Sanctuary Woods

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Sanctuary Woods Multimedia, Inc. was a Canadian-American multimedia developer and third-party game publisher. It was one of the early multimedia companies developing products for CD-ROM distribution. The founders, Brian Beninger and Toni Beninger, were both experienced technologists who saw the potential for developing family-oriented and educational multimedia projects when Apple Inc. released Hypercard.

Contents

It published two games developed together with actress Shelley DuvallIt's a Bird's Life and It's a Dog's Life. It also published some well-known titles developed by Presto Studios.

In 1994 Sanctuary Woods purchased from MicroProse the MicroProse Adventure Development System game engine used to develop Rex Nebular and Return of the Phantom . [1] Following disappointing sales through 1995, the company underwent mass layoffs and a corporate restructuring. [2] Sanctuary Woods went out of business in 2001. [3]

Games published

3DO

Macintosh

PC

Games developed

Victor Vector & Yondo

Victor Vector & Yondo is a series of games published by Sanctuary Woods starring a superhero-like main character called Victor Vector, with a side-kick St. Bernard dog called Yondo. The games were published in the 1990s and had an educational spin to them. They were among the first CD-ROM games to be targeted at children.

PC

Reception

Computer Gaming World in 1993 described Victor Vector & Yondo as "Heavy on the flash and light on the substance, this product is more of a talking comic book than a graphic adventure" and criticized the quality of the digitized speech. [5]

Entertainment Weekly rated Shelley Duvall's It's a Bird's Life a C− stating "While there are plenty of activities-an on-screen storybook, sing-alongs, connect-the-dots puzzles-the animation is primitive, the button-pushing can get awkward, and there are enough disc-access delays (blank screens to you and me) to shatter the attention span of even the most devoted bird fancier" [6] The game failed commercially. [7]

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References

  1. "MicroProse Adventure Development System Purchased". Read.Me. Computer Gaming World. April 1994. p. 12.
  2. "News Bits". GamePro . No. 92. IDG. May 1996. p. 21.
  3. "Company Overview of Sanctuary Woods Multimedia Corporation". Bloomberg. September 2015. p. 1. Retrieved 24 September 2015.
  4. 1 2 Colker, David (17 June 1994). "THE GOODS : Everything a Girl Wants in a Game--and Less". Los Angeles Times . Archived from the original on 21 May 2019.
  5. "Forging Ahead or Fit to be Smashed?". Computer Gaming World. April 1993. p. 24. Retrieved 6 July 2014.
  6. EW Staff (January 14, 1994). "Shelley Duvall's It's a Bird's Life". Entertainment Weekly . Retrieved December 27, 2021.
  7. Carlton, Jim (June 25, 1995). "Competition stiff in video game arena". The News Tribune . p. 39. Retrieved December 27, 2021 via Newspapers.com.