Chronomaster
A 1995 adventure with a plot by Roger Zelazny.
Chronomaster is a point-and-click adventure game developed by DreamForge Intertainment and published by IntraCorp for MS-DOS compatible operating systems. Its main plot was written by novelist Roger Zelazny, making it his last known work as he died during development. The game follows retired pocket universe designer Rene Korda, voiced by Ron Perlman, as he investigates a temporal stasis affecting two such universes.
Quick Facts
- Developer
- DreamForge Intertainment
- Publisher
- IntraCorp
- Capstone Software
- U.S. Gold
- Designer
- Jane Lindskold; Roger Zelazny
- Programmer
- Mike Breitkreutz
- Rip Jaffurs
- Don Wuenschell
- Artist
- Jane Yeager; Michael Nicholson
- Composer
- Jamie McMenamy
- Released
- December 20, 1995
- Genre
- Adventure
Facts from the source article.
Gameplay
Each pocket universe contains a single solar system with one to several worlds Korda can visit. To progress, Korda must travel to magnetic North on each world and use a resonance tracer to locate the world key, which is protected by a unique puzzle and controls the universe's temporal flow. Pocket universes reflect the personality of their owner; for example, Verdry, owned by a woman who created a philosophical movement centered on nonsense and unreality, contains a world shaped and colored like an Easter egg. Korda uses bottled time to create a field of normal time within stagnant universes, and a context-sensitive tool that offers different functions depending on the universe. He is accompanied by his PDA Jester, a flying blue spherical robot voiced by Lolita Davidovich who provides comic relief, and later by Milo, voiced by Brent Spiner, a former student and sole survivor of a pirate attack. The game features heavy use of CG cutscenes and offers non-linearity, with many unnecessary tasks and puzzles that often have two solutions.
Reception
According to Charles Ardai of Computer Gaming World, Chronomaster was commercially unsuccessful. A reviewer for Next Generation praised its detailed graphics, simple interface, entertaining dialogue, puzzles of moderate difficulty, and deep story about immortality, universe construction, and the nature of time. The same reviewer appreciated the voice acting from well-known stars but noted that some lesser-known actors gave painful performances. A Maximum reviewer lauded the story and presentation, calling it a prime example of Zelazny's ability to create a compelling story that rewrites the rules of science, and described the pre-rendered graphics as stunning. Chronomaster was a runner-up for Computer Gaming World's 1995 Adventure Game of the Year award, losing to I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream; the editors wrote that both the script and voice talents lift it above usual genre standards. It was also nominated for Computer Games Strategy Plus's 1996 adventure game of the year, losing to The Neverhood.
More in Point-and-Click Adventure Games of the 1990s
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