Noctropolis

Last updated
Noctropolis
Noctropolis cover.jpg
Developer(s) Flashpoint Productions
Publisher(s) Electronic Arts
Producer(s) Roland Kippenhan III
Designer(s) Brent Erickson
Shaun Mitchell
Programmer(s) Colin McLaughlan
Artist(s) Shaun Mitchell
Composer(s) Ron Saltmarsh
Andy Warr
Platform(s) MS-DOS
Microsoft Windows
Linux
macOS
Release
  • MS-DOS
  • December 1994 [1]
  • Microsoft Windows
  • 3 September 2015
  • Linux, macOS
  • 27 October 2017
Genre(s) Adventure game
Mode(s) Single-player

Noctropolis is a 1994 MS-DOS third-person adventure game by Flashpoint Productions and published by Electronic Arts. The player assumes the role of the character Peter Grey, a lonely bookstore owner who winds up in the world of his favorite comic book. Grey discovers that he is destined to assume the role of his former comic book hero. [2]

Contents

Gameplay

This style of gameplay is mostly third-person point-and-click, with some cut scenes. The player not only has to locate items but carefully choose dialog to gather information to help them progress through the game.

Characters in the game were digitized from analog footage, allowing for real life characters to be placed in 2D digital environments.

Reception

Charles Ardai of Computer Gaming World , while approving of the game's visual style and detailed art, criticized that the game has a simplistic interface and uses juvenile shock value in the form of gratuitous violence and sexual content in order to distract from the lack of substance to the story. He added, "It's also highly derivative, both of actual comic books and of other computer games." [3] A reviewer for Next Generation highly praised the game's story, abstract and challenging puzzles, comic-book style backgrounds, digitized character animation, soundtrack, and dark atmosphere. Though he remarked that some of the dialogue is silly for a Mature-rated game, and that many of the puzzles require illogical leaps of intuition, he concluded that "Those not requiring the utmost in realism will find this to be one of the best graphic adventures of the season." [4]

Legacy

In 2015 Night Dive Studios acquired the rights of the game and was able to recover the source code from the original developer. [6] The game's assembly code was ported with the help of the original developer to C++ to port the game to modern platforms. On 3 September 2015, the enhanced port was released on Steam, on 21 January 2016 followed a release on the DRM-free distributor GOG.com. [7] The remastered game features full compatibility with contemporary computers, a remastered soundtrack, improved keyboard/mouse support with rebindable keys/buttons and several bug fixes, and removed dead-end situations that would render the game unwinnable. Night Dive Studios released Linux and macOS versions of its port on 27 October 2017. [8] Players who pirated a copy of this version of Noctropolis will see their character imprisoned on the game over screen instead of the standard animations. [9]

Related Research Articles

<i>Day of the Tentacle</i> 1993 adventure game

Day of the Tentacle, also known as Maniac Mansion II: Day of the Tentacle, is a 1993 graphic adventure game developed and published by LucasArts. It is the sequel to the 1987 game Maniac Mansion. The plot follows Bernard Bernoulli and his friends Hoagie and Laverne as they attempt to stop the evil Purple Tentacle - a sentient, disembodied tentacle - from taking over the world. The player takes control of the trio and solves puzzles while using time travel to explore different periods of history.

<i>Simon the Sorcerer</i> Point-and-click adventure game

Simon the Sorcerer is a 1993 point-and-click adventure game developed and published by Adventure Soft, for Amiga and MS-DOS. The game's story focuses on a boy named Simon who is transported into a parallel universe of magic and monsters, where he embarks on a mission to become a wizard and rescue another from an evil sorcerer. The game's setting was inspired by the novels of the Discworld series, and incorporates parodies on fantasy novels and fairy tales, such as The Lord of the Rings and Jack and the Beanstalk. The lead character's design was inspired by that of the fictional British television character Blackadder, with the character voiced by Chris Barrie in the CD re-release.

<i>Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders</i> 1988 video game

Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders is a 1988 graphic adventure game by Lucasfilm Games. It was the second game to use the SCUMM engine, after Maniac Mansion. The project was led by David Fox, with Matthew Alan Kane as the co-designer and co-programmer.

<i>Wasteland</i> (video game) 1988 video game

Wasteland is a role-playing video game developed by Interplay Productions and published by Electronic Arts in 1988. The first installment of the Wasteland series, it is set in a futuristic, post-apocalyptic America destroyed by a nuclear holocaust generations before. Developers originally made the game for the Apple II and it was ported to the Commodore 64 and MS-DOS. It was re-released for Microsoft Windows, OS X, and Linux in 2013 via Steam and GOG.com, and in 2014 via Desura. A remastered version titled Wasteland Remastered was released on February 25, 2020, in honor of the original game's 30th anniversary.

