MacVenture
Encyclopedia
The MacVenture games is a series of four adventure games introducing a characteristic menu-based point-and-click
interface. They were originally developed for the Apple Macintosh
by ICOM Simulations
:
All these games have been released on other platforms including Commodore Amiga
, Apple II
, Atari ST
, Commodore 64
, IBM Personal Computer (PC), Pocket PC
and Nintendo Entertainment System
(NES). This article is about the original Macintosh versions which introduced new interface ideas to the adventure game genre and were blueprints for the other versions.
. Making the entire game fit together with system software on two 400 k single-sided floppy disks proved to be quite a challenge and special image compression routines had to be written to accomplish this.
Déjà Vu was awarded SPA excellence in software awards for Best Entertainment Product and Best New World in 1986 as the first genuine point-and-click adventure game. The MacVenture interface saw no significant changes for the remaining three games.
A handful of sequels such as Beyond Shadowgate
and Shadowgate 64 were later made, with only the background story in common with the MacVenture games. The rights to the MacVentures are currently maintained by Infinite Ventures.
The "MacVenture" name was used in loading screens and about boxes – in the original releases for other platforms it was translated, e.g. "Atari Venture" or "PC Venture". MacVenture is the only of these used for referring to the game series in other contexts.
The following people had part in the development of some of the games, as noted:
(unlike the Finder, there is also a "Mess up" command). Much as with any non-game application, the various game windows can be rearranged according to taste and the font of the text window changed as well. The MacVenture games use the Macintosh's built in widget toolkit
for the user interface which adds to the feeling of the game as a regular application.
Unlike Sierra
or LucasArts' classic adventure games, MacVentures are played in first-person perspective. The player's current view is displayed in a graphic window accompanied by a symbolic birds-eye view of exits in a side window. The name of the current location is displayed as the title of the graphic window. A characteristic feature is the "self" window which provides a reference to the player himself for putting on clothes and the like.
The point-and-click approach means that no text commands are used except for occasional speech entered in a dialog box. Events taking place in the graphic window, as well as the result of the "examine" command (similar to "look" in other adventure games) are explained in a text window which also acts as a log of recent gameplay.
detective adventures, one is a haunted house
ghost story, and the fourth a fantasy
quest
. The series has a lot of detail put into the game environment, in the form of a multitude of objects being able to act on each other. This gives a sense of depth to the environment, and -along the freedom to back and forth from room to room or street to street as you please- makes for a very non-linear
gameplay.
Possibly to counter this liberty, all MacVenture games have some kind of time limit woven into the story: in Shadowgate the player must collect torches to be able to look around, in Uninvited evil forces gradually take control and create visions at unexpected times. In Déjà Vu the character has been injected with a poison, and has limited time to find the antidote. In Déjà Vu II the character is told to collect money or he will be killed.
Graphics are shown in a 256
×171-pixel
window and, although interactive, remain mostly static. Some limited animation is featured on player-initiated actions and when entering a room. In Uninvited, Shadowgate and Déjà Vu II the about box
has an animated presentation of the development team in the style of the game, accompanied by music.
The text element in the games is notably literate and plays a role in the character of the games. Object and location descriptions are written in a recognizable style, and descriptions of the player character can be quite disparaging (for example, looking at a flower vase in Uninvited, you are told, "It looks like a goldfish bowl, but it's serving as a vase. Function before form, perhaps -- just as in your case)."
mono
digitized sound. Sound effects consist mostly of door creaks and other noises related to actions, but Uninvited also presents some ambient sounds.
Except for the Winchester Cathedral sound in Uninvited, there is no music in the gameplay of the MacVentures. However, the three latter games feature elaborate about boxes with music and have ending scores.
. The Amiga and Apple IIGS
versions were translated rather faithfully and only lack some graphics detail (the Mac had typically twice their resolution). The DOS versions were more limited graphically as they used the 320x200 4-color CGA
mode.
(NES), a lot of detour game objects and interactions as well as some critical ones were removed. The "Consume" command was removed, and operating (renamed "use") could only be performed with objects in the inventory. Also lost was the ability to rearrange objects by dragging and dropping, necessitating "take" and "leave" commands. Leaving could only be performed on unnecessary game objects, this in combination with numerous changes uncalled for by technical constraints caused a much more guided and linear gameplay. For instance, in NES Déjà Vu the player is prohibited from leaving the bathroom without having looked in the mirror.
