It was the early nineties and the game world was different. Presumably, many fans today see this as a better time, but as often happens this is not quite true and nostalgia blurs the view. But undeniably, it was a time when ideas were not lacking and certain genres had room to appreciate. One of them was point and click adventurestoday , which has lost its media power and exists mainly through the efforts of independent productions and reprints of old classics .
But lately, the genre has also been gaining new momentum, thanks to slightly larger productions. Future projects like Monkey Island include PC, Mac, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One and Xbox Series X | There’s also a new Simon the Sorcerer planned for the S. This new episode will be called Simon the Sorcerer Origins and will position itself as the prequel to the original episode.
But before we look to the future, let’s take a step back and remember exactly what happened. Sorcerer Simon.
Wizard Simon and Adventure Soft
1993, England. Developer Adventure Soft preparing for the release of a new point-and-click adventure: Simon the Wizard. The protagonist is the owner of Simon, a little boy who has been transported to a parallel universe full of magic and monsters, and now his mission is to become a magician and save another from an evil wizard. The most famous features of Simon the Sorcerer were humor, his vast world full of interesting characters, and above all the excellent graphic quality that impressed the players and critics of the time.
Mike was in charge of the project woodroffe and his son Simon Woodroffe (no, the character’s name is not dedicated to the latter), who wrote the script for the adventure, aimed above all to create a magical world that was adequate to his characters and not just thought. around puzzles. There was also a conscious effort to make Simon the Wizard’s comedy more “English” to distinguish it from Monkey Island.
It was definitely a project born out of the passion of Woodroffe and his small team of just 15 people at the time. The company formerly known as HorrorSoft made horror games, and Woodroffe felt it was time to change and give a game a try. funny game (caused the company name to be changed to Adventure Soft).
this success It was immediate, with a total of 600,000 copies sold and excellent press ratings. The saga was then continued with a second chapter in 1995: Simon the Wizard II: The Lion, the Sorceress and the Wardrobe, clearly inspired by The Chronicles of Narnia. This too was liked and appreciated in 2002, but switched to 3D in terms of the industry’s new fad: It was a complex project and it didn’t get the likes he had hoped for.
Incredibly, the saga did not end there, but continued with various other games in the years that followed. followed: Wizard Simon 4: Chaos Becomes (2007, Silver Style Shows Entertainment Germans changing hands), Wizard Simon 5: Who Wants Communication?! (2009) and Simon the Wizard 6: Between Worlds (2014, made by Irish company StoryBeasts). In the middle of all this, we can also talk about a Pinball game and a puzzle game with three games based on the world of Simon the Sorcerer.
There The second life of the sorceress Simon but it has been lived in silence for an epic that has lost its original power. However, the hope for a great new episode did not die, as the Italians of Smallthing Studios managed to get the license to create a new game from the original author: Simon the Sorcerer Origins.
Simon the Sorcerer Origins
Little Thing Studios An Italian team (also has a branch in the USA) founded by Massimiliano Calamai, CEO and Game Director, and Stefano Campo dall’Orto, who takes the role of CTO and Chief Coder. We are talking about two historical figures of the Italian video game market who throughout their careers collaborated with big companies and created video games such as Fightin’ Spirit, Pray For Death and more, as well as games dedicated to Martin Mystere and Diabolik.
It was exactly to tell us a little more about Simon the Wizard’s Origins. Massimiliano Calamaiduring one of our last shorts, which you can review in full format below.
Simon the Sorcerer Origins, as previously mentioned, takes us back to the dawn of the saga and is a prequel to 1993’s first episode. Set A few weeks before the events that kicked off the series, and as Calamai told us, the plot was made using “minor flaws” in the original story to ensure this adventure was perceived by fans as a natural addition to the franchise.
woodroffe He was impressed with what Smallthing Studios achieved in terms of expression and style. Obviously, getting the license was not an easy process and it took a year to perfect the core components of the game and complete the deal. The difficulties were also linked to the fact that for Woodroofe, Simon the Sorcerer was a project born of passion. Calamai explains that if it’s enough to put enough money on the table for a great IP, it’s far more important for an epic like this to show that you have a winning idea and that you can respect its integrity.
Obviously, this doesn’t mean making a carbon copy of the original, but rather putting your own inside. Smallthing Studios really revolutionized the graphicsproposes a new cartoon style for the saga.
“Actually, Simon’s never artistic guidelines:Simon 1 and 2 were pixel art titles because that was the technique of the time. “Calamai explains that nowadays we tend to see the style of these types of games as something unique and deeply studied, but quite simply pixel-only graphics style available to developers.
Simon just needed to suggest graphs that could convey. fairy tale atmosphere plot, but “directions first and second [capitolo]Other episodes released shortly after [realizzati] based on age and technology: there has never been a studio.”
So it’s only natural that The Wizard’s Origins Simon would follow his own path at the stylistic level as well. Jokingly, Calamai explains to us that the team had a heart attack by proposing to Mike Woodroffe a complete overhaul of the visual component. Seriously, Smallthing Studios convince the original creator Simon said he has “the power, resources, skills and quality because our artists are able to breathe new life into this license.”
Moreover interface With the verbs of the 90s, it has been made much more modern without breaking its old structure. Unfortunately Calamai wasn’t able to give us very precise details, but explained to us that Simon the Wizard’s Origins is “a point-and-click adventure, modern, simple, a story to tell for us, you can have a joypad, Commodor 64 or ColecoVision pad. It’s a joystick of ‘, but you just need to have fun naturally, so our interface will be very simple and very natural. Therefore, we will not have verbs, which is an evolution of text adventures. A necessity to have 80’s and less visual display technique”.
“We will have a modern interface, we think it is very practical with some beauties – I have to say – it’s special and original that’s part of the ‘little heart attack’ for Mike … but we really like these: very original ideas, a few of them never adopted in adventure games, but we’re convinced that it works really well.”
Origins of the Wizard Simon is therefore a modern game, not just fans of the genre and a project that wants to capitalize on the original saga. Even at the narrative level, as a prequel, it won’t pretend to know the first episode, but there will obviously be references and easter eggs to what happened in the 1993 game.
Simon the Sorcerer is a born project. passion Adventure Soft and Origins: Leonardo Interactive will return to modern PCs and consoles thanks to the passion of an Italian team that has proudly selected an Italian publisher. Calamai explains to us: “We really liked the idea that they were Italian, we wanted an Italian-only operation: we really liked the idea, a stone’s throw from London alone there was almost a fire of pride ignited. […] Frankly, we had many opportunities outside of Italy, but [i membri di Leonardo Interactive] they are intelligent, full of passion, full of desire to make it work”.
We are also looking forward to trying the game, which is only available with a small trailer for now: Calamai confirms that various graphics improvements and optimizations are coming for the final version. The wait is not too long Simon the Sorcerer Origins Coming in the first quarter of 2023: you can already put it on the Wishlist on Steam.
Source: Multiplayer
