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Adventure at the Chateau d'Or
by Karma Labs
A preview of the Beta-version by Annemarie
6th February 2001
I must confess, even as adult person I do love fairytales of princesses and hidden treasures protected by mysterious relatives equipped with magic powers. Such a beautiful story we get told by the new US-american game developers of Karma Labs with their first adventure game "Adventure at the Chateau D'Or" comparable to Myst or Riven.
We get to know a very modern and beautiful princess in the introduction scene - with a little american-french accent one has to get used to. She just has reached the grown-up age when she receives a letter from her mysterious, vanished uncle. The letter tells her about a surprising heritage: Within the castle of her ancestors, the Chateau d'Or, a vast treasure is hidden, which she has to seek and find. As the search for the treasure is combined with the greatest obstacles and dangers, You as brave and cunning hero have to help the princess to get this heritage.
You walk around the beautiful, abandoned chateau and explore room after room for hints, riddles and traps. The chateau - all abandoned? the princess send you to find her magic uncle and get him to speak about the mysteries. But he is only willing to support you if you prove that you are deserving his help by answering his questions about the history of France and Paris. Historical interested gamers will love it.
On your knowledge, which you could acquire when scouring the chateau, it depends if you get lost forever in the chateau like the uncle or will stand all dangers and could lead the princess finally to her treasure. All information that you collect is stored in the Hero's Information Manager (HIM), where you have to select the right answer for the uncle. You can also find a map in the HIM.
To protect you from insurmountable obstacles, the game is equipped with 3 levels of difficulties - from easy over medium to difficult. The light level is really easy while the difficult version of the game can be compared with the format of Myst or Riven.
you have to find out button-pressing sequences for example, solve color-combination puzzles - the puzzles are really reminding me of the above mentioned games. I very much enjoyed a puzzle in the artist's studio in the beginning of the game, where you could paint and spray to the top of your bent.
The graphics are amazing, you are wandering around beautifully painted, detailed worked out rooms (not to forget the garden), really enjoying to stop and look around at everything ... I wasn't missing movement in a 360 degrees environment and wasn't bothered at all to move click by click. It doesn't detract from beauty of the game. Adventure at the Chateau d'or is totally mouse-driven, different cursor shapes make it easy to find your way.
After playing the Beta-version I'm really looking forward to play the full version of this game to visit the beautiful chateau again.
System requirements PC:
- Pentium
- Windows 9x/2000/NT
- 16 bit graphic card, Direct X-compatible
- 8x CD-ROM
- Quicktime (on CD)
System requirements MAC:
- Power PC
- 16 MB RAM
- System 7.5
- 25 MB hard disk
- Pentium 600
- Windows 98
ÓAnnemarie for Adventure-Archiv 6th February 2000
Translated by slydos
adventurearchiv - 06-02-01