Curse of Enchantia
Encyclopedia
Curse of Enchantia is a fantasy
adventure
computer game created by Core Design
and released by Virgin Games for the PC DOS
and Amiga
in 1992
.
, Curse of Enchantia is a sort of "a funny version of Lure of the Temptress
with a different plot". The game takes place in the surreal fairy tale
realm of Enchantia, which suffers under the cruel reign of wicked witches
and their evil queen. The queen seeks a male child from another dimension for her desired spell of eternal youth
. Brad, the game's teenaged hero, vanishes from modern-day Earth and is transported to a dungeon in Enchantia. Brad sets out to break the eponymous curse, bring down the witches' rule, and return home. Along the way, he meets human characters, talking animals, monsters, and other weird creatures.
The story is partially inspired by The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
. It is a comedy
and relies heavily on absurd humor.
, icon
-based user interface
. It has very little in-game text, and the few short conversation scenes use a minimalistic system of pictogram
s in speech balloon
s. According to the developer Rob Toone, the game was designed this way because "too much reading can slow the game or kill it, like The Adventures of Willy Beamish
." There are also several action-style segments like dodging hazards or using the right item at right time, but the character is never at risk of dying: every "dangerous" task can be repeated until successfully completed. According to Toone, the idea behind this concept was to make the "arcadey
bits... interesting without being difficult". There is, however, one major design bug close to the game's end that can prevent the player from completing the adventure.
, in the style of Another World
, but with a more traditional mix of hand-drawn backgrounds and sprite bitmap
graphics. This caused some confusion as several magazine reviews actually still used "Zeloria" as the name of the land in the game, and some also incorrectly assumed that Enchantia is the name of the witch, who is actually unnamed. An earlier version of the game's story, also featured in some reviews, involved a trio of sinister witches that need to drink a special potion every one hundred years or else they would instantly turn to dust.
Released in 1992, Curse of Enchantia was the first adventure game by Core Design as well as one of the first CD-ROM
adventure games. The CD version reportedly took little advantage of the 640 megabytes of storage afforded by the CD, adding only a longer animated introduction than the floppy disk
version. Virgin Games bundled
Curse of Enchantia with many of the earliest PC CD-ROM drives in 1993.
gave it a rating of 93% and the Gamer Gold award, calling the game "excellent" and "down-right bloody enchanting". CU Amiga gave the game a rating of 89% and the CU Gold Screen award. Amiga Power and The One
gave it ratings of 87% and 79%, respectively. Amiga Format
gave Curse of Enchantia a rating of 62%, calling it "light years
behind" Monkey Island. PC Player gave it a rating of 38% said the game might make players "nostalgic for Sierra
titles".
Later, retro game reviewers remembered the game for its light tone and cartoon
ish graphics and derided its often illogical puzzle
solutions, "arcade" sequences, user interface, and lack of text and dialogue, the last of which reduces the plot to a series of ultimately irrevelant slapstick
gags. In 2007, a magazine advertisement for Curse of Enchantia was featured in GamesRadar
's article showcasing "what game ads looked like when the SNES was alive".
, Curse of Enchantia 2: Escape from Enchantia, was reportedly planned to be released for PC
and Amiga 1200
in 1994 but was soon canceled. However, Core Design followed up Curse of Enchantia in 1994 with Universe, a science-fiction adventure game whose game engine
is similar to Enchantias but was actually built from scratch. The basic premise of Universes plot, a young man taken into another world to fight an evil ruler, is similar to Enchantias, but the setting resembles a space opera
. The plot is also more serious.
Curse of Enchantia inspired the name of the Polish
reggae
band Enchantia.
