Noctropolisis a 1994MS-DOSthird-personadventure gameby Flashpoint Productions and published byElectronic Arts.The player assumes the role of the character Peter Grey, a lonely bookstore owner who winds up in the world of his favorite comic book. Grey discovers that he is destined to assume the role of his former comic book hero.[2]
| Noctropolis | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer(s) | Flashpoint Productions |
| Publisher(s) | Electronic Arts |
| Producer(s) | Roland Kippenhan III |
| Designer(s) | Brent Erickson Shaun Mitchell |
| Programmer(s) | Colin McLaughlan |
| Artist(s) | Shaun Mitchell |
| Composer(s) | Ron Saltmarsh Andy Warr |
| Platform(s) | MS-DOS Microsoft Windows Linux macOS |
| Release |
|
| Genre(s) | Adventure game |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Gameplay
editThis style of gameplay is mostly third-personpoint-and-click,with somecut scenes.The player not only has to locate items but carefully choose dialog to gather information to help them progress through the game.
Characters in the game weredigitizedfromanalogfootage, allowing for real life characters to be placed in2Ddigital environments.
Reception
edit| Publication | Score |
|---|---|
| Computer Gaming World |    [3] |
| Next Generation | [4] |
| Albuquerque Journal | 4/5[5] |
Charles ArdaiofComputer Gaming World,while approving of the game's visual style and detailed art, criticized that the game has a simplistic interface and uses juvenile shock value in the form of gratuitous violence and sexual content in order to distract from the lack of substance to the story. He added, "It's also highly derivative, both of actual comic books and of other computer games."[3]A reviewer forNext Generationhighly praised the game's story, abstract and challenging puzzles, comic-book style backgrounds, digitized character animation, soundtrack, and dark atmosphere. Though he remarked that some of the dialogue is silly for aMature-ratedgame, and that many of the puzzles require illogical leaps of intuition, he concluded that "Those not requiring the utmost in realism will find this to be one of the best graphic adventures of the season."[4]
Legacy
editIn 2015Night Dive Studiosacquired the rights of the game and was able to recover thesource codefrom the original developer.[6]The game'sassembly codewas ported with the help of the original developer toC++to port the game to modern platforms. On 3 September 2015, the enhanced port was released on Steam, on 21 January 2016 followed a release on theDRM-freedistributorGOG.[7]The remastered game features full compatibility with contemporary computers, a remastered soundtrack, improved keyboard/mouse support with rebindable keys/buttons and severalbug fixes,and removed dead-end situations that would render the game unwinnable. Night Dive Studios releasedLinuxandmacOSversions of its port on 27 October 2017.[8]Players whopirateda copy of this version ofNoctropoliswill see their character imprisoned on thegame overscreen instead of the standard animations.[9]
References
edit- ^"Computer Game Review and CD-ROM Entertainment - November 1994".Retrieved2024-03-12.
- ^Addams, Shay."Noctropolis".QuestBusters.No. 115. p. 9.Archivedfrom the original on 25 March 2016.Retrieved8 January2015.
- ^abArdai, Charles(February 1995)."See You in the Funny Papers"(PDF).Computer Gaming World.No. 127. pp. 74–76.Archived(PDF)from the original on September 23, 2015.RetrievedAugust 5,2015.
- ^ab"Noctropolis".Next Generation(3).Imagine Media:93–94. March 1995.
- ^Hall, Mike (April 21, 1995)."Game for sleuthing? Spicy voyeur satisfles".Albuquerque Journal.p. 75.RetrievedAugust 3,2022– viaNewspapers.
- ^IamA Founder of Night Dive Studios, Stephen Kick - We track down and restore classic video games! AMA!Archived2016-07-21 at theWayback Machineby Stephen Kick onreddit"We were provided the source code to Noctropolis by the original designer who also helped us translate the assembly language code into, I believe was C++? He had all the original source files which is rare to come by"(22 June 2016)
- ^release_noctropolisArchived2016-08-13 at theWayback Machineon gog
- ^"MacOS and Linux versions are now available".Steam.Valve.27 October 2017.Retrieved16 December2019.
- ^Maciejewski, A.J."Nightdive Studios: Modernizing Classics like a Boss".Video Chums.Retrieved10 September2018.