The world of Discworld is a weird and wonderful place that has inspired many imaginations and continued the franchise into many factions from books, movies, radio and stage adaptations as well as the old Windows / DOS PC games. Staged into a total of three editions, Discworld I, (Mortality Bytes) II and Noir (or III); these games were once the pioneers of PC games that have made the gaming industry slowly climb to the zenith it has reached today. Considering the time when games actually had to be built with hardcore artwork and carefully slow manipulation of software platforms; Discworld was considered a huge success and commended on its graphical displays and environments.

Discworld is an adventure game based on characters of the book, while the third part is more based on the film adaptation. Originally released during the time when floppies were still in use; the game was later developed into various versions ranging from CDs to an Apple Mac version. Though now available in the $5 budget shelves; we have to remember that this game is as old as the hills. Still a well loved puzzle and adventure game for few teenagers and kids, some levels and sequences are worth watching at any age. Voiced and scripted well, with good sound and visual effects, this game was the hit of the early gaming world.

The first story follows the Wizard Rincewind and his adventure with the Dragons in the world created by Terry Partchett and voiced in the game by comedian Eric Idle. The adventure involves looking for missing clues and finding different secrets in 4 sequences. The second story is again following the adventures of the hero Rincewind as Death himself goes missing and the folk of Discworld cannot die properly. The third installment though has not got such deep relevance to the books, but in fact follows the detective Lewton looking for a missing person in Discworld. A funny and witty script, with great concepts and presentations as well as smooth humorous elements; this game was fun to go through in spite of being quite short compared to games today.

Discworld was developed in 1995 by Perfect Entertainment (then Teeny Weeny Games and Perfect 10 separately) and launched by Psygnosis and later GT Interactive. The team did great work on the art and dialogues, but was criticized for the initially terrible mechanical support, weak technicalities and system bugs. Now though, any Discworld game you buy off the stalls will pose no qualms with your PC as the system requirements are just as ancient for the game. A basic Windows NT/2000 or even 98 should be enough, with about 4 MB of memory for running it. Very basic CD ROMs and the simplest of VGA support can help you get over and of the past freezing or sound issues many early gamers had faced. Many people also felt that the first Floppy and CD versions made it pain to learn all the controls because the tech support was so bad. It would take ages to try get across one level in itself.

Overall, the reception of Discworld during the late 90s in all its 3 editions was great. A mobile video interactive application known as Colors of Magic was also developed early in mobile game development; but I doubt you could pull it out of any archive now.

Tags: adventure game, Discworld, DOS, dosbox, Old Games, PC, Perfect Entertainment