Developer Michael "Mike" Woodroffe, Simon Woodroffe, Alan Bridgman, Paul Drummond
Erstveröffent-
lichung
1993
platform Amiga CD³² , Android , Archimedes , Commodore Amiga , iOS , macOS , MS-DOS , Windows
Game engine Adventure Graphic Operating System (AGOS)
genre Adventure
Game mode Single player
control Mouse ,
touch screen (Android, iOS)
medium Floppy disk , CD-ROM , download
language German, English, French, Hebrew, Italian, Russian, Swedish, Spanish
copy protection Manual request for starting the game (disk version)

Simon the Sorcerer (English for "Simon, the magician") is a computer game by the British game developer Adventure Soft from 1993. Developed by a team led by studio founder Mike Woodroffe, a version on floppy disk for computers with the MS-DOS operating system was first released . Portings for other systems followed. An extended version on CD-ROM with voice output in German and English appeared in 1994.

After the extremely successful publication, which is regarded as a milestone in the point-and-click adventure genre , the studio developed a technically almost identical successor in 1995 with the title Simon the Sorcerer II: The Lion, the Wizard & the Cabinet . This resulted in a Simon-the-Sorcerer game series of seven games today, which could no longer build on the success of the first two parts.

Plot and characters

The game is about the adventures of the English teenager Simon. On Simon's twelfth birthday, his family finds an unknown dog and a mysterious book on the doorstep. The dog is adopted and named "Chippy", the book is stowed in the attic. Days later, Simon opens the book and accidentally opens a portal into a parallel world through which Chippy jumps. Simon follows him. The parallel world contains numerous elements of well-known European fairy tales and legends , such as magicians , dragons , giants and talking animals. The evil magician Sordid (German: "Abscheulich") threatens this world, and Simon involuntarily takes up a fight against him.

  • Simon is a completely normal young person from our world who carries his surprising lot with a lot of humor. In the course of the game he becomes a sorcerer's apprentice and savior of the fantasy world, which bears clear features of Middle-earth from The Lord of the Rings . His magician's hat is remarkable, in which he can put an infinite number of objects of any size. In the original English version, Simon is voiced by actor Chris Barrie (known from the TV series Red Dwarf ), who received 3,000 British pounds a day for his commitment.
  • Calypso is the good magician, to whose rescue Simon moves out after he has ended up in the fantasy world. In the first part of the game, Calypso does not play a major role.
  • Sordid is the evil wizard who wants to subjugate the fantasy world and to do so, turning Calypso and others to stone. He resides in his death fortress and must be defeated by Simon.
  • The Bogling is a green reptile that is famous for its "swamp soup" and is noticeable for its broken language.
  • A central element of the game's humor are the absurd supporting characters. These include socialist Holzwurm revolutionaries , a pig transformed into a princess , two incompetent demons and a striking bridge troll .

Game principle and technology

The game follows the usual structure at that time point-and-click -Adventures with control verbs and inventory at the bottom of the screen clickable objects in the game window and multiple choice - dialogues . The humor of the game counteracts the fantasy world. In many cases he alludes directly to the real world or is amused by the fairytale clichés processed in the game.

Production notes

The game was developed by the British company Adventure Soft under the direction of Simon and Michael Mike Woodroffe. Simon Woodroffe, designer of the game, is the son of Michael Woodroffe, founder of Adventure Soft. The team was inspired by the Monkey Island games by LucasArts , the Discworld novels by the writer Terry Pratchett and the role-playing game system Dungeons & Dragons . The development team consisted of 15 people, the technical script was written by Simon Woodroffe. The game engine AGOS ( Adventure Graphic Operating System ) was used, an in-house development by Adventure Soft, on which Alan Cox worked. The animations were created with PowerAnimator .

The game was released for the Commodore Amiga and computers with the MS-DOS operating system , initially on floppy disk , later on CD-ROM with voice output . In the latter version, Simon the Sorcerer was one of the first adventure games to be completely set to music.

In order to make the original game playable on newer platforms, the ScummVM development team included appropriate support in their software and script collection.

In August 2009, Simon the Sorcerer was implemented by iPhSoft as a mobile app for Apple iOS . The development studio founded by Liron Barzilai in Tel Aviv , Israel in 2008 changed its name to MojoTouch and followed up with an Android app in August 2013 . When it was first published on Google Play , it had the suffix "20th Anniversary Edition". In April 2018, MojoTouch released a "25th Anniversary Edition" for current Windows computers. This version was based on the use of ScummVM and the use of a Blur - filter what the German computer games magazine 4Players as "incompetent, disrespectful handling of a classic" was called.

successor

reception

Simon the Sorcerer was one of the most successful games of its time, with over 600,000 copies sold worldwide by 1999, and was critically acclaimed. In retrospect, the German magazine Retro Gamer saw the game as the “highlight” of the Adventure Soft developer studio. It turned out that the game in terms of gameplay it very clear to the SCUMM - Engine started Adventures of US company Lucasfilm Games in remembrance, a "playable parody" of the fantasy worlds of JRR Tolkien and Dungeons & Dragons performing.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rob Franklin: Simon the Sorcerer Review. In: adventuregamers.com , August 5, 2004. Retrieved August 30, 2019
  2. a b Point & Click Adventures . In: Retro Gamer . No. 3, June 2015, p. 27.
  3. Point & Click Adventures . In: Retro Gamer . 2015, No. 3, June 2015, p. 38.
  4. Kevin Jensen: Simon the Sorcerer enchants the iPhone . In: PlanetiPhone.de , August 8, 2009. Retrieved August 30, 2019.
  5. Andreas Floemer: Simon the Sorcerer: Cult point & click adventure for Android published. In: GIGA . August 27, 2013, accessed August 30, 2019 .
  6. Liron Barzilai: Relive the Hilarious Fantasy Adventure in HD! MojoTouch press release. In: MobilePRwire . August 28, 2013, accessed September 1, 2019 .
  7. ^ Benjamin Schmädig: Bungled "modernized". Review: Simon the Sorcerer: 25th Anniversary Edition. In: 4Players . April 17, 2018, accessed August 30, 2019 .
  8. Zoltán Ormándi: Simon the Sorcerer. In: adventureclassicgaming.com . September 12, 1999, accessed August 30, 2019 .
  9. Point & Click Adventures . In: Retro Gamer . No. 3, June 2015, p. 37.