Titanic: Adventure Out of Time

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Titanic: Adventure Out of Time
File:TitanicVideoGame.jpg
Cover art
Developer(s) Cyberflix
Publisher(s)
    Producer(s) Andrew Nelson
    Designer(s) Bob Clouse
    Programmer(s) Bill Appleton
    Todd Appleton
    Writer(s) Andrew Nelson
    Engine DreamFactory
    Platforms Windows
    Macintosh
    Release date(s)
      • UK: 1996
      Genre(s) Historical adventure game
      Mode(s) Single-player

      Titanic: Adventure Out of Time is a 1996 historical adventure computer game developed by Cyberflix. It was published in the United States and Europe by GTE Entertainment and Europress respectively, and released on November 12, 1996. The game is a point-and-click adventure game which sees the player traveling around a virtual representation of the RMS Titanic. The game was created with the same engine used to develop Dust: A Tale of the Wired West and was originally released in English, French, and German with later versions in Dutch, Russian, Polish and Korean. Due to mention in the game of Adolf Hitler, the German version of the game omitted certain references to Nazism in conformant with Germany's censorship laws.

      Titanic: Adventure Out of Time was released in three versions: a PC, Macintosh, or hybrid version that works on both the Windows and Mac. Version 1.0 of the game is an upgrade of the game from GTE Entertainment to just CyberFlix and is a stability upgrade first released in 1997. It comes in either a threefold CD jacket or a jewel case version. The French and German version of the game comes in two paper sleeves. The Mac and Windows versions were released first, produced by Cyberflix and distributed by GTE Entertainment in 1996. Hybrid versions of the game, which are compatible with both the Mac and Windows operating systems, were distributed and produced by Cyberflix after GTE Entertainment went out of business in 1997. Later versions were distributed by Hammerhead Entertainment, who took over production after Cyberflix also went out of business in 1998.

      Characters in Titanic: Adventure Out of Time were rendered by way of photographs of actors given limited animation in sync with dialogue, often from different voice actors.

      Gameplay

      File:Titanic AOOT screenshot.png
      Screenshot showing the game's HUD and the Grand Staircase of the Titanic

      Titanic: Adventure Out of Time is a adventure game played from a first-person perspective and has a point-and-click interface. The game's control scheme is composed of a keyboard, whose arrow keys control the player's movements, and a mouse, with which the player can interact with objects, characters, select dialogue and options from the HUD interface;[1] these are a lifesaver (which brings the player to the options menu), an inventory bag and a pocket watch that indicates the game's progression.

      Progression

      The game employs several "triggers" which advance the storyline and allow the player to move closer to the point where the Titanic impacts an iceberg and begins to sink. Prior to striking the iceberg the game is not in real time and only progresses to a later stage once the player meets certain criteria. A trigger is activated by speaking to a certain game character which then places other characters in certain locations or opens up certain rooms to explore. Some rooms are only accessible after completing a puzzle. Many secondary characters will offer advice or tell the player certain information, leading to several game sub-plots.

      If a player speaks to certain characters before certain actions are performed, the game will advance with a needed task left unfulfilled. For example, if the player speaks to certain characters before searching the ship for a valuable painting, the painting will be removed from its crate in the cargo hold before the player arrives. Failing to meet certain tasks before the game advances will also make the game difficult to win. For example, if an antagonist character obtains two or more of the critical items to win the game, the player will only be able to obtain one of the items thus leaving one of the other items unobtainable to win.

      Once the Titanic strikes the iceberg, the game progresses in real time (approximately 15 minutes real time - an hour and a half into the game). The player must race against the clock to speak with certain characters and obtain needed items before the ship sinks. As time progresses characters will begin disappearing as they board lifeboats and escape the sinking ship. An in-game pocket watch alerts to the player to time elapsed as do cut-scenes of the Titanic sinking. Certain areas of the ship will become inaccessible as water fills the spaces and the game playing field is placed on a noticeable slant as the bow of the Titanic is sinking underwater.

      Plot

      The game begins in April 1942 with the main character (whose name is Frank Carlson) being caught in an air raid during the London Blitz of World War II and being sent back in time to 1912 with an opportunity to change history. In 1912, he was a British secret agent on the RMS Titanic, who must retrieve a priceless copy of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám and now has a second chance to complete his mission. The open-ended gameplay provides the player the option of either following the storyline by solving puzzles or simply exploring the major areas of the ship.

      The player's first mission is to locate and retrieve the The Rubáiyát, which is revealed to have been stolen earlier in the year and is now suspected of being in the possession of Zeitel, a German Oberst (Colonel) who is traveling on the Titanic in the manner of inspecting embassies in the United States and Central America. Traveling with the Colonel is his young protegé, Willi Von Haderlitz. It is revealed that the Colonel has made a deal with an art dealer from London named Sasha Barbicon to exchange The Rubáiyát for an apparently unimportant painting, in which there are hidden war plans stolen from the British government. They each act through an intermediary go-between, a Serbian stowaway named Vlad Demonic. In addition to The Rubáiyát and the painting, the player learns that Willi is a spy for the Russians and has a notebook with names of top Bolshevik leaders. The notebook must be handed over to the Ochrana so that Communist rebels will be executed, preventing a threat to the Czar. Barbicon is also in possession of a stolen diamond necklace that will finance a Serbian military group known as the Black Hand.

