| Forever Worlds | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer(s) | Hexagon Entertainment |
| Publisher(s) | The Adventure Company |
| Engine | Virtools |
| Platform(s) | Microsoft Windows |
| Release | April 5, 2004 |
| Genre(s) | Adventure |
Forever Worlds, or Forever Worlds: Enter the Unknown, is an "adventure satire" [1] video game developed by Canadian studio Hexagon Entertainment and released in 2004.
The game engine, similar to that used in Post Mortem and Syberia, sees the player able to navigate through fixed locations, where one can then manipulate a full 360 degrees, and click to move to the next location. The gameplay is reminiscent of the DreamCatcher game Beyond Time. In order to solve the puzzles, "the player needs to think and experiment a little". [1] Hexagon estimates that the game takes 25 to 30 hours to complete. [1] The cursor indicates puzzles, paths, informational popups, and potential inventory items. [2]
The scientist protagonist Jack Lanser commences a quest, and not soon after his body is body-snatched, and the possessor runs off with the player's girlfriend. It is up the player, now inhabiting a different body, to right the wrongs.
The game was created by Courtland Shakespeare [3] and Peter Faluisi.
Hexagon Production Manager and head of Production Peter Faluisi explained the philosophy behind the game: "Players are so experienced today and know all the clichés and are a bit jaded, so it gets harder to surprise and entertain them. That’s what we wanted to do. We wanted to make everyone smile...with [the] creativ[ity] and original[ity of] old sci-fi stories and cult movies...and have some fun again while playing a game". [1] The audio and music was done by Steve Sauve, who also worked Hexagon's previous game Jewels of the Oracle (1995). [1]
The development team used graphics packages like LightWave, Maya, 3DS Max, and Virtools Dev to make the game. According to Faluisi, "This allows us to do high-polygon count (hi-res) images for the 360 navigation nodes and the animations and also makes it easier to put together chunks of object oriented code with Dev’s Building Blocks technology." [1]
| Publication | Score |
|---|---|
| Adventure Gamers | 1/5 [4] |
| GameZone | 4.8/10 [5] |
| Jeuxvideo.com | 6/20 [6] |
| Just Adventure | C− [7] |
The game has a Metacritic score of 31% based on 10 critic reviews. [8]
Tap Repeatedly said "Though the game world visuals are sumptuous and the animation in the cutscenes first-rate, the dialogue doesn't play and the puzzles have none of the physical intelligence of the developer's earlier work." [2] AdventureClassicGaming concluded "While the game possesses some excellent cinematic cut scenes and animations, it is also spoiled by far too many failings that range from a cumbersome user interface to poor storytelling to confusing puzzle mechanics." [3]
Uru: Ages Beyond Myst is an adventure video game developed by Cyan Worlds and published by Ubisoft. Released in 2003, the title is the fourth game in the Myst canon. Departing from previous games of the franchise, Uru takes place in the modern era and allows players to customize their onscreen avatars. Players use their avatars to explore the abandoned city of an ancient race known as the D'ni, uncover story clues and solve puzzles.
Myst III: Exile is the third title in the Myst series of graphic adventure puzzle video games. While the preceding games in the series, Myst and Riven, were produced by Cyan Worlds and published by Brøderbund, Exile was developed by Presto Studios and published by Ubi Soft. The game was released on four compact discs for both Mac OS and Microsoft Windows on May 8, 2001; versions for the Xbox and PlayStation 2 were released in late 2002. A single-disc DVD version was later released for Windows and Mac OS.
Myst IV: Revelation is an adventure video game, the fourth installment in the Myst series, developed and published by Ubisoft. Like Myst III: Exile, Revelation combines pre-rendered graphics with digital video, but also features real-time 3D effects for added realism. The plot of Revelation follows up on plot details from the original Myst. The player is summoned by Atrus, a man who creates links to other worlds known as Ages by writing special linking books. Almost twenty years earlier, Atrus' two sons nearly destroyed all of his books and were imprisoned; Atrus now wishes to see if his sons' imprisonment has reformed them. The player travels to each brother's prison, in an attempt to recover Atrus' daughter Yeesha from the brothers' plot.
Fable is an action role-playing video game, the first in the Fable series. It was developed for the Xbox, Microsoft Windows, and Mac OS X platforms by Big Blue Box Studios, a satellite developer of Lionhead Studios, and was published by Microsoft Studios. The game shipped for the Xbox in September 2004. An extended version of the game, Fable: The Lost Chapters, was released for the Xbox and Windows in September 2005. A port of the game for Mac OS X, created by Robosoft Technologies and published by Feral Interactive, was released in March 2008 after a delay of more than two years due to licensing issues.
Banjo-Kazooie is a series of video games developed by Rare. The games feature a male bear named Banjo and his friend, a large female red bird named Kazooie, who are both controlled by the player. Banjo originally made his debut as a playable character in 1997 as part of the cast of Diddy Kong Racing. Throughout the various games, they are tasked with thwarting the various evil schemes of a witch named Gruntilda. The first game, Banjo-Kazooie, was released in 1998 to critical acclaim and was followed by three sequels and a spin-off racing game.
