• Log In | Sign Up

  • News
  • Reviews
  • Top Games
  • Search
  • New Releases
  • Daily Deals
  • Forums

Adventure Gamers - Forums

Welcome to Adventure Gamers. Please Sign In or Join Now to post.

You are here: HomeForum Home → Gaming → Adventure → Thread

Post Marker Legend:

  • New Topic New posts
  • Old Topic No new posts

Currently online

Support us, by purchasing through these affiliate links

   

AG Theme of the Week 15 - A Toast to the Departed (French Edition)

Avatar

Total Posts: 2582

Joined 2005-08-12

PM

A Toast to the Departed (French Edition)

The vast majority of adventure game companies are dead, either completely gone or sold and merged beyond recognition. This week, let’s honour some of them. And since there are so many, I decided to focus on some French companies, because why not.


.



Lankhor (1987–2001)

Lankhor was founded in 1987, and their first game was Mortville Manor (Le Manoir de Mortevielle), a detective game that blended a murder investigation and a devious treasure hunt in an old manor. It featured some very innovative gameplay elements, such as the clock advancing in (accelerated) real time, characters getting annoyed if you asked too many questions or were caught snooping, and hundreds of items to find in the manor (most of which had no relevance to the plot). Also, awful speech synthesis!


Mortville Manor was a very hard game that expected you to fail and restart countless times to crack the mystery. And yet, that was nothing compared to its sequel, Maupiti Island (1990), which had more characters, more locations, more items, more mysteries, and an even more devious treasure hunt! Some people loved the added difficulty, some enjoyed it for a few days and then just threw their hands up in the air.

After Maupiti Island came Black Sect (1993), which was a more traditional adventure, and a much easier one. By that point, however, people annoyed at Maupiti’s punishing difficulty had given up on the company, and those who enjoyed it were disappointed by the new game’s easiness. Black Sect flopped and Lankhor decided to can Maupiti Island’s sequel Sukiya and to stop making adventure games, focussing instead on their line of F1 car racing games. They closed down in 2001.

Farewell, Lankhor! You had some great ideas, even if not always perfectly executed. Wish you’d stuck with them a bit longer – you might have hit gold.


.



Infogrames (1983–2003)

In the early 90s, if you had asked which French video game company could eventually become one the world’s biggest publishers, no one would have bet a cent on then-insignificant Ubisoft. No, they would have told you about Infogrames. Already then, the company felt extremely ambitious, buying smaller developers left and right, and releasing games in almost every genre, from text adventures to tennis simulators to edutainment.

From that period came Infogrames’ most significant contributions to adventure gaming, with three quality Lovecraftian adventures: Alone in the Dark (1992), Shadow of the Comet (1993), and Prisoner of Ice (1995). Alone in the Dark is a solid adventure game, but also features some action elements (with possibly the worst controls of any game ever), and is one of the earliest examples of the survival horror genre. Infogrames also released Eternam (1992), but we don’t talk about Eternam.

The company went on with its strategy of endless mergers, acquisitions and diversification (my first ISP back in the 90s was owned by them, for some reason), until it bought Atari in 2003 and decided to use that brand instead of its own from then on, abandoning its name and the iconic armadillo logo that had served it for twenty years. It never managed to become the major player it wanted to be, ran into financial trouble in the 2000s, and is now all but dead.

Farewell, Infogrames! Your contributions to adventure gaming are but a footnote in your long and complex history, but they were good games and we’re glad they were made.

     
Avatar

Total Posts: 2582

Joined 2005-08-12

PM


Cryo (1992–2002)

Cryo’s first adventure game was Dune (1992), a mix of adventure and strategy loosely based on Frank Herbert’s novel (some aspects, such as the looks of the characters, are remarkably close to the book, but the plot is significantly changed). The game had a very bumpy development: it got so close to getting cancelled that publisher Virgin Games actually contracted Westwood Studios to make their own adaptation of the book. (Eventually, Cryo convinced them to keep funding the game, and Virgin ended up with two Dune games on their hands, the second of which became the grandfather of the RTS genre.)


In their early years, Cryo explored various styles and sub-genres: a spy thriller (KGB, 1992), an adventure-RPG (Dragon Lore, 1994), a weird dinosaur adventure (Lost Eden, 1995)… In the second half of the 90s, they found the style that became associated with them in people’s minds: first-person games using a node-based engine. Some of those games were good (the Atlantis series, begun in 1997), most were an endless stream of mediocre edutainment (Versailles, Egypt, China, etc.).


Cryo ran into financial trouble in the early 2000s, and was bought and shut down by Dreamcatcher in 2002. Rather than the shitty edutainment stuff, Cryo should be remembered for having the best soundtracks of any company, thanks to brilliant composers Stéphane Picq and Pierre Estève.