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
adventure
Adventure game
An adventure game is a video game in which the player assumes the role of protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and puzzle-solving instead of physical challenge. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based media such as literature and film,...
computer game created by Core Design
Core Design
Core Design was a British video game studio best known today for creating the popular Tomb Raider series.-History:Based in the city of Derby, England, Core Design was set up in 1988 by Chris Shrigley, Andy Green, Rob Toone, Terry Lloyd, Simon Phipps, Dave Pridmore, Jeremy Heath-Smith and Greg Holmes...
and released by Virgin Games for the PC DOS
DOS
DOS, short for "Disk Operating System", is an acronym for several closely related operating systems that dominated the IBM PC compatible market between 1981 and 1995, or until about 2000 if one includes the partially DOS-based Microsoft Windows versions 95, 98, and Millennium Edition.Related...
and Amiga
Amiga
The Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...
in 1992
1992 in video gaming
-Events:-Notable releases:* Gremlin Graphics releases Zool, Amiga's answer to Mario and Sonic. It goes on to become the best selling Commodore Amiga game, boosting the already popular computer to be the leading gaming machine in Europe....
.
Story
According to Amiga PowerAmiga Power
Amiga Power was a monthly magazine about Amiga computer games. It was published in the United Kingdom by Future Publishing, and ran for 65 issues, from May 1991 to September 1996....
, Curse of Enchantia is a sort of "a funny version of Lure of the Temptress
Lure of the Temptress
Lure of the Temptress is a fantasy point-and-click adventure game created by Revolution Software, published by Virgin Interactive Entertainment, and initially released in 1992 for Atari ST, DOS and Amiga systems...
with a different plot". The game takes place in the surreal fairy tale
Fairy tale
A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...
realm of Enchantia, which suffers under the cruel reign of wicked witches
Witchcraft
Witchcraft, in historical, anthropological, religious, and mythological contexts, is the alleged use of supernatural or magical powers. A witch is a practitioner of witchcraft...
and their evil queen. The queen seeks a male child from another dimension for her desired spell of eternal youth
Elixir of life
The elixir of life, also known as the elixir of immortality and sometimes equated with the philosopher's stone, is a legendary potion, or drink, that grants the drinker eternal life and or eternal youth. Many practitioners of alchemy pursued it. The elixir of life was also said to be able to create...
. Brad, the game's teenaged hero, vanishes from modern-day Earth and is transported to a dungeon in Enchantia. Brad sets out to break the eponymous curse, bring down the witches' rule, and return home. Along the way, he meets human characters, talking animals, monsters, and other weird creatures.
The story is partially inspired by The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is a fantasy novel for children by C. S. Lewis. Published in 1950 and set circa 1940, it is the first-published book of The Chronicles of Narnia and is the best known book of the series. Although it was written and published first, it is second in the series'...
and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a children's novel written by L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W. W. Denslow. Originally published by the George M. Hill Company in Chicago on May 17, 1900, it has since been reprinted numerous times, most often under the name The Wizard of Oz, which is the name of...
. It is a comedy
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
and relies heavily on absurd humor.
Gameplay
Curse of Enchantia uses a point-and-clickPoint-and-click
Point-and-click is the action of a computer user moving a cursor to a certain location on a screen and then pressing a mouse button, usually the left button , or other pointing device...
, icon
Computer icon
A computer icon is a pictogram displayed on a computer screen and used to navigate a computer system or mobile device. The icon itself is a small picture or symbol serving as a quick, intuitive representation of a software tool, function or a data file accessible on the system. It functions as an...
-based user interface
User interface
The user interface, in the industrial design field of human–machine interaction, is the space where interaction between humans and machines occurs. The goal of interaction between a human and a machine at the user interface is effective operation and control of the machine, and feedback from the...
