Dragonsphere is a graphic adventure with substance. Unlike many games of similar intent, this one delivers a solid punch in terms of player action and decision making. The story is sufficiently evolved to assure meaningful consequences of your characters' impact on the proceedings.
Dear Abandonia visitors: We are a small team that runs one of the largest DOS Games websites in the world. We have only 3 members of staff, but serve 450,000 users and have outgoing costs like any other top site for example: our servers, power, rent, programs, and staff. Abandonia is something special. It is a library of old games for you to download. It is like an old gaming arcade with all the old games in their original format. Abandonia is a place where you can find great old games and have fun four hours and years. To protect our independence, we are dependent of our friends using the site.
We run on donations averaging around 6 USD (5 Euro). If everyone reading this gave the price of a cup of coffee, our fundraiser would be made easier. If Abandonia is useful to you, take one minute to keep it online for another year. Please help us forget fundraising and get back to Abandonia. STORYDragonsphere is an adventure game made by MicroProse in 1994.
Watch the intro to learn about the evil Sorceror Sanwe arriving in the land of Callahach. The King took his son Callash (you), and his Royal Wizard Ner-Tom on a quest to imprison Sanwe within a forcefield.
However, Sanwe is a powerful sorcerer, and the forcefield will not hold him forever. So Ner-Tom created the Dragonsphere - a globe that represents Sanwe's status. As long as the Dragonsphere is intact, then the kingdom is safe.But that was 20 years ago. Now you (Callosh) have grown up, and you have been crowned King. The Dragonsphere is cracking, and Sanwe is breaking free from his prison. He is seeking revenge for his imprisonment, and only you can stop him.
The fate of the kingdom lies in your hands now - you MUST defeat Sanwe before it is too late. Explore all the lands in your kingdom in order to reach Sanwe's tower, and then stop him before before he regains full power. Can you destroy the evil Sanwe once and for all, or is your kingdom doomed forever?There is an interesting plot twist in this game, which I did not expect. I won't tell you what happens - I'll let you find that out for yourself.
But I will say that defeating Sanwe is only half the battle.GAMEPLAYThis game uses a nice point and click system, which makes it easy to play. At the bottom-left of the screen, there is a list of verbs - Look, Open, Give, Talk To, etc. You can use these verbs to interact with your environment. Next, is a list of your inventory items.
You can scroll up and down this list by clicking on the up and down arrows. If you click on one of your inventory items, you will see a small picture of that item in the next box. In the final box, you will see any extra actions that can be done with the currently selected inventory item. For example, click on 'Shieldstone' from you inventory list to see a picture of it. The word 'Polish' will appear in the last box. Simply click on that word to polish your Shieldstone.Click on 'Talk To', and then a character, to start a conversation. A list of dialogue options are shown at the bottom of the screen, and you can choose what to say.
I liked the fact that characters are shown in a 'pop up' box as they talk.Pressing 'F1' will bring up a menu to allow you to save your game, restore a game, check your score, or quit the game. Pressing 'F5' will bring up another menu that gives you some game play options. You can turn music and sound on or off, adjust the smoothness of panning, and a few other things.The only niggle I have is the Desert Sands game. In the desert, you have to play Desert Sands with the Caliph several times, and I found that very frustrating. It is more of a 'Guess Which Colour Will Come Next' game.
The colours appear randomly, and there was no logic to it.COPY PROTECTIONAt the High Tower, you must answer 3 questions correctly before enteringthe Tower. If you get the questions wrong, then you die. I found no clueabout these questions anywhere in the game, so I am guessing it issome kind of copy protection.To save your sanity, here are the questions:Q1: What colour are the Sorcerer's eyes?A: Red.Q2: Where does the Sorcerer carry a scar?A: His leg.Q3: What human food does the Sorcerer prize above all others?A: Beef stew.GRAPHICSThe graphics are very rich and detailed, which really brings the whole game to life. Everything from the grandness of the Castle, to the stark desert, to wonderous Brynn-Fann. Each land has its own unique identity, and it is a joy to explore them all.The characters themselves are very well animated. All their movements are nice and smooth, and it makes them seem very lifelike. The whole atmosphere draws you into the game.
