Teleconference gives looks into three titles making North American debuts

Encore held a press teleconference Wednesday to show off three titles that will be published in North America in the coming months.

The teleconference, which featured brief game demonstrations by Encore's Christopher Wingood, focused on three titles originally released by Microids in Europe. The games - Nostradamus: The Last Prophecy, Dracula 3: The Path of the Dragon and Sinking Island - are all point-and-click adventure games that will plant Encore firmly in the genre of murder-mystery puzzle-solving adventure titles. The three titles will hit retailers with a price point of $29.99.

There is a general format, indicative to most titles in the category, followed there in that there are puzzles to solve, clues to collect and a mystery to unravel. The interfaces for all three titles seemed to follow what is standard for the genre, meaning that the emphasis is placed on the story themselves and the tale that should certainly draw players into these well-designed worlds.

Sinking Island and Nostradamus were released in September 2007 in Europe, while Dracula 3 was released this past April.

Sinking Island

The first title shown, Sinking Island is the story of an investigator sent to an island to look over what was first thought to be an accidental death. When he gets there, armed only with his PPA (Personal Police Assistant), he comes to realize that the death was not accidental, but rather a murder. Compounding the situation is that a storm is hitting the island and it will sink within three days. That leads to one of the two game modes available - Race Against Time. Because the island is starting to sink, players will be tasked with ciphering the clues to the mystery and doing so as economically (time-wise) as possible before the island is gone. Because of that pressure, the island's various characters (NPCs, or non-playable characters) might become a little short if you take too long questioning them. They are getting nervous about the island sinking, and the environment will show evidence of that as the time progresses.

Of course, there is also another game mode that removes that timed element, and players can work through the game at their own leisure, collecting clues and revisiting evidence locations.

Because the hero of the story was unprepared with a crime lab, he will have to improvise to collect clues. For example, using a pencil sharpener to get graphite from a pencil so that you can dust for fingerprints will be part of the whole evidence-collection process.