'Elansar'

by Onorisoft

Welcome to the Island of Elansar!

And we're welcome indeed to a new venture in semi-commercial games software for the Falcon 030, the first in a long time.

Orion, a long time coding, gaming and Atari fanatic foreshadowed this release with a number of interesting videos on Youtube showing a new game being made. It looked promising, a graphical adventure breaking the 'holy' low resolution graphical limits. But experience cautioned in case it became another vapourware. A sad but typical tale of a half-started and half-hearted project, born out of hope, killed by lack of commitment and time.

However, looking back at Orion's previous track record shows some solid achievements and releases, including some interesting material for the Jaguar console. Even those people not inclined to have much faith would have sat up and paid attention towards the end of last year, when the "We reached stars" demo was released for the CT60 Falcon. Suddenly this new game, with the fancy moniker of "Elansar' didn't seem so far-fetched and insubstantial after all.

Excitement built up, when a Firebee version was announced to appear alongside the Falcon version. Indeed these came on the same CD-ROM together. It was finally in the summer of 2012, when the finished package arrived in my post, having previously paid my 15 EUR.

The CD-ROM is nicely done and is an attractive product. The box artwork is made up from some of the beautiful rendered images taken from the game itself. The CD insert also includes some instructions for getting going and basic control information.

The system requirements are not too onerous. A stock Falcon capable of outputting a VGA display at 256 colours is all that is needed. And 50 MB of disk space would be nice as well. It does run on higher end systems, even on CTPCI but outputting through the 'auxiliary' video output via the Videl. The Firebee version prefers a true colour mode. There are versions for the PeeCee and Mac. And Android and Atari Jaguar console versions are under development too.

Starting up reveals a GEM dialogue box. This game is try-lingual and includes French, German and English. Once decided, a nice little 'Orion' swirling galaxy logo appears, then the title screen. You then arrive at the starting point for the adventure.

A brief exploration reveals a beautiful island on a perfect summer day. It appears you are confronted with a locked door mystery. The left hand mouse button moves you around the island to explore it further. A leaking boat and a mysterious tower are discovered. Neither seem to be responsive to your touch.

Clicking on the right hand mouse button shows an inventory of the objects you are carrying and are able to use. At the start, just a bracelet. What possible use could this be?

The mouse cursor changes according to whether you can move in a specific direction, or manipulate an object in your path. A dialogue parchment text box appears at the bottom of the screen, advising of success or otherwise. You can right click into the inventory and utilise objects in conjunction with other things found.

So far, we are confronted with a locked door, a mysterious tower, and an island that seems to be small, but manages to reveal quite a lot of scenic locations when explored a bit more. These act as pure eye-candy in between screens where objects are found and actions have consequences. Another location reveals more objects, most of them not quite in reach and needing something else to make them accessible. a spare nail appears to have helped with the damaged control dial on the mysterious tower, but so far, it is unclear how?

The scenes are static, if beautifully done. This game has some resemblance to the old classic graphical adventure 'Myst'. I'd have liked a little bit of animation with some of the beach scenes in particular, but I guess this would push up memory usage and other requirements very highly,

Did I mention the gorgeous sampled sound. The waves crashing make it feel like you are there. I guess I did now!

There aren't too many plot spoilers. I haven't got that far yet. But it is apparent that a lot of work and time has gone into this project from Orion and that 15 EUR is cheap for this kind of work.

If you're of a reflective and gentle game playing disposition, Elansar cannot be faulted at all. Action thriller fans will have to look elsewhere though!

Ratings..

Graphics:- 88% - Aesthetically soothing rendered work if static in nature, joins a small and fairly exclusive club of games that use the Falcon's 256 colour VGA graphics mode.

Sound:- 90% - Atmospheric sampled and appropriate background noises.

Playability:- 85% - Fairly simple style of adventuring. Good responsiveness and use of the mouse and inventory system. Some interesting puzzles ahead.

Overall:- 89% - A worthwhile investment of time and cash for this one.

CiH for Mag! - November 2012

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