Return to Mysterious Island | |
---|---|
Developer(s) | Kheops Studio [lower-alpha 1] [lower-alpha 2] |
Publisher(s) | The Adventure Company [lower-alpha 3] [lower-alpha 4] [lower-alpha 5] |
Director(s) | |
Designer(s) | |
Platform(s) | Windows, Windows Mobile, Symbian, iOS, Mac OS X |
Release | Windows
|
Genre(s) | Adventure |
Mode(s) | Single-player |
Return to Mysterious Island is a 2004 graphic adventure game developed by Kheops Studio and published by The Adventure Company. Based on Jules Verne's 1875 novel The Mysterious Island , the game casts the player as Mina, a shipwrecked woman forced to survive on an uncharted island.
Players explore the world by clicking on different areas to move and to interact with items. Players also have an inventory, in which they can collect and store items and construct new ones.
Return to Mysterious Island follows Mina, a strong young woman alone on a round-the-world sailing expedition. Caught in a tremendous storm, she becomes stranded on the shores of a wild and apparently uninhabited island. As she explores her new surroundings, she uncovers artifacts, living spaces and technologies left behind by the people who came before her to this uncharted island.
Creating a new life, Mina builds a home from the remains of the previous settlements and uses her survival skills against the wilds of the jungle. She soon becomes aware of a figure in the shadows who, seemingly aware of her troubles, offers her assistance. She eventually identifies this figure as the unsettled ghost of Captain Nemo, whose body is located in a cave on the island. Piecing together the hints and clues he provides, Mina must retrieve his body and give him a proper burial in order to free his tortured soul, and then travel to the Nautilus deep below the island shore to unlock a way to escape the island.
Return to Mysterious Island was conceived by Kheops Studio because Mystery of the Nautilus had been a success for publisher DreamCatcher Interactive, [5] selling 117,000 units globally by 2004. [6]
Publication | Score |
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Computer Gaming World | [7] |
Computer Games Magazine | [8] |
According to the NPD Group, Return to Mysterious Island sold 21,700 copies at a list price $19.99 by June 2005. [9] It became Kheops Studio's biggest hit worldwide, which company head Benoît Hozjan attributed to word of mouth. [10] The game's later iPhone release sold 100,000 copies by November 2009. [11] Review aggregation website Metacritic reported critical reception of Return to Mysterious Island's original computer release as "generally positive", based on 19 reviews. [12]
The game 4 out of 5 from Modojo for its iPhone version; the reviewer said that the game have remarkable visuals and audio as well as manageable inventory system but have frustrating puzzles. [13] Geek.com liked the game but also compared it to Myst . [14]
Return to Mysterious Island was nominated as SME's pick for the best adventure game of 2004, but lost the prize to Syberia II . [15] In 2011, Adventure Gamers named Return to Mysterious Island the 53rd-best adventure game ever released. [16]
A sequel, Return to Mysterious Island II , developed by Kheops Studio and published by Microïds, was released for PC and Apple iPhone on August 14, 2009. [17]
Coladia, founded in 2005, teamed up with Kheops Studio to update and port Mysterious Island and other Kheops adventure games to macOS and iOS. [18] A port of the game to Apple's iPhone was released on the iTunes app store on June 15, 2009.
Sports Interactive Limited is a British video game developer based in London, best known for the Football Manager series. Founded by brothers Oliver and Paul Collyer in July 1994, the studio was acquired by Japanese video game publisher Sega in 2006 and became part of Sega Europe. In addition to its work on Football Manager, the studio has also created a number of other sports-management simulations, including NHL Eastside Hockey Manager and Championship Manager Quiz, and is the former developer of Championship Manager.
The Mysterious Island is a novel by Jules Verne, published in 1875. The first edition, published by Hetzel, contains illustrations by Jules Férat. The novel is a crossover sequel to Verne's famous Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas (1870) and In Search of the Castaways (1867–68), though its themes are vastly different from those books. An early draft of the novel, rejected by Verne's publisher and wholly reconceived before publication, was titled Shipwrecked Family: Marooned with Uncle Robinson, indicating the influence of the novels Robinson Crusoe and The Swiss Family Robinson. Verne developed a similar theme in his novel, Godfrey Morgan.
