Opera Fatal

Last updated
Opera Fatal
Opera Fatal (French).jpg
French cover art
Developer(s) Ruske & Pühretmaier Design und Multimedia GmbH
Publisher(s) Heureka-Klett, index+
Engine QuickTime   Blue pencil.svg
Platform(s) Mac OS Microsoft Windows
Release
Genre(s) Graphic adventure, puzzle
Mode(s) Single-player

Opera Fatal is a 1996 educational graphic adventure puzzle video game developed by Ruske & Pühretmaier Design und Multimedia GmbH and published by Heureka-Klett. The game's plot follows maestro Angelo, the orchestra director, on the night before the premiere of Beethoven's Fidelio. A mysterious thief has stolen the musical scores; to retrieve them, Angelo must solve a series of music-themed riddles that have been scattered throughout the opera house. [1] [2]

Educational entertainment content designed to educate and entertain

Educational entertainment is media designed to educate through entertainment. Most often it includes content intended to teach but has incidental entertainment value. It has been used by academia, corporations, governments, and other entities in various countries to disseminate information in classrooms and/or via television, radio, and other media to influence viewers' opinions and behaviors.

Puzzle video games make up a unique genre of video games that emphasize puzzle solving. The types of puzzles can test many problem-solving skills including logic, pattern recognition, sequence solving, and word completion. The player may have unlimited time or infinite attempts to solve a puzzle, or there may be a time limit, or simpler puzzles may be made difficult by having to complete them in real time, as in Tetris.

Heureka-Klett was a German software engineering company which has made several personal computer games of the sort called "edutainment". They are point-and-click puzzle-adventure games, heavily inspired by Myst for Windows and Mac. These were distributed by Tivola International to be localized for many markets.

Contents

Gameplay

The gameplay of Opera Fatal consists of first-person exploration as Angelo finds his way through the opera house. The player can interact with some specific objects by clicking or dragging them. Some items can be carried by Angelo to be used to solve a puzzle elsewhere in the opera house. The primary goal is to find the numbered questions left by the thief and to write down the correct answers in a book in the office. As more sets of questions are answered, more parts of the opera house become accessible. To aid the player in answering the questions, an interactive virtual library on music theory, musical instruments, the lives of several composers, and music history is available inside the game itself. [3] [4]

A first-person narrative is a mode of storytelling in which a narrator relays events from their own point of view using the first person i.e. "I" or "we", etc. It may be narrated by a first person protagonist, first person re-teller, first person witness, or first person peripheral. A classic example of a first person protagonist narrator is Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre (1847), in which the title character is also the narrator telling her own story, "I could not unlove him now, merely because I found that he had ceased to notice me".

Music theory considers the practices and possibilities of music

Music theory is the study of the practices and possibilities of music. The Oxford Companion to Music describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory":

The first is what is otherwise called 'rudiments', currently taught as the elements of notation, of key signatures, of time signatures, of rhythmic notation, and so on. [...] The second is the study of writings about music from ancient times onwards. [...] The third is an area of current musicological study that seeks to define processes and general principles in music — a sphere of research that can be distinguished from analysis in that it takes as its starting-point not the individual work or performance but the fundamental materials from which it is built.

Musical instrument History and classification

A musical instrument is an instrument created or adapted to make musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. The history of musical instruments dates to the beginnings of human culture. Early musical instruments may have been used for ritual, such as a trumpet to signal success on the hunt, or a drum in a religious ceremony. Cultures eventually developed composition and performance of melodies for entertainment. Musical instruments evolved in step with changing applications.

Reception

Opera Fatal was first released in German in 1996; later versions were released in Italian, English, French, and Dutch. [3] [5] [6] [7]

Opera Fatal won several awards, including the 1997 Digita award for educational games [8] and the 1996 Macromedia People's Choice Awards. It was also nominated for the 1997 Milia D'Or in Cannes.

Macromedia American graphics and web development software company headquartered in San Francisco, California (USA).

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Cannes Commune in Provence-Alpes-Côte dAzur, France

Cannes is a city located on the French Riviera. It is a commune located in the Alpes-Maritimes department, and host city of the annual Cannes Film Festival, Midem, and Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. The city is known for its association with the rich and famous, its luxury hotels and restaurants, and for several conferences. On 3 November 2011 it also played host to the G20 organisation of industrialised nations.

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References

  1. ↑ Ruske & Pühretmaier Design und Multimedia GmbH (1996). Opera Fatal. Windows. Heureka-Klett. Maestro Angelo has a problem. Mysteriously, important scores and his personal notes have disappeared. One speculates that a thief is involved.
  2. ↑ Ruske & Pühretmaier Design und Multimedia GmbH (1996). Opera Fatal. Windows. Heureka-Klett. Finally, after years of waiting, Beethoven's only opera was to be presented to the music-loving public in a unique production.
  3. 1 2 Jenny100. "Opera Fatal review". GameBoomers. GameBoomers Group. Retrieved 18 July 2016.
  4. ↑ "IBI: Projekte - digita 97 - Privates Lernen, Über 10 Jahren". Institut für Bildung in der Informationsgesellschaft (in German). Archived from the original on 12 June 2002. Retrieved 18 July 2016.
  5. ↑ "Opera Fatal (1996) Windows release dates". MobyGames. Retrieved 18 July 2016.
  6. ↑ "Museo videogiochi: Opera Fatal". Gharlic Heimli (in Italian). Retrieved 18 August 2016.
  7. ↑ Bolling, Ron. "Software". Vaklokaal Muziek (in Dutch). Retrieved 31 October 2018.
  8. ↑ "IBI: Projekte - digita 97". Institut für Bildung in der Informationsgesellschaft (in German). Archived from the original on 6 September 2002. Retrieved 18 July 2016.
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