 |
| The Adventures of Fatman | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | SOCKO! Entertainment |
| Publisher(s) | SOCKO! Entertainment |
| Composer(s) | Mark Lovegrove |
| Engine | Adventure Game Studio |
| Platform(s) | Windows |
| Release | May 2003 |
| Genre(s) | Point-and-click adventure |
| Mode(s) | |
The Adventures of Fatman is a point and click adventure for Microsoft Windows released in 2003.
The game consists of the user playing as the eponymous Fatman, superhero protector of Shadowlawn, investigating an explosion at the ACNE chemical plant, and how exactly the CEO of Mary & Kate cosmetics was involved. [1] The villain of the game is Toxicman, a mutated thug who has a power to transform others into zombies. [2] The game features over 30 locations, and over 20 characters with 1,000 fully recorded lines of dialogue, with an original score featuring over fifty tracks. The game also enables you to listen to an "Audio Commentary" while playing, for every location.
The Adventures of Fatman was created by U.S. independent studio SOCKO! Entertainment and released in May 2003. The game was designed by Michael Doak and produced using the popular freeware game creation software the Adventure Game Studio. Fatman was originally released as an independent commercial game. [3] When Socko! Entertainment closed down in late 2003 they released the game under the freely distributed Creative Commons license (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives) as "Abandonware". [4] [5] In October 2015 the game was rereleased on Steam. [6]
The game received mostly favourable reviews. [7] [8] It received a DIY Games award for 'Adventure game of the year', [9] and 'Excellence in music', [10] and was nominated for 'Overall game of the year'. [11] It also won two AGS Awards. [12]
Lucasfilm Games is an American video game licensor and a subsidiary of Lucasfilm. It was founded in May 1982 by George Lucas as a video game development group alongside his film company; as part of a larger 1990 reorganization of the Lucasfilm divisions, the video game development division was grouped and rebranded as part of LucasArts. LucasArts became known for its line of adventure games based on its SCUMM engine in the 1990s, including Maniac Mansion, the Monkey Island series, and several Indiana Jones titles. A number of influential game developers were alumni of LucasArts from this period, including Brian Moriarty, Tim Schafer, Ron Gilbert, and Dave Grossman. Later, as Lucasfilm regained control over its licensing over the Star Wars franchise, LucasArts produced numerous action-based Star Wars titles in the late 1990s and early 2000s, while dropping adventure game development due to waning interest in the genre.
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Legend Entertainment Company was an American developer and publisher of computer games, best known for creating adventure titles throughout the 1990s. The company was founded by Bob Bates and Mike Verdu, both veterans of the interactive fiction studio Infocom that shut down in 1989. Legend's first two games, Spellcasting 101: Sorcerers Get All the Girls and Timequest, had strong sales that sustained the company. Legend also profited from negotiating licenses to popular book series, allowing them to create notable game adaptations such as Companions of Xanth and Gateway. Legend also earned a reputation for comedic adventures, with numerous awards for Eric the Unready in 1993. As the technology of the game industry changed, Legend continued to expand its game engine to take advantage of higher graphical fidelity, mouse support, and the increased media storage of the compact disc.
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Manhunt is a 2003 stealth game developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. It was released for the PlayStation 2 in November 2003, followed by Microsoft Windows and Xbox releases in April 2004. Set within the fictional Carcer City, players control a death row inmate who is forced to participate in a series of snuff films by killing criminal gang members sent to hunt him on camera.
Adventure Game Studio (AGS) is an open source development tool primarily used to create graphic adventure games. It is aimed at intermediate-level game designers, and combines an integrated development environment (IDE) with a scripting language based on the C programming language to process game logic.
The Chrono series is a video game franchise developed and published by Square, and is currently owned by Square Enix. The series began in 1995 with the time travel role-playing video game Chrono Trigger, which spawned two continuations, Radical Dreamers: Nusumenai Hōseki, and Chrono Cross. A promotional anime called Dimensional Adventure Numa Monjar and two ports of Chrono Trigger were also produced. As of March 31, 2003, Chrono Trigger was Square Enix's 12th best-selling game, with 2.65 million units shipped. Chrono Cross was the 24th, with 1.5 million units shipped. By 2019, the two games had sold over 5.5 million units combined. The games in the series have been called some of the greatest of all time, with most of the praise going towards Chrono Trigger. The series' original soundtracks, composed by Yasunori Mitsuda, have also been praised, with multiple soundtracks being released for them.
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An adventure game is a video game genre in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story, driven by exploration and/or puzzle-solving. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based media, such as literature and film, encompassing a wide variety of genres. Most adventure games are designed for a single player, since the emphasis on story and character makes multiplayer design difficult. Colossal Cave Adventure is identified by Rick Adams as the first such adventure game, first released in 1976, while other notable adventure game series include Zork, King's Quest, Monkey Island, Syberia, and Myst.
