Forever Worlds

Lore & Background

The game was created by Courtland Shakespeare and Peter Faluisi. Hexagon Production Manager Peter Faluisi explained the philosophy: 'Players are so experienced today and know all the clichés and are a bit jaded, so it gets harder to surprise and entertain them. That’s what we wanted to do. We wanted to make everyone smile...with [the] creativ[ity] and original[ity of] old sci-fi stories and cult movies...and have some fun again while playing a game.' The audio and music were done by Steve Sauve, who also worked on Hexagon's previous game Jewels of the Oracle (1995). The development team used graphics packages like LightWave, Maya, 3DS Max, and Virtools Dev. According to Faluisi, 'This allows us to do high-polygon count (hi-res) images for the 360 navigation nodes and the animations and also makes it easier to put together chunks of object oriented code with Dev’s Building Blocks technology.'

The gameplay engine sees the player navigate through fixed locations, where one can then manipulate a full 360 degrees, and click to move to the next location. The gameplay is reminiscent of the DreamCatcher game Beyond Time. In order to solve the puzzles, 'the player needs to think and experiment a little.' The cursor indicates puzzles, paths, informational popups, and potential inventory items. The plot follows scientist protagonist Jack Lanser, who commences a quest, and soon after his body is body-snatched, and the possessor runs off with the player's girlfriend. It is up to the player, now inhabiting a different body, to right the wrongs.

Reader's Guide

Forever Worlds received a Metacritic score of 31% based on 10 critic reviews, indicating generally unfavorable reception. Tap Repeatedly commented: 'Though the game world visuals are sumptuous and the animation in the cutscenes first-rate, the dialogue doesn't play and the puzzles have none of the physical intelligence of the developer's earlier work.' AdventureClassicGaming concluded: 'While the game possesses some excellent cinematic cut scenes and animations, it is also spoiled by far too many failings that range from a cumbersome user interface to poor storytelling to confusing puzzle mechanics.' The game's significance lies in its ambition to satirize adventure game conventions and its technical approach using high-polygon 360-degree nodes, but it is remembered primarily for its critical failure and the disconnect between its visual polish and gameplay execution.

Did You Know?

• The game was developed by Canadian studio Hexagon Entertainment and released in 2004.
• Its game engine is similar to that used in Post Mortem and Syberia.