Farewell, Cryo! You were often unfairly maligned, but those who truly knew you will remember your better aspects. We’ll play your own music at the wake.


.



Kheops Studio (2003–2012)

As Cryo was shutting down, some former employees that had begun working on a third game in the Egypt series decided to form their own company and finish the game. Thus was Kheops Studio born, a tiny independent developer that mostly worked on just game design, writing and programming, while contracting graphics and audio to external companies.

The first game that was fully theirs was Return to Mysterious Island (2004), and it was a breath of fresh air for the whole adventure genre: plenty of inventory puzzles which managed never to feel contrived, non-linearity that felt freeing rather than overwhelming, and a simple but memorable story that didn’t require endless conversations or journals.

For the next few years, Kheops released a couple of games every year. I don’t know if any ever felt as revolutionary as RTMI, but they were all good, meticulously-designed, and all introduced some new gameplay twist that kept them fresh. (And then there was that puzzle about making gunpowder, which I think they managed to shove into almost every single game.)

I love all their games, and wish they were all available on Steam or GOG; if I had to pick favourites, they would probably be RTMI, the delightful Secrets of Da Vinci (2006), Nostradamus (2007), a.k.a. CSI: Renaissance, and the ambitious (and tough!) Dracula 3 (2008).

A tiny studio, Kheops was overly dependent on a small number of publishers, and when those got into financial trouble, so did Kheops. Starting in 2009, they tried to self-publish an episodic casual game, The Fall Trilogy, but that didn’t do much good and they shut down in 2012.

Farewell, Kheops Studio! It’s been 8 years since you released your last proper adventure, and it still hurts that you’re gone. It just hurts.


.


And that’s it for today! I considered writing about Delphine Software or Coktel Vision, but the post was already far too long.

Do you have a dead company you’d like to eulogise? Feel free to do so in the thread!

     
Avatar

Total Posts: 5813

Joined 2012-03-24

PM

I don’t know the Lankhor games to play as they’re a little before my gaming years but I do love the artwork of Mortville Manor, Maupiti Island & Black Sect & so those games have always intrigued me.

The only experience I have of Infogrames is Alone in the Dark: Jack Is Back which I have & played on PS a little before I discovered non-action adventure games….yes, it was okay at the time! 

The Cryo games were completely panned by reviewers in magazines at the time as I remember but I loved them & sought them out. They always told a great story & most of them, if not all? in a historical context which included ‘authentic’ facts to be accessed within game.
The Atlantis games I agree were good but I have to disagree a little on your thoughts on the Egypt & Versailles series + China, also there was Aztec, Jerusalem etc, as they also had very good stories & with interesting info included if you wanted to look!

What was there not to love about Kheops - I enjoyed them & the inventory system was brilliant as were the graphics for the time but for me not my favourite locale on the 1st couple of game. Secrets of Da Vinci I thought was excellent & would have welcomed more games like that! 

There are probably lots of developers I miss, I’m having a think, but I would love to have seen a lot more from City Interactive S.A. that didn’t go down the route of the casual market. I truly liked the Art of Murder Series & The Chronicles of Mystery games.

Also more from Pinkerton Studios would have been great! 

     
Avatar

Total Posts: 7432

Joined 2013-08-26

PM

Lexis Numérique: probably too innovative for its own good.

https://adventuregamers.com/forums/viewthread/4395
https://adventuregamers.com/forums/viewthread/4399

     

See you around, wolf. Nerissa

Avatar

Total Posts: 8720

Joined 2012-01-02

PM

just to get it correctly; is that a tribute only* to the french**** deceased devs?

     
Avatar

Total Posts: 2582

Joined 2005-08-12

PM

Advie - 28 August 2017 12:16 PM

just to get it correctly; is that a tribute only* to the french**** deceased devs?

My post chose to focus on a few French companies, but everyone else is free to discuss whatever they want.

     
Avatar

Total Posts: 8998

Joined 2004-01-05

PM

The first french developers I though of are Delphine and Adeline. Never played the Delphine classic adventures but Another World and Flashback are hugely influential and some of my favorite games. Before Braid or Inside there was Another World showing what a story-driven platformer can be.
Adeline has the Little Big Adventure games, also games of a unique flavour.

Infogrames truly had it all and managed to make a series of terrible decisions to reach bankrupcy fast. I think one of the problems is that they never had a big break, a commercial hit after becoming Atari and with all the investments.
Even with all their adventures the game I most associate with the Infogrames tatou is countless hours of playing North & South in the Amiga.

Cryo is Dune and KGB (Conspiracy) for me, loved those games but could never get into their more recent games.

