By Dale Farris, Secretary
Golden Triangle PC Club
January 2003

Game Overview

Auryn Quest is the new action-adventure game from the Adventure Company, a division of DreamCatcher, that is subtitled Part 1 of The Neverending Story. Fans of The Neverending Story will obviously be very interested in this game that is certainly different from what we find in most of today's adventure games.

In the world of Fantasia, the magic Auryn, or amulet has disappeared, and Fantasia threatens to be consumed by The Nothing - a force so powerful, it levels and destroys all in it's path. Huge landscapes have been devastated, or are facing destruction in the neverending battle.

You play the game as Atreyu, a hero on a quest to save the world of Fantasia from destruction. As Atreyu, the hero from the novel "The Neverending Story," you start your quest at the Temple of a Thousand Doors. From here, you enter six graphically beautiful and richly detailed surrealistic worlds with various puzzles and thrilling arcade sequences that increase in difficulty with each task accomplished.

During the journey, you meet many of the fantasy inhabitants of the world of Fantasia. Your goal is to find and return the mystical Auryn to the ruler of Fantasia, the childlike empress. The Auryn is a magical amulet which consists of two snakes, each biting each other's tail.

Only by retrieving the magical Auryn can Fantasia reflourish to its previous magnificence. You fulfill the mission when you bring back the Auryn to the empress. Only then will Fantasia return to his former splendid beauty.

The game design presents beautiful, but odd worlds that you move around as you attempt to collect yellow energy balls in each world. If you collect less than ten energy balls in any one world, you have to return to that world and play it again in order to get all ten, or you will not be allowed to finish the game.

Game Play

In Auryn Quest, you remain fixed in the classic first-person viewpoint, as if you were playing a typical first-person shooter (FPS). However, Auryn Quest is NOT a FPS, and this fixed view many times presents difficulty in being able to control your movements. You also have 3D panning as you move through the game environment, up and down, left and right, as well as the panning function as you walk or run through an environment.

The graphics of the environment are well done, presenting the 6 colorful, richly detailed worlds in a dynamic fashion, lending strength to the immersion in these worlds. You have an option at the beginning of the game to control the resolution and color, as well as the texture quality, and you can turn on and off mouse inversion. The default is to have the mouse inverted, but you can press F12 to make the screen move up when you move the mouse up and vice versa.

Auryn Quest plays like a console game, and the design and movement is quite similar to so many of today's new video console games. In this case, the game seems to have been first designed for the PC, as opposed to being ported over from a console platform. Players of console games will appreciate this console-like similarity, but they may miss the game control provided by console controllers.

Controls and Game Play Concerns

In Auryn Quest, you are challenged by having to find ten yellow, brightly glowing energy balls in each world. You must visit all the worlds and collect all the energy balls, or you cannot complete the game. You obtain these by simply walking up to them, but many times finding these energy balls can be quite difficult.

What gets in your way of succeeding in this mission is having to overcome obstacles to finding these orbs. These obstacles all involve various types of jumps over things in order to get to the orbs. In addition, sub quests arise that you have to complete, in order to get some of the orbs. This means you need to move through all these many dynamic worlds, if you can successfully overcome the obstacles, in order to finish the game.

The focus in Auryn Quest is on jumping - many, many jumps that will likely require you to try many of thee jumps over and over and over again. When gamers read that a game can be characterized as a jumping game, they usually know exactly what this means. However, console gamers may not be as annoyed by all the jumping, as these gamers will likely have much experience with this type of game play.

In my opinion, this jumping design represents the most troubling aspect of this game that has great potential, but these many tedious, annoying, horrible jump challenges may frustrate enough gamers to stop midway into the game and give up. Auryn Quest is one those games that looks and sounds great, and has great potential that is, again in my opinion, somewhat thwarted by all the difficult jumping challenges.

With the fixed first person viewpoint, this further complicates your ability to control the timing and location of these many jumps. In many scenes, you will find yourself looking down and noticing that it appears that you are standing in mid-air. Because you never see yourself in third-person, and have no control in the 3rd person view. it is many, many times extremely difficult to successfully overcome these difficult jumps.

You do have the capability of adding speed to your movement, by holding down the Shift key. This has been added on purpose, because in many of these very difficult jumps, you will have to be running very fast before your try to time a leap in order to complete the leap. Also, in many of these difficult jumps, the location of your required landing is so precise that without a better control over your character, you will find yourself guessing at these precise jumps and landings over and over and over again.

