| Colonel's Bequest, The: A Laura Bow Mystery | Sierra On-Line | 1989 | |
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This first game in the Laura Bow series created by Roberta Williams using SCI0. It uses 4-bit color (16 colors) and a typing interface. It's set in the 1920s, which gives the game a unique, Art Deco style. The game's main character is Laura Bow, a Tulane University student who is invited by her friend Lillian to spend a weekend at the decaying sugar plantation of Colonel Dijon. When the reclusive, childless Colonel gathers his quarrelsome relatives for a reading of his will, tensions explode and the bickering leads to murder. Throughout the game, Laura remains stranded on the island surrounded by suspects and potential victims in a classical Agatha Christie manner. All Laura can do is observe the family and witness murders. Apart from this, there is also an optional, secondary backplot concerning a hidden treasure. The game will be finished no matter how Laura solves the puzzles, since the score is expressed by the means of a clock and time advances by a quarter-hour when new plot elements are witnessed. A murder happens every 1 hour. This is the only Sierra game which is more character-driven than puzzle-driven. Although solving puzzles is crucial for obtaining a high score, discovering information about the characters' backgrounds and their relationships with each other is more important to the game. It features two different endings, a right one and a wrong one, based on your final action. The game closes with a detective rating, dependant on how much of the mystery you actually solved. | ||
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