     
Avatar

Total Posts: 2704

Joined 2004-08-02

PM

Loved Adeline (LBA 1 & 2), and Kheops (Return to Mysterious Island). I have tried to play some of the Kheops games that I missed back in the 2000’s like The Secrets of Da Vinci or Treasure Island, but these games are unfortunately broken with modern day OS’es. I wish some publisher would retrofit them for Win 7/10 and sell them on Steam or GOG. I would gladly buy them again.

     
Avatar

Total Posts: 8720

Joined 2012-01-02

PM

the biggest loss for me was the French game developer Coktel Vision which was founded in 1985 and located in Paris.

following the “Chainsaw Monday” which was named by S.Murphy who sadly was fired from sierra 2 months prior to the Sierra ‘invasion’ without any kinda of appreciation to his glory days and achievements, just a letter that is no different from the letters sent to the other members with only four lines that have nothing specific to whom the letter was sent to just one of the copies which printed and shoved into some envelops ....(shame shame) ............ adding to all this the fact he had no formal education beyond high school, so following he took up odd jobs after being kicked out of sierra to make living and eventually moved to Alabama to live-with/support his mother.

we have an Arabic saying that goes as ” be merciful to whom he was once a scarce/rare member of high league community but his whole world came crashing down around him and left servile ” Frown

anyways back to coktel vision they made a punch of great adventures until that day i mentioned above ‘Chainsaw Monday’ they then were acquired by Havas Interactive ,and Coktel repositioned itself to develop only educational titles… and in 2005 they were acquired by Mindscape SA . 
so anyways no Sierra at there back, never they gave adventure games:

but lets Toast to their adventures, which some of them were too damn good (Gems) that it make it hard to think of the scene without it being a part o fit Neutral

Gobliiins
Inca
Woodruff
Space QuestV
Urban Runner
Lost in Time
Emmanuelle
Bargon Attack…. (did i forget something?) cuz i think they had developed a bigger number than those, talking adventure games

     
Avatar

Total Posts: 681

Joined 2015-02-06

PM

I for one certainly miss Cryo and Kheops. I’m along the same lines with chrissie about Cryo. I really liked the Atlantis games but also really enjoyed their edutainment games. As for Kheops, some of the best graphic adventure inventory based puzzle games I’ve ever played! A shame they are both gone Frown Speaking of edutainment, another great company that is no more.

A German company that created some amazing first person pre-rendered slideshow style edutainment games such as: Physicus, Bioscopia, and Chemicus. They also created sequels to Physicus and Chemicus. As well as creating Mathica, Informaticus, and Geograficus but unfortunately those were never localized for the English speaking market.


     

This message will self destruct in 3… 2… 1… BOOM!!!

Avatar

Total Posts: 285

Joined 2017-01-12

PM

I am surprised no one mentions Microids after disastrous Syberia III, if any French company is “dead” it is Microids, actually worse than dead because they are destroying their legacy.

Advie - 28 August 2017 11:29 PM

the best loss for me was the French game developer Coktel Vision which was founded in 1985 and located in Paris.

following the “Chainsaw Monday” which was named by S.Murphy who sadly was fired from sierra 2 months prior to the Sierra ‘invasion’ without any kinda of appreciation to his glory days and achievements, just a letter that is no different from the letters sent to the other members with only four lines that have nothing specific to whom the letter was sent to just one of the copies which printed and shoved into some envelops ....(shame shame) ............ adding to all this the fact he had no formal education beyond high school, so following he took up odd jobs after being kicked out of sierra to make living and eventually moved to Alabama to live-with/support his mother.

we have an Arabic saying that goes as ” be merciful to whom he was once a scarce/rare member of high league community but his whole world came crashing down around him and left servile ” Frown

Ken williams wrote a letter to the employees apologising, bottom line is it was no one’s fault that he was fired, a lot of people lost their jobs and it was nothing against Murphy personally or a lack of appreciation for his work.

http://www.sierrahelp.com/Misc/History/KenWilliamsLetter.html

     
Avatar

Total Posts: 8720

Joined 2012-01-02

PM

are you serious HeadyCakes, they employees actually didnt have get any of their royalties , 149 employees were laid off in one single day, ” suits were taking over and filing in with no prior experience in the gaming industry at all, no particular love of games, no respect for the history of the company. They were ambitious and I suspect their thought was, “We’re going to show these hicks how to run a really profitable company.” ” J.Mandel quoted here ,

maybe i expressed wrongly, but my heart goes far more beyond Scott Murphy, but for all the people who had created the PC gaming industry being treated like old cows that stopped giving milk and it was time to slaughter them.