. It has very little in-game text, and the few short conversation scenes use a minimalistic system of pictogram
Pictogram
A pictograph, also called pictogram or pictogramme is an ideogram that conveys its meaning through its pictorial resemblance to a physical object. Pictographs are often used in writing and graphic systems in which the characters are to considerable extent pictorial in appearance.Pictography is a...
s in speech balloon
Speech balloon
Speech balloons are a graphic convention used most commonly in comic books, comic strips and cartoons to allow words to be understood as representing the speech or thoughts of a given character in the comic...
s. According to the developer Rob Toone, the game was designed this way because "too much reading can slow the game or kill it, like The Adventures of Willy Beamish
The Adventures of Willy Beamish
The Adventures of Willy Beamish is a graphic adventure game developed by Dynamix, using their newly developed Dynamix Game Development System . It was published in 1991 by Sierra Entertainment. The player takes on the role of nine-year-old Willy Beamish in a humorous graphic adventure that is...
." There are also several action-style segments like dodging hazards or using the right item at right time, but the character is never at risk of dying: every "dangerous" task can be repeated until successfully completed. According to Toone, the idea behind this concept was to make the "arcadey
Arcade game
An arcade game is a coin-operated entertainment machine, usually installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars, and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are video games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games, and merchandisers...
bits... interesting without being difficult". There is, however, one major design bug close to the game's end that can prevent the player from completing the adventure.
Development
The game was originally titled Zeloria and conceived as an action-adventure gameAction-adventure game
An action-adventure game is a video game that combines elements of the adventure game genre with various action game elements. It is perhaps the broadest and most diverse genre in gaming, and can include many games which might better be categorized under narrow genres...
, in the style of Another World
Another World (video game)
Another World, also known as Out of This World in North America and Outer World in Japan, is a 1991 cinematic platformer designed and developed by Eric Chahi...
, but with a more traditional mix of hand-drawn backgrounds and sprite bitmap
Bitmap
In computer graphics, a bitmap or pixmap is a type of memory organization or image file format used to store digital images. The term bitmap comes from the computer programming terminology, meaning just a map of bits, a spatially mapped array of bits. Now, along with pixmap, it commonly refers to...
graphics. This caused some confusion as several magazine reviews actually still used "Zeloria" as the name of the land in the game, and some also incorrectly assumed that Enchantia is the name of the witch, who is actually unnamed. An earlier version of the game's story, also featured in some reviews, involved a trio of sinister witches that need to drink a special potion every one hundred years or else they would instantly turn to dust.
Released in 1992, Curse of Enchantia was the first adventure game by Core Design as well as one of the first CD-ROM
CD-ROM
A CD-ROM is a pre-pressed compact disc that contains data accessible to, but not writable by, a computer for data storage and music playback. The 1985 “Yellow Book” standard developed by Sony and Philips adapted the format to hold any form of binary data....
adventure games. The CD version reportedly took little advantage of the 640 megabytes of storage afforded by the CD, adding only a longer animated introduction than the floppy disk
Floppy disk
A floppy disk is a disk storage medium composed of a disk of thin and flexible magnetic storage medium, sealed in a rectangular plastic carrier lined with fabric that removes dust particles...
version. Virgin Games bundled
Product bundling
Product bundling is a marketing strategy that involves offering several products for sale as one combined product. This strategy is very common in the software business , in the cable television industry Product bundling is a marketing strategy that involves offering several products for sale as...
Curse of Enchantia with many of the earliest PC CD-ROM drives in 1993.
Reception
Critical reception to Curse of Enchantia at the time of its release was mostly positive. Amiga Action gave it a rating of 94% and the Amiga Action Accolade award, calling it "flawless" and "easily the best adventure game on the Amiga to date". Amiga ComputingAmiga Computing
Amiga Computing was a monthly computer magazine of a serious nature, published by Europress and IDG in both the UK and USA. A total of 117 issues came out. The games section was called Gamer, although later Amiga Action was incorporated into the magazine and became the games section.- External...
gave it a rating of 93% and the Gamer Gold award, calling the game "excellent" and "down-right bloody enchanting". CU Amiga gave the game a rating of 89% and the CU Gold Screen award. Amiga Power and The One
The One (magazine)
The One was a video game magazine in the United Kingdom which covered 16-bit home gaming during the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was first published by EMAP in October 1988 and initially covered computer games aimed at the Atari ST, Commodore Amiga, and IBM PC markets.Like many similar magazines,...
