EcoQuest
Encyclopedia
EcoQuest is a series of two educational
adventure game
s developed by Sierra Entertainment
. The original concept was developed by Sierra VP of Creative Development, Bill Davis. The author
s of the series game design are Jane Jensen
and Gano Haine, but Jane was not involved in creating the second game, having moved on to her famous Gabriel Knight
series.
The last of Sierra's various "Quest" series, EcoQuest is designed to teach children about the importance of environmental ethics
. The games are considerably easier than most Sierra adventures and cannot be lost or rendered unwinnable. Both use a fully mouse-driven version of SCI
, in the manner of Space Quest IV and King's Quest VI.
The protagonist
is a 10-year-old boy named Adam Greene: the son of an ecologist, and an expert scuba diver
.
, then on CD-ROM
with full speech. Adam's attempts to help a dolphin
named Delphineus his father has rescued take a turn for the weirder when it starts speaking. In no time flat, he's trying to seek out Cetus, the whale
king of Eluria, an underwater kingdom populated by marine animals. He has assistance in the form of several creatures found in the various ecosystem
s of the world. Aside from the considerable liberty of sentient talking animals, the game is more realistic than cartoony - it needs to be, to tell about the real world's environment and pollution. The Search for Cetus introduced the recycling symbol
to Sierra's standard palette of command icons
, giving the player bonus points for picking up litter
.
in search of a cure of a disease afflicting the local natives, and a way to save the rainforest from destruction. One of the game's innovations was the "Ecorder" display: a tricorder
-like device Adam uses to learn about things he finds during his journey. The game is somewhat harder than its predecessor and places more emphasis on the dangers of selfishness and greed, as opposed to the blight of man.
Educational game
Educational games are games that have been designed to teach people about a certain subject, expand concepts, reinforce development, understand an historical event or culture, or assist them in learning a skill as they play...
adventure game
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,...
s developed by Sierra Entertainment
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...
. The original concept was developed by Sierra VP of Creative Development, Bill Davis. The author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
s of the series game design are Jane Jensen
Jane Jensen
Jane Jensen is the game designer of the popular and critically acclaimed Gabriel Knight adventure games and author of the novels Judgement Day and Dante's Equation....
and Gano Haine, but Jane was not involved in creating the second game, having moved on to her famous Gabriel Knight
Gabriel Knight
Gabriel Knight is a series of adventure games produced by Sierra On-Line in the 1990s. Three games were released in the series: Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers, The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery and Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned.One compilation was...
series.
The last of Sierra's various "Quest" series, EcoQuest is designed to teach children about the importance of environmental ethics
Environmental ethics
Environmental ethics is the part of environmental philosophy which considers extending the traditional boundaries of ethics from solely including humans to including the non-human world...
. The games are considerably easier than most Sierra adventures and cannot be lost or rendered unwinnable. Both use a fully mouse-driven version of SCI
Sierra's Creative Interpreter
Sierra's Creative Interpreter is the scripting language created by Jeff Stephenson of Sierra On-Line for its adventure games after the older AGI, and the runtime environment for such adventure games....
, in the manner of Space Quest IV and King's Quest VI.
The protagonist
Protagonist
A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
is a 10-year-old boy named Adam Greene: the son of an ecologist, and an expert scuba diver
Scuba diving
Scuba diving is a form of underwater diving in which a diver uses a scuba set to breathe underwater....
.
EcoQuest: The Search for Cetus
The first installment, titled The Search for Cetus, was released first on floppy diskFloppy 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...
, then on 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....
with full speech. Adam's attempts to help a dolphin
Dolphin
Dolphins are marine mammals that are closely related to whales and porpoises. There are almost forty species of dolphin in 17 genera. They vary in size from and , up to and . They are found worldwide, mostly in the shallower seas of the continental shelves, and are carnivores, mostly eating...
named Delphineus his father has rescued take a turn for the weirder when it starts speaking. In no time flat, he's trying to seek out Cetus, the whale
Whale
Whale is the common name for various marine mammals of the order Cetacea. The term whale sometimes refers to all cetaceans, but more often it excludes dolphins and porpoises, which belong to suborder Odontoceti . This suborder also includes the sperm whale, killer whale, pilot whale, and beluga...
king of Eluria, an underwater kingdom populated by marine animals. He has assistance in the form of several creatures found in the various ecosystem
Ecosystem
An ecosystem is a biological environment consisting of all the organisms living in a particular area, as well as all the nonliving , physical components of the environment with which the organisms interact, such as air, soil, water and sunlight....
s of the world. Aside from the considerable liberty of sentient talking animals, the game is more realistic than cartoony - it needs to be, to tell about the real world's environment and pollution. The Search for Cetus introduced the recycling symbol
Recycling symbol
The universal recycling symbol or in Unicode) is an internationally recognized symbol used to designate recyclable materials. It is composed of three mutually chasing arrows that form a Möbius strip ....
to Sierra's standard palette of command icons
Icon (computing)
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...
, giving the player bonus points for picking up litter
Litter
Litter consists of waste products such as containers, papers, wrappers or faeces which have been disposed of without consent. Litter can also be used as a verb...
.
EcoQuest II: Lost Secret of the Rainforest
In Lost Secret of the Rainforest, the second installment in the series, Adam, now slightly older and able to speak with animals as a matter of course, explores the tropical rainforestTropical rainforest
A tropical rainforest is an ecosystem type that occurs roughly within the latitudes 28 degrees north or south of the equator . This ecosystem experiences high average temperatures and a significant amount of rainfall...
in search of a cure of a disease afflicting the local natives, and a way to save the rainforest from destruction. One of the game's innovations was the "Ecorder" display: a tricorder
Tricorder
In the fictional Star Trek universe, a tricorder is a multifunction handheld device used for sensor scanning, data analysis, and recording data.Three primary variants of the tricorder are issued in Star Trek's Starfleet...
-like device Adam uses to learn about things he finds during his journey. The game is somewhat harder than its predecessor and places more emphasis on the dangers of selfishness and greed, as opposed to the blight of man.