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Games section
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Inutilis Software has dared to put a serious adventure into a loony story. Good adventure or a tired medieval joke?
Monkey Island made point and click adventures bestsellers on the Amiga and it has had many honourable successors. The newer ones of this type are Nightlong (Clickboom) and Simon the Sorcerer II (Epic Interactive). And now there is another one: Ermentrud. You have to ask if this game can hold its own against the competition: the programmer team is only one person (and will be busy with A-level exams soon).
Ermentrud only runs on CGFX screens at 640*480 and 8bit on Amigas with Workbench 3.x. Thatīs valiant. Support of graphic boards is very commendable, but graphic board and CGFX as minimum? I suppose it does show a desire to make a good game. There will be about 40 locations, all backgrounds painted by hand and colored on the Amiga. And sound as well (spoken words and background music with AHI).
Sounds like a good project, doesnīt it? So, whatīs it all about?
A head of cabbage (literally!) has kidnapped the usual princess while her guards are drinking in the "Bei Helga" tavern. The King sends for Ermentrud (the Hero) and tells him to bring the princess back because she is supposed to be married to Prince Rübensupp (turnip soup).
Ermentrud gallops off and on his journey visits the medieval capital of King Pilsener, the semi-oriental island of Thymian (thyme), a neighbouring land where resin runs out of the trees, and the underground world of the family of the Kohlkopfs (cabbage heads).
The plot is designed (with the exception of the first and the last chapters) to be played in any order. The plot is about soup, pot-herbs and a very ... impressive ... princess. You wonīt believe where you can find herbs and other interesting things.
The story is under construction and details of the showdown cannot be told here. Just remember this: cabbage is not the only active vegetable in this game.
It has the look of a funny game, especially considering that there will be a film of the same name too. Don't discount the possibility of an intro like Codename: Hellsquad in the future.
The first demoversion is just one screen with no inventory. You canīt do anything, but there is sound and it is worth a look.
I have CyberGraphX and so I just copied it over and played it (by clicking the funny icon.)
It looks quite good! The screenshots don't do justice to the game, and it is funny. The Hero stands there with a horse like in the Monty Python film "Knights of the Coconut", in front of him the obligatory toad.
When you move the mouse around the screen, the active objects appear as text on the screen: the toad, the lake and the door.
Looks quite professional and has humorous touches. The hero, when he tries to open the door, says: "The door has no door-handle, damn demoversion". So how do you open the door? Thatīs easy, use objects with the left mouse button (open, take etc. - the annoying combining of verbs falls out) and with the right button you can look at them (strong door made of imitation oak, as good as www.inutilis.de). I donīt know how to handle the inventory, the second demoversion doesnīt help there, either.
The second demoversion is not as good, there are just two new screens. There is still no inventory and the additional pictures are not as good as the first one. In the house, there is a speaking shoe(!) that prattles all the time but you cannot choose answers nor shut it up. And if you talk to it a second time it goes into the same rant as the first time. On the second screen is the Titanic(!!) and the plot goes surreal. A second speaking shoe appears, which just curses and obviously doesnīt like the first shoe.
There are a lot of ads for Inutilis (Latin for useless) products. This is normal even usual in LucasArt but the number of them in this game is annoying. This is not to say that the game is not good: on the contrary, this is just a phase in the development of the engine and one can see the potential of the game. Let us hope that the quality of the game overcomes the silly story.
The developer and storywriter is working hard on the game but it could take several months.
There will definitely be no AGA version - at this high resolution itīll be too slow - but it will run under P96. We await a third demoversion, maybe with some inventory or sound? By the way, a complete CD soundtrack is planned, too.
So, have a look at the demoversions for yourself and get ready for the full version.
Test computer:
Amiga1200
ZorroIV Board
PPC603e/060
BVisionPPC
128MB Fast Ram
40GB HD
20*IDE CDRom
17"inch Monitor
Internet presence:
http://www.inutilis.de/ermentrudgame/index.html
