| Prince Interactive | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer(s) | Graphix Zone |
| Publisher(s) | Compton's New Media |
| Platform(s) | Mac OS, Windows 3.1x |
| Genre(s) | Graphic adventure, puzzle |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Prince Interactive is an interactive multimedia CD-ROM video game. It was released in 1994, based on the musician Prince and his Paisley Park Studios recording complex.
The disc contains a video game, songs, music videos, a virtual tour through Paisley Park Studios, and other multimedia resources. Complete gameplay can last for hours.
The video game is a graphic adventure with gameplay mechanics similar to Myst , requiring the player to explore the many different rooms in Paisley Park Studios and solve puzzles to collect the five pieces of Prince's symbol. [1] It features six complete songs, including several which were previously unreleased, 52 song clips, four full-length music videos, 31 video clips, and nine morphs. [2] There is an interactive mixing board for adjusting music. [3] The private club contains clips of musicians, including Eric Clapton, Little Richard, George Clinton, and Miles Davis discussing Prince's career.
Ty Burr of Entertainment Weekly rated it as B+, describing it as "dopey but fun" and "imbued with [Prince's] goofball carnality", but more "marketing than entertainment". The gameplay was described as "meaningless scavenger hunts" and a "pointless" mixing board function. He summarized it as "a blast" to show it to friends but with no replay value. He cynically lamented this example of the entire two-year-old medium of the "craven new world of multimedia ... encrusted with cliches" within the "copycat mentality that rules pop music [with] a stable of aging rock & roll acts with time on their hands and a desperate need to seem relevant again". [3]
The Compact Disc-Interactive is a digital optical disc data storage format as well as a hardware platform, co-developed and marketed by Dutch company Philips and Japanese company Sony. It was created as an extension of CDDA and CD-ROM and specified in the Green Book specifications, co-developed by Philips and Sony, to combine audio, text and graphics. The two companies initially expected to impact the education/training, point of sale, and home entertainment industries, but the CD-i is largely remembered today for its video games.
Myst is an adventure video game designed by Rand and Robyn Miller. It was developed by Cyan, Inc., published by Broderbund, and first released in 1993 for the Macintosh. In the game, the player travels via a special book to a mysterious island called Myst. The player interacts with objects and traverses the environment by clicking on pre-rendered imagery. Solving puzzles allows the player to travel to other worlds ("Ages"), which reveal the backstory of the game's characters and help the player make the choice of whom to aid.
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. The game 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".
Pyst is an adventure computer game released in October 1996. It was created as a parody of the highly successful adventure game Myst. Pyst was written by Peter Bergman, a co-founder of the Firesign Theatre, and was published by Parroty Interactive, with Bergman, Stallone, Inc. as co-publisher. Mindscape began distributing the game on August 20, 1997. The parody features full motion video of actor John Goodman as "King Mattruss", the ruler of "Pyst Island". Versions of the game were produced for both the Windows PC and Apple Macintosh operating systems.
The Songs of Distant Earth is the sixteenth studio album by English musician, songwriter and producer Mike Oldfield, released on 21 November 1994 by WEA. It is a concept album based on the 1986 science fiction novel The Songs of Distant Earth by Arthur C. Clarke. The album reached No. 24 on the UK Albums Chart.
The Daedalus Encounter is a 1995 interactive movie puzzle adventure game developed by Mechadeus and published by Virgin Interactive for Windows. The game was ported to the 3DO by Lifelike Productions and published by Panasonic. The premise of the game is that there are three space marines who have fought as part of an interstellar war. One of them, Casey, has been brought back to life by his partners after a space accident and he is now a brain grafted in a life-support system. In order to save themselves, the three characters and the player solve all sorts of puzzles.
Star Wars: Rebel Assault is a 1993 rail shooter video game developed and published by LucasArts for DOS, Macintosh, Sega CD and 3DO Interactive Multiplayer systems, set in the Star Wars universe. It is the first CD-ROM-only game to be published by LucasArts. The game's story focuses on a young pilot called Rookie One as they are trained by, and subsequently fights for, the Rebel Alliance in the Galactic Civil War.
Nightmare Ned is a 1997 computer game for Microsoft Windows that was developed alongside the animated series of the same name. The game was based on a concept by Sue and Terry Shakespeare. It was released on October 7, 1997.
Monty Python's Complete Waste of Time is a collection of minigames, screensavers, desktop wallpaper and icons for Mac OS System 7 and Windows released in 1994 by 7th Level, Inc. It was brought on board the Mir Space Station by astronaut Andy Thomas.
XPLORA1: Peter Gabriel's Secret World is a musical computer game designed by musician Peter Gabriel. It was intended to promote his 1992 album, Us, and the success of Xplora1 would prompt him to release a similar musically themed interactive game entitled EVE in 1996 as the second of his post-WOMAD projects.
Disney's Animated Storybook is a point-and-click adventure interactive storybook video game series based on Walt Disney feature animations and Pixar films that were released throughout the 1990s. They were published by Disney Interactive for personal computers for children ages four to eight years old. Starting from 1994, most of the entries in the series were developed by Media Station. They have the same plots as their respective films, though abridged due to the limited medium.
Chop Suey is a point-and-click adventure game developed and published by Magnet Interactive Studios for the Macintosh in 1995. It was developed by Theresa Duncan and Monica Gesue to be a story disc for girls. Art is by Ian Svenonius, music and sound is by Brendan Canty, and narration is by author David Sedaris.
Monopoly Star Wars is the 1997 Monopoly Star Wars video game based on the board game and set in the Star Wars fictional universe. It is one of many Monopoly video game adaptions. The game was developed by Artech Studios and published by Hasbro Interactive. It was released exclusively for Microsoft Windows computers. The game employs the same basic ruleset of traditional Monopoly gameplay, but the Star Wars theme includes famous characters and locales in place of the original game pieces and properties.
Fox Hunt is a 1996 interactive movie video game developed by 3Vision Gamers and published by Capcom for Microsoft Windows and PlayStation. It is an interactive movie title with live action visuals in the vein of a spy film.
Highway 61 Interactive is an interactive CD-ROM released in 1995, based on the musician Bob Dylan and his music career. It was developed and published by Graphix Zone, with Sony Music Entertainment as co-publisher.
Devo Presents Adventures of the Smart Patrol is a CD-ROM video game developed and published by Inscape and co-created by American new wave band Devo. It was released in 1996.
Vid Grid is a tile-matching full motion video puzzle game originally developed by Geffen Records and published by Jasmine Multimedia Publishing for Windows on September 13, 1994. It was later ported to the Atari Jaguar CD by High Voltage Software in 1995, where it was included along with Blue Lightning as one of the pack-in games for the peripheral when it launched. It is the first entry in the series of the same name.
Kid Vid Grid is a tile-matching full motion video puzzle game developed by Geffen Records and published by Jasmine Multimedia Publishing for Windows in 1994. It is a spin-off of the original Vid Grid, which was released on the same year, and is it also the second entry in the franchise of the same name.
Peter and the Wolf is a 1995 live-action/animated television special based on the 1936 musical composition/fairy tale of the same name by Sergei Prokofiev, and directed by American conductor George Daugherty. It first aired Friday, December 8, 1995, on ABC in the United States. The music for this special was performed by the RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra conducted by Daugherty.
Peter Gabriel: Eve, also known as simply Eve, is a music and art adventure video game directed by Michael Coulson and co-produced by the Starwave Corporation, developed and published by Real World Multimedia for Windows and Macintosh in 1996–1997. It was created in association with and featuring the music of Peter Gabriel.