     
Avatar

Total Posts: 6584

Joined 2007-07-22

PM

I’ll stick to French companies, more precisely Cryo - why do I miss them?! To put it simply, I love that company (not a fan, haven’t played half of their games, but I admire them) because they always tried to impress players. Like a crazy French car design that is trying to impress, these games often had 1. Epic stories; 2. Beautiful aesthetics, and didn’t skimp a single penny in order to have a walking animation, for example; 3. Put a great attention to music, and atmosphere in general

I’d like if more companies would follow Cryo’s philosophy - gameplay IS what counts (not that Cryo’s games didn’t have any), but sometimes a player simply wants to be taken to a far away world, which will occupy all of his senses, to be blown away by good graphics, animation and music. Game designers should really try to impress, as much as giving you a good interaction.

     

Recently finished: Four Last Things 4/5, Edna & Harvey: The Breakout 5/5, Chains of Satinav 3,95/5, A Vampyre Story 88, Sam Peters 3/5, Broken Sword 1 4,5/5, Broken Sword 2 4,3/5, Broken Sword 3 85, Broken Sword 5 81, Gray Matter 4/5\nCurrently playing: Broken Sword 4, Keepsake (Let\‘s Play), Callahan\‘s Crosstime Saloon (post-Community Playthrough)\nLooking forward to: A Playwright’s Tale

Avatar

Total Posts: 5035

Joined 2004-07-12

PM

SoccerDude28 - 28 August 2017 09:53 PM

Loved Adeline (LBA 1 & 2), and Kheops (Return to Mysterious Island). I have tried to play some of the Kheops games that I missed back in the 2000’s like The Secrets of Da Vinci or Treasure Island, but these games are unfortunately broken with modern day OS’es. I wish some publisher would retrofit them for Win 7/10 and sell them on Steam or GOG. I would gladly buy them again.

Secrets of Da Vinci is available on BFG. It plays quite well on my system, Win7/64 bit. Although I must say that when I replayed it last year I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as I did when I first gave it a try.

     

For whom the games toll,
they toll for thee.

Avatar

Total Posts: 2704

Joined 2004-08-02

PM

rtrooney - 29 August 2017 11:56 AM
SoccerDude28 - 28 August 2017 09:53 PM

Loved Adeline (LBA 1 & 2), and Kheops (Return to Mysterious Island). I have tried to play some of the Kheops games that I missed back in the 2000’s like The Secrets of Da Vinci or Treasure Island, but these games are unfortunately broken with modern day OS’es. I wish some publisher would retrofit them for Win 7/10 and sell them on Steam or GOG. I would gladly buy them again.

Secrets of Da Vinci is available on BFG. It plays quite well on my system, Win7/64 bit. Although I must say that when I replayed it last year I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as I did when I first gave it a try.

I bought it on Fire Flower Games. I tried it on both Win 7 and Win 10, and the screen flickers constantly making it unplayable. I looked around on the internet and found this:

http://www.gameboomers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/738391/Re: Screen flicker problem.html

This thread was back from 2011, so I doubt things have changed much seeing that Kheops has been out of business for some time now. It seems to affect nVidia Graphics cards (which is my card type). 

 

     
Avatar

Total Posts: 282

Joined 2017-04-14

PM

Great thread, brings back some memories Grin I have fond ones of Maupiti Island, even though they’re more nostalgic than anything since I was never able to finish the game without a walkthrough - I’ve played it several years after its release (I was only 5 when it first came out) and even though I can be persistent if I’m really into a challenging game, trying out random combination of events bores me out too fast to complete this specific one. Hats off to anyone who went through all of it. I’ve played Mortville Manor (some of it, at least), but never Black Sect. Between this flop and their F1 bounce-back, they focused for a while on developing 3D-glasses for computers (they had already released a very early version with their first game in 1986, along with a warning not to wear them for more than a few minutes at a time Grin) - this project never came into production, but it is another sign that Lankhor were trying hard to be inovative for their time.

I’d also like to give a big hand to Delphine Software, as Cruise for a Corpse is one of the few games of the French ‘golden’ era that I can stand to play today. It’s not perfect by any standards, it can even be frustrating (though nothing compared to its contemporary competitors - at least, time advances only when you’ve done sone specific action, so you may be left off wandering for hours on this ship but you won’t have to start over from the beggining just in case you’ve missed someone hiding at some stranded location), but for some reason I’ve developed a liking to it, to the point of playing it every few years.

Despite the number of famous games by Coktel Vision, I’ll alway remember them first for their series of educative games, Adi, which features a pointy-eared alien teaching kids everything they needed to know about math, grammar and any other school topic. It was a pretty successful franchise here in France. It even introduced me to one of my first adventure games, Goblins 3, which was embedded as a reward for completing enough chapters - so kudos to you, Coktel!

     

You are here: HomeForum Home → Gaming → Adventure → Thread

Welcome to the Adventure Gamers forums!

Back to the top