Myst Online: Uru Live is an open source massively multiplayer online adventure game developed by Cyan Worlds. The game is the multiplayer component to the 2003 video game Uru: Ages Beyond Myst. Like Uru, Myst Online takes place in 2000s New Mexico, where an ancient civilization known as the D'ni once thrived. The D'ni had the ability to create portals to other worlds or Ages by writing descriptive books of the Age. Players uncover clues and solve puzzles together; plot developments were added via episodic content updates.
Sherlock Holmes is a series of adventure games developed by Frogwares. The games are based on Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, featuring the detective Sherlock Holmes and his companion Dr. John H. Watson. While the franchise is based on Doyle's stories, each game has an original plot and storyline.
Lego Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues is a 2009 action-adventure video game developed by Traveller's Tales and published by LucasArts. Based on the Indiana Jones franchise, it is the sequel to the 2008 video game Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures. It was released for the Wii, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Microsoft Windows; Feral Interactive published a version for Mac OS X in 2011. TT Fusion developed a handheld version for the Nintendo DS and PlayStation Portable that, although released under the same name, is different in gameplay and amount of content.
Dream Chronicles is a 2007 adventure, hidden object, and puzzle casual game developed by KatGames and published by PlayFirst. It is the first installment in the series.
Limbo is a puzzle-platform video game developed by independent studio Playdead and originally published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox 360. The game was released in July 2010 on Xbox Live Arcade, and has since been ported by Playdead to several other systems, including the PlayStation 3, Linux and Microsoft Windows. Limbo is a 2D side-scroller, incorporating a physics system that governs environmental objects and the player character. The player guides an unnamed boy through dangerous environments and traps as he searches for his sister. The developer built the game's puzzles expecting the player to fail before finding the correct solution. Playdead called the style of play "trial and death", and used gruesome imagery for the boy's deaths to steer the player from unworkable solutions.
Darkstar: The Interactive Movie is an interactive movie video game written, produced, edited, animated, and directed by J. Allen Williams, owner of the American animation studio Parallax Studio. It starred the actor Clive Robertson and the original cast of the comedy series Mystery Science Theater 3000. The game also featured animations by the comic book artist Richard Corben and was the final work of the actor Peter Graves, who narrated the game. Darkstar was released online on November 5, 2010 through the company website and as a downloadable through Strategy First. It was re-released in stores December 9, 2011 in the United Kingdom and Ireland through Lace Mamba Global.
Shrek Forever After is an action-adventure video game based on the film of the same name. It was released on May 18, 2010, in North America. It is the fourth video game based on the movie series of Shrek. Shrek Forever After was the Final game released under Activision’s 2002 licensing agreement with DreamWorks Animation. It is the only Shrek video game available for the PlayStation 3. The Shrek games were removed from digital storefronts on January 1, 2014.
The Prophecy is a point-and-click adventure game in a fantasy setting, developed by Coktel Vision and MDO, released in Europe in 1992 for MS-DOS, Amiga, and Atari ST. It was published by Sierra On-Line in North America in 1993. A German retail version was released.
Adventure at the Chateau d'Or is a 2001 adventure game, developed and published by Karma Labs.
The Franz Kafka Videogame is an indie adventure game inspired by the writings of Franz Kafka. It was developed by Denis Galanin.
Old Man's Journey is an adventure video game developed and published by Broken Rules. The game was released for Android, iOS, macOS and Windows in 2017, the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 in 2018 and the Xbox One in 2019.
Lumines is a puzzle video game series developed by Q Entertainment. The core objective of the games is to survive by rotating and aligning 2×2 blocks varying between two colors to form 2×2 squares of a single color which will be erased when the Time Line passes over them. The game is lost when the blocks reach the top of the playing field.
The Secrets of Da Vinci: The Forbidden Manuscript is an adventure game developed by Kheops Studio and published by Tri Synergy on June 7, 2006 on the PC. In 2009 it was released on the Mac OS X.
We Were Here is a franchise of cooperative first-person adventure video games, created by the Dutch studio Total Mayhem Games.
Red Matter is a 2018 sci-fi virtual reality game developed and published by Spanish studio Vertical Robot. The player plays as Agent Epsilon, who crash lands on one of Saturn's moons, Rhea, and goes to explore a nearby military base belonging to the fictional People's Republic of Volgravia. The game received positive reviews from critics, who praised the atmosphere of the environments, but criticized some of the puzzles as being confusing. Red Matter released on May 24, 2018 for Oculus Rift, with versions for the HTC Vive, Oculus Quest, and PlayStation VR launching in November 2018, December 2018, and August 2019, respectively. A sequel, Red Matter 2, was released for Steam VR and Meta Quest 2 on 18 August 2022 and for Playstation VR2 on 18 May 2023.