<i>Star Trek: 25th Anniversary</i> (computer game) 1992 video game

Star Trek: 25th Anniversary is an adventure video game developed and published by Interplay Productions in 1992, based on the Star Trek universe. The game chronicles various missions of James T. Kirk and his crew of the USS Enterprise. Its 1993 sequel, Star Trek: Judgment Rites, continues and concludes this two-game series.

<i>Beneath a Steel Sky</i> Cyberpunk science-fiction point-and-click adventure from 1994

Beneath a Steel Sky is a 1994 point-and-click adventure game developed by British developer Revolution Software and published by Virgin Interactive Entertainment for MS-DOS and Amiga home computers. It was made available as freeware – and with the source code released – for PC platforms in 2003. Set in a dystopian cyberpunk future, the player assumes the role of Robert Foster, who was stranded in a wasteland known as "the Gap" as a child and adopted by a group of local Aboriginals, gradually adjusting to his life in the wilderness. After many years, armed security officers arrive, killing the locals and taking Robert back to Union City. He escapes and soon uncovers the corruption which lies at the heart of society.

<i>The 7th Guest</i> 1993 video game

The 7th Guest is an interactive movie puzzle adventure game, produced by Trilobyte and originally released by Virgin Interactive Entertainment in April 1993. It is one of the first computer video games to be released only on CD-ROM. The 7th Guest is a horror story told from the unfolding perspective of the player, as an amnesiac. The game received press attention for making live action video clips a core part of its gameplay, for its then-unprecedented amount of pre-rendered 3D graphics, and for its adult content. The game was very successful, with over two million copies sold. It, alongside Myst, is widely regarded as a killer app that accelerated the sales of CD-ROM drives. The 7th Guest has subsequently been re-released on Apple's app store for various systems such as the Mac. Bill Gates called The 7th Guest "the new standard in interactive entertainment".

<i>Shadow Warrior</i> (1997 video game) 1997 video game

Shadow Warrior is a first-person shooter video game developed by 3D Realms and published by GT Interactive. The shareware version was released for the PC on May 13, 1997, while the full version was completed on August 25, 1997 and released in stores on September 16, 1997. Shadow Warrior was developed using Ken Silverman's Build engine and improved on 3D Realms' previous Build engine game, Duke Nukem 3D. Mark Adams ported Shadow Warrior to Mac OS in August 1997.

<i>Superfrog</i> 1993 video game

Superfrog is a scrolling 2D platform game, originally developed for the Amiga and published in 1993 by Team17. Later releases were handled by Ocean Software and GOG.com.

<i>Postal</i> (video game) 1997 video game

Postal is a 1997 isometric top-down shooter video game developed by Running with Scissors and published by Ripcord Games. A sequel to the game, Postal 2, was released in 2003. Two additional sequels, Postal III and Postal 4: No Regerts, were released in 2011 and 2022, respectively. Director Uwe Boll bought the movie rights for the series and produced a film of the same name. A March 2001 re-release of the game, called Postal Plus, included a "Special Delivery" add-on. A remake of the game, Postal Redux, was released for Microsoft Windows on May 20, 2016, and was later released for the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch digital stores. At the end of 2016, the game's source code was released under the GNU GPL-2.0-only. At the end of 2019, Running With Scissors released the game as freeware.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aspyr</span> American video game developer and publisher

Aspyr Media, Inc. is an American video game developer and publisher founded by Michael Rogers and Ted Staloch in Austin, Texas. Originally founded to bring top gaming titles to macOS, the company, since 2005, has become a publisher and developer of entertainment for multiple gaming platforms.

<i>The Labyrinth of Time</i> 1993 video game

The Labyrinth of Time is a graphic adventure video game created by Terra Nova Development, a two-man team composed of Bradley W. Schenck and Michal Todorovic. Intended to be the first in a series of games, The Labyrinth of Time was less successful than similar graphic adventures released around the same time, such as The 7th Guest and Myst. It is the sole game produced by Terra Nova Development. In the years after its release, The Labyrinth of Time was published on more recent platforms by The Wyrmkeep Entertainment Co. in collaboration with the original developers.

<i>Toonstruck</i> 1996 video game

Toonstruck is a graphic adventure video game developed by Burst Studios, published by Virgin Interactive Entertainment and released in 1996 for DOS. The game features hand-drawn imagery and animated characters, but the protagonist Drew Blanc is represented as a video-captured live action character interacting with the cartoon world around him. In the game, Blanc is transported into the cartoon world he created while suffering from a creative block. Blanc is accompanied by his animated sidekick Flux Wildly.