      During his mission, the agent also becomes involved in certain subplots which do not pertain to the central mission or, in that case, the winning conditions of the game. One important subplot involves meeting the ship’s 'gossip hound', in the form of a wealthy middle-aged spinster named Daisy Cashmore, who hands the player a note to meet with Andrew Conkling, the owner of Conkling Steel. Conkling instructs the player to retrieve a business document that had been stolen by Shailagh Hacker, an Irish maid who had worked at his house in London. Other plots include meeting and helping the Lambeths, a wealthy couple whose marriage has deteriorated, as well as meeting with other passengers including Leyland Trask, a psychic from Boston; Reverend Edgar Troutt, a Protestant preacher from Sunapee, New Hampshire who is returning from an African mission in Nyasaland; and Max Seidelmann, an American freelance businessman from Philadelphia, who provides a back story and insight of varying value. Assisting the player from time to time is fellow agent Penny Pringle.

      Adolf Hitler's 1914 painting The Courtyard of the Old Residency in Munich appears in the game as a key plot element

      The number of objects the player obtains before escaping the ship affects the final cut scene and how history is played out. If the player manages to successfully obtain all four objects, history is altered with World War I, the Russian Revolution, and World War II never occurring — without The Rubáiyát and/or the diamonds, the Black Hand is not financed and their plan to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria (which would have sparked World War I) fails. The painting Barbicon was going to trade in to Zeitel was actually "The Courtyard of the Old Residency in Munich", painted by Adolf Hitler, and its fame after it is recovered from the sinking causes Hitler to become a famous artist, averting World War II (the war plans hidden in it prove useless, and so whether or not they are found is irrelevant to history). The notebook with the names of the Bolsheviks makes its way to the Czar, and the Russian Revolution never occurs. With the world knowing peace and prosperity, the character retires after a successful career to a world of peace. Depending on which items the player fails to collect, history will change, but certain wars or revolutions will still occur: alternative endings exist where Germany conquers Russia and the United Kingdom, or the Soviet Union conquers Europe, to name some.

      Development

      The concept for the game was initially created by writer and producer Andrew Nelson, who spent ten months working on the game's script.[2] CyberFlix's team spent two years researching to ensure the game would be authentic and historically accurate. Apollo 13 screenwriter William Broyles, Jr. served as a historical and photo researcher for the game, collaborating with Cyberflix in finding resources to faithfully re-create the ship and the period the game is set on.[3]

      The game was developed using CyberFlix's proprietary game engine and software DreamFactory, which had been used by the company to develop Dust: A Tale of the Wired West; Andrew Nelson credits the game's "immersive qualities" to the engine's 3D environment creation.[4]

      Music

      The soundtrack was composed by Erik Holt, with Scott Scheinbaum serving as musical director. Holt cited as inspirations Igor Stravinsky and Joe Satriani, and also studied composers that were popular in 1912, the game's time period, such as Chopin, Verdi, Rossini and Mahler, to better evoke both the splendorous and melancholic atmosphere surrounding the Titanic's disaster.[3]

      Holt worked for three months on the game's core themes, mixing classical and early 20th-century music with elements of cinematic score. Aside from its original music, the game also features Chopin's Prelude Op. 28 No. 7, which plays on the radio in the opening scene.[3]

      Ship's tour

      In addition to the game, the CD-ROM also includes a separate exploration feature which features characters in the game covering certain aspects of the ship, its crew and passengers, and the sinking. These characters would be placed at locations around the ship. Three of the character narrations were already included with the game, while others could be downloaded from the game's website (a later release of the game includes a bonus CD-ROM with these download-able narrations). They were later available for download on the website of Cyberflix's successor Barracuda, and are now available at Titanic-Titanic.com.

      Reception

      The game received mixed-to-positive reviews, having a score of 70.20% at GameRankings.com.[5] GameSpot reviewer Tim McDonald rated it a 6.6 out of 10, praising its re-creation of the ship and the story, but criticizing the dialogue sequences, calling them "lengthy", and the lack of puzzles.[1] In a review of the game, PC Gamer's Richard Cobbett compared it to The Last Express, finding similarities between plot elements, gameplay and calling it its "spiritual cousin". Cobbett overall praised the game, stating that it is "a genuinely inspired take on the Titanic story that treats it respectfully, while still spinning off into cool new directions."[6]

      Website Adventure Gamers included the game in its list of the Top 100 All-Time Adventure Games, in the 100th position, stating that "the setting is the real star of the game" and that "the timed element makes the tension palpable, which is a must under the circumstances and results in a thoroughly immersive endgame."[7] A full conversion of the game on Java was made available online, and can be played on web browsers.[6]

      See also

      References

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      External links