The descriptive texts were rewritten in a shorter and in a simplified vocabulary (there is no sign of a coordinated attempt, as some of the more literate game texts were left unaltered). Some of these alterations were most likely made in concordance with Nintendo's censorship policy of the time. In Uninvited the spells were turned into objects with names directly hinting at their use, the texts were also explicated to relieve players of unfolding the story by themselves. The digitized sound effects were removed, and music was introduced giving the game more of an arcade game
feel.
The remade graphics were also used in the Infinite Ventures releases for Pocket PC.
Point-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...
interface. They were originally developed for the Apple Macintosh
Macintosh
The Macintosh , or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced by Apple's then-chairman Steve Jobs on January 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a...
by ICOM Simulations
ICOM Simulations
ICOM Simulations was a software company based in Wheeling, Illinois. It is best known for creating the MacVenture series of adventure games including Shadowgate.Following the foundation in 1983 a number of game titles for the Panasonic JR-200 were produced...
:
- Deja Vu: a Nightmare Comes TrueDeja Vu: a Nightmare Comes TrueDéjà Vu is a "point-and-click" adventure game set in the world of 1940s hard-boiled detective novels and movies. It was released in 1985 for Macintosh – the first in the MacVenture series – and later ported to several other systems...
(1985) - UninvitedUninvited (game)Uninvited is a haunted house "point-and-click" adventure video game originally for the Apple Macintosh, released in 1986 by ICOM Simulations. The unnamed hero must find the way through an abandoned house in order to rescue a sibling...
(1986) - ShadowgateShadowgateShadowgate is a 1987 "point-and-click" adventure video game originally for the Apple Macintosh and is the most popular in the MacVenture series. It was also ported to the Atari ST home computer and was also released in 1989 for the Nintendo Entertainment System, where it garnered mild success. The...
(1987) - Deja Vu II: Lost in Las VegasDeja Vu II: Lost in Las VegasDeja Vu II: Lost in Las Vegas is a point-and-click adventure game, the sequel to Deja Vu: a Nightmare Comes True, set in the world of 1940s hard-boiled detective novels and movies.It was the last game made in the MacVenture series.-Gameplay:...
(1988)
All these games have been released on other platforms including Commodore 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...
, Apple II
Apple II
The Apple II is an 8-bit home computer, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primarily by Steve Wozniak, manufactured by Apple Computer and introduced in 1977...
, Atari ST
Atari ST
The Atari ST is a home/personal computer that was released by Atari Corporation in 1985 and commercially available from that summer into the early 1990s. The "ST" officially stands for "Sixteen/Thirty-two", which referred to the Motorola 68000's 16-bit external bus and 32-bit internals...
, Commodore 64
Commodore 64
The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...
, IBM Personal Computer (PC), Pocket PC
Pocket PC
A Pocket PC is also known by Microsoft as a 'Windows Mobile Classic device'. It is a hardware specification for a handheld-sized computer, personal digital assistant , that runs the Microsoft 'Windows Mobile Classic' operating system...
and Nintendo Entertainment System
Nintendo Entertainment System
The Nintendo Entertainment System is an 8-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America during 1985, in Europe during 1986 and Australia in 1987...
(NES). This article is about the original Macintosh versions which introduced new interface ideas to the adventure game genre and were blueprints for the other versions.
History
The MacVenture engine was written in 1985 for the first game in the series, Deja Vu: a Nightmare Comes TrueDeja Vu: a Nightmare Comes True
Déjà Vu is a "point-and-click" adventure game set in the world of 1940s hard-boiled detective novels and movies. It was released in 1985 for Macintosh – the first in the MacVenture series – and later ported to several other systems...
. Making the entire game fit together with system software on two 400 k single-sided floppy disks proved to be quite a challenge and special image compression routines had to be written to accomplish this.
Déjà Vu was awarded SPA excellence in software awards for Best Entertainment Product and Best New World in 1986 as the first genuine point-and-click adventure game. The MacVenture interface saw no significant changes for the remaining three games.
