Anacapri: The Dream
Preview
Enjoy some pretty pics of warm places? Capri, here I come!
by Marcus Mulkins
previewed on PC
The plot thickens, sort of... (cont.)
For some reason, the local authorities have decided that you, and only you – no teams of scientists; no troops of military personnel; no panels of researchers and scholars; no support from anyone – are the only person capable of locating and dealing with the mysterious disk. And you will find the disk simply by talking to the few people that remain and on their information you must figure out where to go and what questions to ask when you get there.
Despite the ominous tone overlaying the game, there is NO violence, no shootings, no blood. Just a LOT of wandering around; lots of questions and answers; follow the clues to find where X marks the spot.
The modus operandi
Think Myst using actual photographs instead of computer artists’ renderings. (Just think how much they saved on programmers’ wages!) Like Myst, you see the world through the eyes of the protagonist. (You don’t even get to see yourself in a mirror as you pass by.) Many locations will provide as much as a 180-degree pan of what there is to be seen at that point. Items of interest within the photo are easy to note as they sort of stand out (on the Easy setting), and clicking on them may result in a zoomed in view. (If you’ve ever done HTML programming, recall using the MAPping function to create “hot spots” with links to other pages.) There are “dozens” of logical puzzles that must be solved along the way. (Dozens? Out of over 8,000 photographs?) And over 40 – count them: 40! characters to be interacted with. Just so you don’t forget that there is a matter of some urgency, nearly everyone that you are able to interact with will exclaim, "Find the Obsidian Disk before it's too late!" Of course, no one seems to know when, exactly, “too late” is. Nor do they explain what the dire consequences of “too late” is. Just for spice, every once in awhile there is an actual animation.
And really not so surprisingly, there is a “walking tour” option for those that want to simply get a really good idea of what the north end of Capri looks like. [If that’s your primary interest in the game, then you will be well rewarded.]
That’s pretty much it. From the introduction, you’re given some suggestions as to where to start your search. Go to those places, look around (and look, and look, and look). If there’s someone there, ask some questions (after the inevitable "Find the Obsidian Disk before it's too late!"), get the inevitable indications that you need to look in a lot of other places. Go there. Repeat frequently. Sooner or later, you find the disk and then do with it whatever an expert in ancient civilizations should do with a (ominous music) Dark Obsidian Disk.
