Valhalla: Before the War
| Valhalla: Before the War | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer(s) | Vulcan Software |
| Publisher(s) | Vulcan Software |
| Designer(s) | Paul Hale Carrington, Lisa Tunnah |
| Platform(s) | Amiga |
| Release date(s) | 1995 |
| Genre(s) | Adventure |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
Valhalla: Before the War is the prequel to the game Valhalla and the Lord of Infinity, set 10 years before the events in that game. It was released in 1995 for the Amiga computer system. The game is known for the in game speech and is the second ever Amiga speech adventure (the first being Lord of Infinity in 1994 and the third was the sequel Valhalla and the Fortress of Eve in 1995). The programming and graphics for the game were produced by Paul Hale Carrington, and the game design and story were produced by Lisa Tunnah. The game was published by Vulcan Software in the UK.
Plot
The player takes control of the character of Infinity from the first game's mentor. The game is set in a castle named Valhalla which contains many puzzles to solve. Infinity is jealous of his brother, the Good King Garamond as he has taken, in Infinity's opinion Infinity's place as king. Infinity's rage brings him to the decision to destroy his brother so that he will take the place as King.
Technical information
Valhalla: Before the War was released on 3.5 Inch Floppy Disk for multiple Amiga systems. there were 6 disks in total, the Valhalla Disk, a disk for each of the 4 levels, and the Data Disk. It can be installed onto a hard drive or played directly from the floppy disks, it required 1MB of RAM to run. The game is controlled entirely by Joystick. There is a copy protection system which involved the player being required to answer questions about symbols in the game manual correctly three times. Workbench 1.3 or higher is required.[1]
Game play
Progressing in the game involved solving a series of puzzles, with a selling point claiming there to be "thousands of logical puzzles". The Interface was a top down view of the character within rooms inside the castle Valhalla. When the fire button is pressed the player can access icons that have certain actions, these are:
- Map: Represented by an icon of a compass. This function will display a map of the current level
- Look: Represented by an icon of an eye. This function will tell Infinity to inspect the contents of the square directly in front of him and report on it
- Take: Represented by an icon of an open hand. This function will cause Infinity to take the object in the square in front of him.
- Operate: Represented by the icon of a spanner. This function will cause Infinity to attempt to operate the object in the square in front of him.
- Joystick: Represented by an icon of a joystick. This function will return the game play to the walking mode.
- Disk Access: Represented by an icon of a floppy disk. This function will produce an options screen where the player can choose to restart the level, save the current position to disk and load a saved position.
- Mouth: Represented by an icon of a mouth. This function controls how much Infinity speaks, with two modes.
The player can also access a rucksack that contains items that can be picked up during the game. Using the rucksack is similar to how the main menu operates and has the icons Look, Drop, Insert, Drink, and Joystick to return the player to walking mode. Potions can be drank during certain points in the game which effect Infinity's abilities. Infinity's health is measured in a Stamina indicator. If the indicator reaches the bottom then Infinity will die, stamina top-ups can be found during the levels.
Reaction and Future
Valhalla: Before the War was produced on the success of Valhalla and the Lord of Infinity, it too was successful enough to warrant a sequel to be produced commercially and a year after Before the War came out, Valhalla and the Fortress of Eve was released. The game received mostly poor review ratings (Amiga Format 40% ,[2] Amiga Power 19% ,[3] The One Amiga 44% ,[4] Amiga Computing 45% [5]) in addition to 90% from CU Amiga[6] and was a success for Vulcan Software. Lord of Infinity is Vulcan Software's first game produced and published and so the company, out of celebration of the series has reproduced the games with updated graphics and audio and are available for free download in episodic format for the Microsoft Windows operating system. New Valhalla content is still in development, such as classic episodes and a 3D game using the Mother3D engine developed by Vulcan.
See also
References
- ↑ Valhalla: Before the War Instruction Manual. Vulcan Software. 1995.
- ↑ Steve McGill (March 1995). "Valhalla: Before the War Amiga Format review". Amiga Format. p. 62.
- ↑ Jonathan Nash (March 1995). "Valhalla: Before the War Amiga Power review". Amiga Power. p. 46.
- ↑ Harry Attrill (March 1995). "Valhalla: Before the War The One Amiga review". The One Amiga. p. 48.
- ↑ Tina Hackett (March 1995). "Valhalla: Before the War Amiga Computing review". Amiga Computing. p. 108.
- ↑ Dillon, Tony (March 1995). "Valhalla: Before the War CU Amiga review". CU Amiga (EMAP). p. 55.