A handful of sequels such as Beyond Shadowgate
Beyond Shadowgate
Beyond Shadowgate is a TurboGrafx CD sequel to the 1987 Mac and MacVenture Shadowgate. Unlike its predecessor, Beyond Shadowgate is a classical point-and-click adventure viewed from a platform perspective. The player controls Prince Erik, the descendant of the hero from the first game, Lord Jair...
and Shadowgate 64 were later made, with only the background story in common with the MacVenture games. The rights to the MacVentures are currently maintained by Infinite Ventures.
The "MacVenture" name was used in loading screens and about boxes – in the original releases for other platforms it was translated, e.g. "Atari Venture" or "PC Venture". MacVenture is the only of these used for referring to the game series in other contexts.
Developers
The MacVenture team had the following contributors to all four titles:- Darin AdlerDarin AdlerDarin Adler was the technical lead for Apple Computer's System 7 operating system release. During 1985–1987 he worked for ICOM Simulations as primary developer of the MacVenture series of games, including Shadowgate. Adler went on to work at General Magic and Eazel., he is the engineering manager...
(primary developer) - Steve Hays
- Waldemar Horwat
- David Marsh (graphics)
- Terry Schulenburg (as 'Schulenberg' in Déjà Vu)
- Todd Squires
- Jay Zipnick
The following people had part in the development of some of the games, as noted:
- Mitch Adler (Déjà Vu II)
- Fred Allen (Déjà Vu II)
- Brian Baker (Déjà Vu II)
- Scott Berfield (producer/designer: Uninvited, producer: Déjà Vu, Shadowgate)
- Ed Dluzen (Déjà Vu II)
- Craig Erickson (Déjà Vu, Uninvited)
- Dave FeldmanDave FeldmanDave Feldman is currently the sports anchor for WTTG-TV, the Fox Washington, D.C. affiliate. He joined the affiliate in August 2000 and has been its sports director since January 2001. Feldman also announces college basketball for MASN. Previously, he was an anchor and reporter for ESPN. Among his...
(Uninvited, Shadowgate, Déjà Vu II) - Michael Manning (Déjà Vu II)
- Kurt Nelson (Déjà Vu)
- Karl Roelofs (graphics: Shadowgate, Déjà Vu II)
- Paul Snively (Déjà Vu II)
- Julia Ulano (Déjà Vu II)
- Mark Waterman (Déjà Vu, Uninvited)
- Billy Wolfe (Uninvited)
- Tod Zipnick (Uninvited, Shadowgate, Déjà Vu II)
Features
The game interface is laid out in a once-novel "desktop" style in which objects are taken from the environment and added to the player's possessions by dragging and dropping them into the "inventory," and in which there are standard menu commands such as "Save as…". Multiple objects can be selected and used at the same time by shift-clicking, and there is even a "Clean up" command which sorts out the inventory in the same way as in the FinderMacintosh Finder
The Finder is the default file manager used on Mac OS and Mac OS X operating systems; it is responsible for the overall user-management of files, disks, network volumes and the launching of other applications...
(unlike the Finder, there is also a "Mess up" command). Much as with any non-game application, the various game windows can be rearranged according to taste and the font of the text window changed as well. The MacVenture games use the Macintosh's built in widget toolkit
Widget toolkit
In computing, a widget toolkit, widget library, or GUI toolkit is a set of widgets for use in designing applications with graphical user interfaces...
for the user interface which adds to the feeling of the game as a regular application.
Unlike 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...
or LucasArts' classic adventure games, MacVentures are played in first-person perspective. The player's current view is displayed in a graphic window accompanied by a symbolic birds-eye view of exits in a side window. The name of the current location is displayed as the title of the graphic window. A characteristic feature is the "self" window which provides a reference to the player himself for putting on clothes and the like.
The point-and-click approach means that no text commands are used except for occasional speech entered in a dialog box. Events taking place in the graphic window, as well as the result of the "examine" command (similar to "look" in other adventure games) are explained in a text window which also acts as a log of recent gameplay.