<i>Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars</i> 1996 video game

Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars is a 1996 point-and-click adventure game developed by Revolution Software. It is the first in the Broken Sword series, co-written and directed by Charles Cecil. The player assumes the role of George Stobbart, an American tourist in Paris, as he attempts to unravel a deep conspiracy involving a sinister cult and a hidden treasure, seeing him travel to various locations around Europe and the Middle East. The game's storyline was conceived to feature a serious tone and heavily influenced by research on Knights Templar by Cecil, but was also interlaced with humor and graphics in the style of classic animated films.

<i>I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream</i> (video game) 1995 video game

I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream is a 1995 point-and-click adventure horror game developed by Cyberdreams and The Dreamers Guild, co-designed by Harlan Ellison, published by Cyberdreams and distributed by MGM Interactive. The game is based on Ellison's short story of the same title. It takes place in a dystopian world where a mastermind artificial intelligence named "AM" has destroyed all of humanity except for five people, whom he has been keeping alive and torturing for the past 109 years by constructing metaphorical adventures based on each character's fatal flaws. The player interacts with the game by making decisions through ethical dilemmas that deal with issues such as insanity, rape, paranoia, and genocide.

Linux-based operating systems can be used for playing video games. Because many games are not natively supported for the Linux kernel, various software has been made to run Windows games, such as Wine, Cedega, and Proton, and managers such as Lutris and PlayOnLinux. The Linux gaming community has a presence on the internet with users who attempt to run games that are not officially supported on Linux.

<i>Vangers</i> 1998 video game

Vangers is a racing role-playing video game developed by K-D Lab, a Russian company. It was released in North America in June 29, 1998 after receiving positive responses at that year's E3. An updated re-release was made available on Steam and GOG.com in 2014. The re-release includes support for Mac OS X and Linux.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GOG.com</span> Digital video game distribution platform

GOG.com is a digital distribution platform for video games and films. It is operated by GOG sp. z o.o., a wholly owned subsidiary of CD Projekt based in Warsaw, Poland. GOG.com delivers DRM-free video games through its digital platform for Microsoft Windows, macOS and Linux.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nightdive Studios</span> American video game developer

Night Dive Studios, Inc. is an American video game developer based in Vancouver, Washington. The company is known for obtaining rights to abandonware video games, updating them for compatibility with modern platforms, and re-releasing them via digital distribution services, supporting preservation of older games.

<i>Later Alligator</i> (video game) 2019 video game

Later Alligator is a 2019 point-and-click adventure game developed by American studio Pillow Fight in collaboration with SmallBü Animation. The game tasks players with exploring Alligator New York City and playing various mini-games to solve a mystery. The game was released in September 2019 for Microsoft Windows, and MacOS, followed by a Linux version in December. A port for the Nintendo Switch was released in March 2021.

References

  1. "Computer Game Review and CD-ROM Entertainment - November 1994" . Retrieved 2024-03-12.
  2. Addams, Shay. "Noctropolis". QuestBusters. No. 115. p. 9. Archived from the original on 25 March 2016. Retrieved 8 January 2015.
  3. 1 2 Ardai, Charles (February 1995). "See You in the Funny Papers" (PDF). Computer Gaming World . No. 127. pp. 74–76. Archived (PDF) from the original on September 23, 2015. Retrieved August 5, 2015.
  4. 1 2 "Noctropolis". Next Generation . Imagine Media (3): 93–94. March 1995.
  5. Hall, Mike (April 21, 1995). "Game for sleuthing? Spicy voyeur satisfles". Albuquerque Journal . p. 75. Retrieved August 3, 2022 via Newspapers.com.
  6. IamA Founder of Night Dive Studios, Stephen Kick - We track down and restore classic video games! AMA! Archived 2016-07-21 at the Wayback Machine by Stephen Kick on reddit.com "We were provided the source code to Noctropolis by the original designer who also helped us translate the assembly language code into, I believe was C++? He had all the original source files which is rare to come by" (22 June 2016)
  7. release_noctropolis Archived 2016-08-13 at the Wayback Machine on gog.com
  8. "MacOS and Linux versions are now available". Steam . Valve. 27 October 2017. Retrieved 16 December 2019.
  9. Maciejewski, A.J. "Nightdive Studios: Modernizing Classics like a Boss". Video Chums. Retrieved 10 September 2018.