[SEAN]

This is my 1st posting, so first of all a big hello to everyone.

For several years now I have been a big fan of interactive DVDs.

Recently I have noticed Return to Mysterious Island and the Secrets of Da Vinci available as interactive DVDs on Amazon and Play.

Has anyone played these? Are the any good? Are there any similar DVDs on the way?

Look forward to your responses

[Rjupiter]

what do you mean? all games by their nature are interactive otherwise what would be the point of calling them games?

Do you mean games that are on dvd and not cd? (that is kind of normal now)

I have played both and RtM is not too terrible but SoD was in my opinion, boring.

[SEAN]

These are games you play on a standard DVD player.

You do not need a PC or games console to play them.

I already own both games on CD Rom, but was wondering whether the interactive DVDs offer any new material.

[Ascovel]

What he means are PC game conversions that are to be played in a standart standalone DVD player connected to the TV screen. I'm currently writing an article referencing this new format, I haven't tried it myself though.

I suspect the games are much simplified and interactive movie like due to the format limitations. It's a way to reach a new kind of audience, but it's not a good choice for avid PC/consoles gamers.

[Rjupiter]

oh, like those crappy useless games they give you a "bonuses" on movie etc..

Yeah, I don't get the point of those as you can't really "play" anything with a remote and a limited dvd. don't see how thats much fun.

i'll stick with my 360/ps3 for that.

[kadji-kun]

Basically just an interactive movie nonetheless. Would love to see what these games are all about though. Never tried it.

[LuigiHann]

While DVD games aren't very impressive, I am really curious how a real adventure game would translate into that format.

[fov]

Welcome to the forum, Sean.

Both of these games are supposed to be good ones (I haven't played them, but I played and loved Voyage, which is by the same team and has a similar format). You'll find AG's review for Return to Mysterious Island here, and for Secrets of Da Vinci here. Both got 4 stars, which is a good score.

The only thing I would potentially be wary of is how well the interface handles in the interactive DVD version. The inventory and certain puzzles in both of these games use special interfaces that I could see being annoying if they're hard to manipulate using the DVD remote.

If you end up playing them, I'd be interested to hear your impressions.

[Erwin_Br]

The only interactive DVD I have is "Tender Loving Care". You could classify it as an adventure, I guess, but it's more an interactive movie with different endings based on your actions.

--Erwin

[kadji-kun]

Dont forget Dragon's Lair.

[marshal99]

There's also the old classic Dracula Unleashed & Sherlock Holmes : Consulting detective on DVD and , as mentioned , there's "tender loving care" and "Point of view" , interactive game or movie , you decide.

[kadji-kun]

Originally Posted by marshal99

There's also the old classic Dracula Unleashed & Sherlock Holmes : Consulting detective on DVD and , as mentioned , there's "tender loving care" and "Point of view" , interactive game or movie , you decide.

Well there is a big difference between DVD-Ram and DVD-rom. Rom is basically what we see for movies. RAM is basically something that contains data and mainly played on PC/Macs/Console games.

Those games are DVD-ram and dont follow the theme of this thread.

[Josho]

Having worked on a few "games" designed to be played on standard DVD players, I can assure you that you won't see anything nearly as sophisticated as a full-fledged adventure on them any time in the forseeable future.

One of the big problems with games on DVD players is that DVD players have an extremely limited amount of RAM, and even that amount varies from player to player (so programmers have to program for the "lowest common denominator" DVD players, otherwise you risk releasing a game with big compatibility problems).

With almost no memory, for instance, getting the game to remember that you have 12 items and have spoken to 10 characters, each one on a different variety of topics, is either impossible or nearly so.

RAM allows flags to be set. A flag is set in memory every time you do something that the game has to remember that you did. (For instance, pick up an item: set a flag. Talk to a character about subject X: set a flag. Talk about subject Y: set a different flag. Etc.) DVD players have extremely few flags to set because they don't NEED a lot of flags. It only takes one flag to remember, for instance, that you want to watch the film with "commentary on." As you can figure, there's simply no need for a DVD player to have the capability to remember a lot of flags.

All (or most, depending on the player) of what can be written to that limited amount of RAM vanishes as soon as the player is turned off, too, again, because DVD players don't NEED to remember. So even assuming you've got a DVD player with the capability to set a lot of flags, saving a game in progress is still a problem (probably solvable with one of those long cryptic alphanumeric codes, that you used to have to use with the original Gameboy).

--Josh

[Ascovel]

Very interesting and detailed information about the DVD players' limitations. Are you allowed to give us some of the titles on which you worked on, Josh? Or at least, could you reveal if those were conversions of older adventure games or original projects?

[Josho]

Hi, Ascovel,

In these cases, I wasn't working on adventure games -- I was working on Trivial Pursuit DVDs for Hasbro. A couple of them were themed: the Saturday Night Live Edition, and the Trivial Pursuit for Kids DVD Edition.

I don't believe the programmers were even able to find a way to have the "lowest common denominator" DVD players keep track of each player's score...that in itself was going to require more RAM than many of the machines had.

--Josh

[Nautilus]

There are many good DVD adventures in France and Japan.

Nobilis DVD Adventures (Syberia, etc)
http://www.i-dvd.fr/fr/

Visual Novel database
http://vndb.org/

[Ascovel]

Thanks Josh, I forgot there are also those kind of games for the DVD players and assumed you must have been talking about adventure titles.

I remembered that I actually have the DVD version of Dragon's Lair. Playing that specific game may result in the desire to smash the DVD remote.

[kadji-kun]

Originally Posted by Ascovel

Thanks Josh, I forgot there are also those kind of games for the DVD players and assumed you must have been talking about adventure titles.

I remembered that I actually have the DVD version of Dragon's Lair. Playing that specific game may result in the desire to smash the DVD remote.

Really? Go play the NES version of Dragon's Lair. You may see that your ways of old is childish gestures to a more sinister game. haha

[Ascovel]

Woah, you mean the NES version is even more difficult? I don't think I'd have the patiance to play too far into it.

[kadji-kun]

Originally Posted by Ascovel

Woah, you mean the NES version is even more difficult? I don't think I'd have the patiance to play too far into it.

Its so hard you probably cant get past the first level/screen.