Content
The four MacVenture games all take place in settings common to movies. Two are hardboiledHardboiled
Hardboiled crime fiction is a literary style, most commonly associated with detective stories, distinguished by the unsentimental portrayal of violence and sex. The style was pioneered by Carroll John Daly in the mid-1920s, popularized by Dashiell Hammett over the course of the decade, and refined...
detective adventures, one is a haunted house
Haunted house
A haunted house is a house or other building often perceived as being inhabited by disembodied spirits of the deceased who may have been former residents or were familiar with the property...
ghost story, and the fourth a fantasy
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...
quest
Quest (gaming)
A quest in role-playing video games — including massively multiplayer online role-playing games and their predecessors, MUDs — is a task that a player-controlled character or group of characters may complete in order to gain a reward...
. The series has a lot of detail put into the game environment, in the form of a multitude of objects being able to act on each other. This gives a sense of depth to the environment, and -along the freedom to back and forth from room to room or street to street as you please- makes for a very non-linear
Linearity (computer and video games)
A video game with nonlinear gameplay presents players with challenges that can be completed in a number of different sequences. Each player sees only some of the challenges possible, and the same challenges may be played in a different order. A video game with linear gameplay will confront a player...
gameplay.
Possibly to counter this liberty, all MacVenture games have some kind of time limit woven into the story: in Shadowgate the player must collect torches to be able to look around, in Uninvited evil forces gradually take control and create visions at unexpected times. In Déjà Vu the character has been injected with a poison, and has limited time to find the antidote. In Déjà Vu II the character is told to collect money or he will be killed.
Graphics are shown in a 256
256 (number)
256 is the natural number following 255 and preceding 257.-In mathematics:256 is a composite number, with the factorization 256 = 28, which makes it a power of two....
×171-pixel
Pixel
In digital imaging, a pixel, or pel, is a single point in a raster image, or the smallest addressable screen element in a display device; it is the smallest unit of picture that can be represented or controlled....
window and, although interactive, remain mostly static. Some limited animation is featured on player-initiated actions and when entering a room. In Uninvited, Shadowgate and Déjà Vu II the about box
About box
An about box or about dialog is a dialog box that displays the credits and revision information of a computer software.Generally, most programs' about boxes include information about product name and installed version, company name, and copyright information...
has an animated presentation of the development team in the style of the game, accompanied by music.
The text element in the games is notably literate and plays a role in the character of the games. Object and location descriptions are written in a recognizable style, and descriptions of the player character can be quite disparaging (for example, looking at a flower vase in Uninvited, you are told, "It looks like a goldfish bowl, but it's serving as a vase. Function before form, perhaps -- just as in your case)."
Sound
The MacVentures make good but limited use of the original Mac's sound hardware, which allows for 22 kHzHertz
The hertz is the SI unit of frequency defined as the number of cycles per second of a periodic phenomenon. One of its most common uses is the description of the sine wave, particularly those used in radio and audio applications....
mono
Monaural
Monaural or monophonic sound reproduction is single-channel. Typically there is only one microphone, one loudspeaker, or channels are fed from a common signal path...
digitized sound. Sound effects consist mostly of door creaks and other noises related to actions, but Uninvited also presents some ambient sounds.
Except for the Winchester Cathedral sound in Uninvited, there is no music in the gameplay of the MacVentures. However, the three latter games feature elaborate about boxes with music and have ending scores.
Characteristic features
- The freedom to pick up (most) objects and drop them at another location, at any chosen position. This could create annoyingly realistic "where did I put that thing?" situations.
- The ability to put things inside hollow objects such as jars, bowls or drawers. Doing this increases the number of objects that can be carried in the inventory.
- The "self" window containing an object referencing the main character. In Déjà Vu and Uninvited, the self is simply an oval with the text SELF, in Shadowgate and Déjà Vu II it is decorated in the theme of the game. Clicking in the background of the inventory window acts as a shortcut for selecting the self.
- When starting over by selecting "New", the player is greeted by "Good morning"/-"afternoon"/-"evening" depending on the time of day.