If there was ever a game that cried our for a NOCLIP cheat, Auryn Quest is it. At the time of this writing, sadly there did not appear to be any such NOCLIP cheat code. However, If a NOCLIP cheat is supported and it begins to show up in the cheat code Web sites, you are going to want to make sure you find it, or you too may not be able to finish this odd game.

The moody, surreal music adds to the odd quality of the game, and the unique characters help establish these quirky, never before seen worlds. The beauty of the game design, the music, and the characters work together to keep your interest in the game, until you find yourself so totally frustrated by the endless challenge of the very difficult jumps and the poor character control, that you may quit the game before you complete it.

The puzzles in the game are really not puzzles, but objects you have to find and walk up to or through. However, the  tedious jumping gets in the way of finding these objects. Even with a walkthrough guide that helps you know where to go to find the energy orbs, getting there becomes such a frustrating experience that without a NOCLIP cheat I suspect many gamers will call it quits before they even get midway into the game.

Game Save Concerns

I was really taken aback by the puzzling approach by the game developers to saving games. You cannot save your game anywhere, anytime, which is an added frustration to the already mounting concerns as you struggle with the many difficult jumps. The game provides several checkpoints within each world level. The checkpoints are highlighted by a bright blue glowing star at various points in the level.

You do have unlimited lives within the level, thank goodness, because you will likely be dying all the time as you miss those jumps. When you die, you will be respawned at your last checkpoint. Once you clear a world, meaning you get all ten of the orbs, your game is saved and you can enter that world at any time from the original Temple of a Thousand Doors.

If you collect less than 10 yellow energy balls in any world, you have to return to that world and play it again in order to collect all ten balls, or you cannot complete the game. If you collect at least 5 energy balls, this allows you to enter the next level via the Temple of a Thousand Doors, but you still cannot complete the game until you collect all ten orbs in each world.

This means just what you are thinking it means. If you leave the game for any reason, and then restart the game, unless you have collected all 10 orbs from a world, you will have to play through all the level all over again.

Therefore, be forewarned. If you want to play Auryn Quest, be prepared to set aside enough time to try and complete a world before you stop playing, or you will have to go through the entire world all over again. The checkpoints are really just a means of allowing you to start again from the last checkpoint when you die, but you cannot start at that latest checkpoint after you stop and then restart the game. I cannot imaging what drove the developer to design the game save function this way, unless it had something to do with the fundamental coding or a need to hurry up and get the game to market. I bet I am not the only gamer that will find this lack of control over game saves a major issue of concern.

Features

Based on the novel, "The Neverending Story," by Michael Ende
Neat, unique game environment
Well designed, odd worlds to visit
Unique, cool characters throughout the game
Moody, surreal music that helps establish the unique environment
Fixed, first-person viewpoint
Full 3D viewing
Arcade style action
Complex, carefully timed jump challenges throughout

Movement

Auryn Quest supports the classic, W A S D keyboard keys for movement, with the mouse serving as direction and looking around. The spacebar is used for jumping, and the Shift key for adding speed to movement, as well as to helping jump further.

About The Walkthrough Solution Guides

I suggest anyone interested in this game to also consider getting a copy of the solutions guide that is priced right and will just help you move through the game more quickly. In the case of Auryn Quest, the challenge is not so much finding items, deciding which items to use or combine, or solving puzzles. Instead, in Auryn Quest the challenge is arcade style, repetitive jumping that usually shows up in video game console platforms. Accomplishing success with Auryn Quest will challenge your hand-eye coordination and patience, more than your intelligence.

The available walkthrough strategy guide will help know where to go in order to find the yellow energy globes, and where next to go as you attempt to move through the game. Overcoming the many very hard jumps is a matter of getting the timing right, or finding and using a NOCLIP cheat if it ever shows up.

Targeted Customers

Auryn Quest will appeal to any action-oriented gamer, especially those who enjoy first-person shooter games. The attempt to combine action with adventure will also attract adventure gamers to Auryn Quest, although I suspect adventure gamers may be very frustrated by the game's challenge to their motor skills capabilities. The game is really very pretty and the background sounds and sound effects are also done very well, which will keep many gamers going as they strive to get through the difficult jumps to see what's in store in another world. Of course, any gamer who enjoys trying over and over and over again to successfully complete difficult jumps will definitely enjoy playing Auryn Quest.

Install and Setup

The game should install and set up with no problems. The game comes on one CD ROM disc, and it needs DirectX 8.0 files, which are included on the disc if you do not have at least the version needed by the game.

The game is also not one of the more complex game programs now on the market, and the system requirements are relatively moderate. This means the game is likely to play on far more machines than newer, state-of-the-art first-person shooter games that demand at least the newest 64MB 3D board now on the market.
 