gave it ratings of 87% and 79%, respectively. Amiga Format
Amiga Format
Amiga Format was a British computer magazine for Amiga computers, published by Future Publishing. The magazine lasted 136 issues from 1989 to 2000. The magazine was formed when, in the wake of selling ACE to EMAP, Future split the dual-format title ST/Amiga Format into two separate publications...
gave Curse of Enchantia a rating of 62%, calling it "light years
Light-year
A light-year, also light year or lightyear is a unit of length, equal to just under 10 trillion kilometres...
behind" Monkey Island. PC Player gave it a rating of 38% said the game might make players "nostalgic for Sierra
Sierra Entertainment
Sierra Entertainment Inc. was an American video-game developer and publisher founded in 1979 as On-Line Systems by Ken and Roberta Williams...
titles".
Later, retro game reviewers remembered the game for its light tone and cartoon
Cartoon
A cartoon is a form of two-dimensional illustrated visual art. While the specific definition has changed over time, modern usage refers to a typically non-realistic or semi-realistic drawing or painting intended for satire, caricature, or humor, or to the artistic style of such works...
ish graphics and derided its often illogical puzzle
Puzzle
A puzzle is a problem or enigma that tests the ingenuity of the solver. In a basic puzzle, one is intended to put together pieces in a logical way in order to come up with the desired solution...
solutions, "arcade" sequences, user interface, and lack of text and dialogue, the last of which reduces the plot to a series of ultimately irrevelant slapstick
Slapstick
Slapstick is a type of comedy involving exaggerated violence and activities which may exceed the boundaries of common sense.- Origins :The phrase comes from the batacchio or bataccio — called the 'slap stick' in English — a club-like object composed of two wooden slats used in Commedia dell'arte...
gags. In 2007, a magazine advertisement for Curse of Enchantia was featured in GamesRadar
GamesRadar
GamesRadar is a multi-format video game website featuring regular news, previews, reviews, videos, and guides. It is owned and operated simultaneously in the UK and US by worldwide publisher Future Publishing...
's article showcasing "what game ads looked like when the SNES was alive".
Legacy
A sequelSequel
A sequel is a narrative, documental, or other work of literature, film, theatre, or music that continues the story of or expands upon issues presented in some previous work...
, Curse of Enchantia 2: Escape from Enchantia, was reportedly planned to be released for PC
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
and Amiga 1200
Amiga 1200
The Amiga 1200, or A1200 , was Commodore International's third-generation Amiga computer, aimed at the home market...
in 1994 but was soon canceled. However, Core Design followed up Curse of Enchantia in 1994 with Universe, a science-fiction adventure game whose game engine
Game engine
A game engine is a system designed for the creation and development of video games. There are many game engines that are designed to work on video game consoles and personal computers...
is similar to Enchantias but was actually built from scratch. The basic premise of Universes plot, a young man taken into another world to fight an evil ruler, is similar to Enchantias, but the setting resembles a space opera
Space opera
Space opera is a subgenre of science fiction that emphasizes romantic, often melodramatic adventure, set mainly or entirely in outer space, generally involving conflict between opponents possessing advanced technologies and abilities. The term has no relation to music and it is analogous to "soap...
. The plot is also more serious.
Curse of Enchantia inspired the name of the Polish
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
reggae
Reggae
Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...
band Enchantia.
External links
- Curse of Enchantia at GameFAQsGameFAQsGameFAQs is a website that hosts FAQs and walkthroughs for video games. It was created in November 1995 by Jeff "CJayC" Veasey and was bought by CNET Networks in May 2003. It is currently owned by CBS Interactive. The site has a database of video game information, cheat codes, reviews, game saves,...
- Curse of Enchantia - Lemon Amiga
- Curse Of Enchantia - HOL Amiga database