Voyage: Inspired by Jules Verne is a point-and-click adventure game with pre-rendered graphics, developed by Kheops Studio and published by The Adventure Company for the PC in 2005. The game's story focuses on a French adventurer's journey to the Moon in the 19th century, and the ancient lunar civilization he subsequently finds.
Digital Eel is a self-funded independent video game development team located in the Seattle, Washington area. Digital Eel is best known for its Infinite Space series of space roguelikes.
Kheops Studio was an independent video game development studio created in September 2003. Its games were published by Microïds, which acquired the brand and intellectual property as insolvency assets of Cryo Interactive in 2002. The company was co-founded by Benoît Hozjan, who also served as the creative director for the studio and Stéphane Petit, who served as technical director. Kheops developed adventure games for the PC platform and released several major successful games. The studio is best known for creating games that have been described by the developer as "cultural entertainment", that is, games which are heavily drawn from historical or literary sources to include a mixture of history and fiction. After filing for bankruptcy, the studio was closed down in January 2012.
Echo: Secrets of the Lost Cavern is a computer adventure game released in July 2005. It was developed by Kheops Studio and published by The Adventure Company. It is very similar to previous Kheops Studio games; the interface and gameplay are almost identical to Return to Mysterious Island. The player takes the role of Arok, a 15-year-old European Homo sapiens from the Paleolithic period.
Destination: Treasure Island is an adventure game released in 2006. Developed by Kheops Studio and published by Nobilis. The game comes from the creators of The Secrets of Da Vinci, Return to Mysterious Island, Voyage and many more.
Safecracker: The Ultimate Puzzle Adventure is a 2006 puzzle adventure game developed by Kheops Studio and published by The Adventure Company. It is the spiritual successor to Daydream Software's 1997 title Safecracker.
Pendulo Studios S.L. is a Madrid-based video game developer founded in 1993 by Ramón Hernáez, Felipe Gómez Pinilla, Rafael Latiegui and Miguel Angel Ramos. Since the company's 1994 debut project, Igor: Objective Uikokahonia, it has specialized in graphic adventure games. Pendulo first achieved mainstream prominence in Spain via Hollywood Monsters (1997), which met with critical and commercial success in the country but was never released beyond Southern Europe.
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Dracula: Resurrection is a 1999 graphic adventure video game developed by Index+. Set in 1904 Transylvania, the game serves as a follow-up to Bram Stoker's novel Dracula. Seven years after the death of Count Dracula, Jonathan Harker's wife Mina finds herself mysteriously drawn back to Transylvania. Jonathan subsequently travels to Borgo Pass in an effort to rescue her. The player assumes the role of Jonathan and uses a point-and-click interface to solve puzzles and navigate the game's world, often with the help of an object called the Dragon Ring.
Egypt 2: The Heliopolis Prophecy is an adventure video game developed and published by Cryo Interactive for the PC and PlayStation in 2000. It was released for Mac OS X in May 2012. Egypt 2 follows Egypt 1156 B.C. and is followed by Egypt III.
Egypt III, known as The Egyptian Prophecy in North America, is a 2004 graphic adventure game developed by Kheops Studio and published by The Adventure Company. The player must solve an array of ancient riddles that will help a dying Pharaoh survive and restore Egypt to glory. The game is the third and final game in the Egypt trilogy, following Egypt 1156 B.C. and Egypt II: The Heliopolis Prophecy. In 2010, Microïds released an adaptation of the game, split into parts, for the Apple iPhone.
The Secret of the Nautilus is a 2002 adventure video game, inspired by Jules Verne's science fiction novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. It was developed by Cryo Interactive and released for Microsoft Windows based PCs.
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Return to Mysterious Island 2: Mina's Fate is a 2009 adventure video game developed by Kheops Studio and published by MC2 France under their Microïds label. It is a sequel to the 2004 video game Return to Mysterious Island, and is again based upon the 1875 book by Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island.
Dracula 5: The Blood Legacy is a 2013 point-and-click adventure video game developed by Koalabs Studio for Microsoft Windows, iOS, Android and OS X. It was published on all systems by Anuman under their Microïds brand. In 2014, the game was released on GOG.com and Steam, bundled with its prequel, Dracula 4: The Shadow of the Dragon.
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