Uninstalling the game involves the use of the games uninstall feature in its folder on the Start, Programs menu.

I loaded the game on a Win XP Pro, SP 1 machine (P III-850, 256MB SDRAM) that had a Creative Labs Annihilator 2, 32MB video card (an nVidia GeForce 2 GTS board), and a Creative Labs Live X Gamer! sound board, and the latest drivers for each. An HP CD RW 9200 drive served as the CD ROM drive, and I had a 12X DVD ROM drive for the DVD ROM version. The mouse and keyboard were both PS/2 connections. I also had already installed the DirectX 8.1 files, and did not need to install the DirectX files that came with the game. My machine also had an internal Zip 250 drive, standard floppy, two 8-port USB hubs, a Logitech Wingman Extreme joystick, standard microphone, Cambridge Soundworks DTS 2000 speaker system, and a NIC board connected to SW Bell's DSL modem.

Price

$19.99
$  9.99 the official strategy & solutions guide (a great bargain also)

Minimum System Configuration Requirements

P 450 processor (P-III 700 recommended)
Win 98, 98 SE, ME, XP
128MB RAM (256 MB Recommended)
700MB free hard disk space (1GB recommended)
32MB DirectX 8 Compatible 3D Video Card
12x CD ROM drive

At the time of this writing, no patches for this game had yet been released. The above system configuration requirements indicate the minimum system configuration requirements, and as any experienced gamer knows, you just don't ever want to load and run any computer game on minimally configured systems.

About the Adventure Company

The Adventure Company, a division of DreamCatcher, is a leading publisher and distributor of interactive entertainment devoted exclusively to releasing titles geared towards adventure gamers. The Adventure Company is committed to publishing games that deliver maximum value on multiple platforms, including PC, Playstation2 computer entertainment system, GameCube, and Xbox.

The Adventure Company’s parent, DreamCatcher, launched its first title in 1996, with a small band of people who believed in providing customers with quality entertainment software at affordable prices. Since that time, DreamCatcher has become one of the most successful small-sized publisher in the entertainment software industry, and was the fastest growing publisher in 2000, growing over 800% according to PC Data.

A new partnership with Her Interactive has enabled DreamCatcher to now sell the super games in the Nancy Drew series, including Nancy Drew: Secrets Can Kill, Nancy Drew: Stay Tuned for Danger, and Nancy Drew: Message in a Haunted Mansion. Check this link to read a review of these Nancy Drew Interactive Mystery Adventure Games.

Dracula: The Resurrection and In Cold Blood are two current games for the PC that will soon be released for the Playstation, and DreamCatcher also plans to release more games in the future for the Playstation 2 and the GameBoy Color platforms.

Necronomicon ($19.99) and The Legend of the Prophet and the Assassin ($19.99) are two of DreamCatcher's newer games that should also prove to be successful titles in their long list of super adventure games.

Other super games from DreamCatcher Interactive include Traitor's Gate, The Messenger, Riddle of the Sphinx, Jewels of the Oracle, Jewels II, Egypt 1156 B.C., Odyssey, TimeScape, Ancient Conquest, Beyond Time, Beyond Atlantis, Lightbringer, Legend of Lotus Spring, Nightlong, Seven Games of the Soul (also sold in Europe as Faust), SafeCracker, The Forgotten, The Sacred Amulet, and Time Machine.

All these are similarly designed adventure games, and all are priced very reasonably, the most expensive being $29.99 (In Cold Blood), with most around $14.99, and many even priced at $9.99, which I think are super prices for these super games. At the time of this writing, I have purchased and played nearly all these games, and these reasonable price points have always gotten my attention.

I think these affordable price points represent a very important strategy of DreamCatcher that has helped them achieve their success. When you consider the very expensive proposition to invest in the coding and other very expensive costs to develop and produce a computer game today, I think it is quite remarkable that this company markets their products at such a reasonable price.

I also think it is important to remember that DreamCatcher is still very much in the business of producing quality computer games, something many other companies can no longer attest to since they have gone out of business. What is even more remarkable, in my opinion, is that at the time of this writing, DreamCatcher Interactive remains wholly owned and self-sufficient, and has not yet been absorbed by a larger company.

So, with the easy on the pocket-book price of the game, and the also minimal price of the solution guides, you have the makings of a winner in the hotly contested battle for our limited disposable income and free time to invest in playing computer games. DreamCatcher Interactive is certainly a company worth watching and supporting.

Contact Information

The Adventure Company
DreamCatcher
5000 Dufferin Street
Toronto, Ontario
M3H 5T5
info@dreamcatchergames.com

You can also order from other retailers or online vendors.