- Saved gameSaved gameA saved game is a piece of digitally stored information about the progress of a player in a video game. This saved game can be reloaded later, so the player can continue where he or she had stopped...
s are stored as ordinary files, unlike the more common save slots used in adventure games at this time. - When completing the game, the player is given the option to enter her/his name and print a diploma in the theme of the game.
Ports
The MacVenture games were ported to a multitude of platforms, including game consoles. Because of hardware limitations, and possibly differing expectations on the user demographic, the games were limited when ported to different platforms—particularly the Nintendo Entertainment SystemNintendo Entertainment System
The Nintendo Entertainment System is an 8-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America during 1985, in Europe during 1986 and Australia in 1987...
. The Amiga and Apple IIGS
Apple IIGS
The Apple , the fifth and most powerful model in the Apple II series of personal computers produced by Apple Computer. The "GS" in the name stands for Graphics and Sound, referring to its enhanced graphics and sound capabilities, both of which greatly surpassed previous models of the line...
versions were translated rather faithfully and only lack some graphics detail (the Mac had typically twice their resolution). The DOS versions were more limited graphically as they used the 320x200 4-color CGA
Color Graphics Adapter
The Color Graphics Adapter , originally also called the Color/Graphics Adapter or IBM Color/Graphics Monitor Adapter, introduced in 1981, was IBM's first color graphics card, and the first color computer display standard for the IBM PC....
mode.
NES ports
Because of limited resolution and memory constraints inherent to the Nintendo Entertainment SystemNintendo Entertainment System
The Nintendo Entertainment System is an 8-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America during 1985, in Europe during 1986 and Australia in 1987...
(NES), a lot of detour game objects and interactions as well as some critical ones were removed. The "Consume" command was removed, and operating (renamed "use") could only be performed with objects in the inventory. Also lost was the ability to rearrange objects by dragging and dropping, necessitating "take" and "leave" commands. Leaving could only be performed on unnecessary game objects, this in combination with numerous changes uncalled for by technical constraints caused a much more guided and linear gameplay. For instance, in NES Déjà Vu the player is prohibited from leaving the bathroom without having looked in the mirror.
The descriptive texts were rewritten in a shorter and in a simplified vocabulary (there is no sign of a coordinated attempt, as some of the more literate game texts were left unaltered). Some of these alterations were most likely made in concordance with Nintendo's censorship policy of the time. In Uninvited the spells were turned into objects with names directly hinting at their use, the texts were also explicated to relieve players of unfolding the story by themselves. The digitized sound effects were removed, and music was introduced giving the game more of an arcade game
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...
feel.
Release dates
| Déjà Vu | Uninvited | Shadowgate | Déjà Vu II | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Macintosh | 1985 | 1986 | 1987 | 1988 |
| Amiga | 1986 | 1987 | 1987 | 1989 |
| Atari ST Atari ST The Atari ST is a home/personal computer that was released by Atari Corporation in 1985 and commercially available from that summer into the early 1990s. The "ST" officially stands for "Sixteen/Thirty-two", which referred to the Motorola 68000's 16-bit external bus and 32-bit internals... |
1987 | 1987 | n/a | 1989 |
| 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... |
1987 | 1987 | 1988 | 1990 |
| Commodore 64 Commodore 64 The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595... |
1987 | 1988 | n/a | n/a |
| Apple IIGS Apple IIGS The Apple , the fifth and most powerful model in the Apple II series of personal computers produced by Apple Computer. The "GS" in the name stands for Graphics and Sound, referring to its enhanced graphics and sound capabilities, both of which greatly surpassed previous models of the line... |
1988 | 1988 | 1988 | 1989 |
| NES Nintendo Entertainment System The Nintendo Entertainment System is an 8-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America during 1985, in Europe during 1986 and Australia in 1987... |
1990 | 1991 | 1989 | n/a |
Remakes
In the early 1990s ICOM Simulations made new versions of the four MacVentures for Windows 3.1 (the previous DOS ports used custom controls rather than Windows). These versions used a similar engine and the same objects and text. However, graphics and sound were completely remade (save for the Winchester Cathedral record in Uninvited) with little effort to adhere to the game environments as depicted in the original versions. This created several anomalies where the textual descriptions do not match the way objects look.The remade graphics were also used in the Infinite Ventures releases for Pocket PC.