As I said before, I especially like how characters are shown in a 'pop up' box as they talk, and the conversation is shown as text, next to them.MUSIC AND SOUND EFFECTSThe music is quite dramatic. It really suits the mood of the game, without distracting you. There are a few sound effects, such as the wind in the desert, the sound of pages turning as you read a book, the toads croaking in Brynn-Fann, and a few more.CHARACTERSThere are so many wierd and wonderful characters in this game. The Soptus Ecliptus are a very unique race, and they were my favourite.
The Shak bird-men are half men-half bird, and they are interesting to talk to. Of course, we can't forget about the Sorcerer Sanwe. There are many other characters that you will enjoy meeting as well.PUZZLESThere are 2 modes of play for this game - Novice or Challenging. There are not many differences between the modes, but the Desert Sands game seemed to be a lot harder to win in Challenge Mode.
The puzzles are quite tricky at times, but a lot of fun to work out. You cannot really die in this game. If you fail at a puzzle, you are given another chance to complete it.SUMMARYThis is a lovely adventure game that I really enjoyed playing.
The story is well written, and the music is just right for the game. The point and click system makes it very easy to play, and the graphics are incredibly smooth. Puzzles are challenging, and you get a good feeling of satisfaction when you have solved a tricky situation. I can highly recommend this game.You will need to set the sound for this game by using INSTALL.EXE. You will see a screen with 4 options.
You cannot install the game to your hard disk, so choose RECONFIGURE HARDWARE OPTIONS. The next screen you see is for MUSIC & SOUND EFFECTS - I found that SOUNDBLASTER (Original) works best.
The next screen is for DIGITISED SPEECH. Since there is no speech in this game, it makes no difference what you pick here. Finally, we reach the GAME PLAY OPTIONS. Select whichever options you prefer here.
Since there is no speech, you need to make sure that TEXT BOXES DURING DMA SPEECH are visible. Now, EXIT TO DOS.Use Dragon.Bat to start the game, and then crank the cycles up to 10000.
At the risk of sounding flighty; if computer graphics are the artistic media of the late 20th Century, MicroProse is Monet. Not because it is French (which it certainly isn't) and starts with the letter 'M', but because, over the last year, it has been painting its broad games canvas with Impressionist flair. It all started with the graphically gorgeous Phantom Of The Opera: a fun but money-wastingly simple game which MicroProse marketed as an 'atmospheric' beginners' adventure, relying more heavily on 'look' and 'feel' than on game-play. At first sight, Dragonsphere for cd-rom has moved beyond even this with its sumptuous packaging, including disc and manual in a hard-backed, children's bedtime book. The graphics surpass even Phantom's high standards - all pastel colours, rich in texture -and the animation is luxuriously smooth.
MicroProse calls its new generation of puzzle-solving romps AGAs (Animated Graphic Adventures), which the company informs us have been compared to interactive movies, tv shows and books, although they like to avoid this type of comparison. Good thing too.
All game producers should currently avoid this, as the real interactive movie (non-linear, full motion video of real actors) is an awfully long way off. MicroProse does, however, call its animation style Cinemagraphics, and I can't complain at that. Dragonsphere portrays some of the smoothest sprite movement I've ever seen on a pc game. All sprites are scaled, which looks impressive when your sprite walks across the great expanse of desert going from 'jolly big fella' to 'indistinguishable blot on the horizon'. All non-interactive sequences are beautifully fluid, feature-length and cartoon-like (try jumping down the well to see what I mean).
50+ videos Play all Mix - The Yawhg Soundtrack - (oceans) YouTube; Bastion-Build That Wall (Zia's Theme) - Duration: 5:26. MrMas35 Recommended for you. The yawhg intro. The Yawhg Soundtrack - an evergreen is forever green-until it dies, of course - Duration: 2:06. Djorana 37,642 views.
Give the Ores a chance
Despite the d&d type title, Dragonsphere is not all about slaying Ores and casting runes. More akin to a child's novella, Dragonsphere places you in a magical kingdom filled with fairy (spelt faerie; in that quaint 'Olde English' way) kings, mystical sprites, giant toads, Prince Of Persia-esque turbaned Shamen and, naturally, dragons. There's a bit of attacking and carving up to be done but this is purely your 12 certificate rating game; no bad language, no unnecessary violence and only a pinch of being patronising to women. Combined with the lush graphics and gorgeous pastel colours, this does make it feel a bit 'girly' - see I can patronise women too. No, that's not really what I mean: it's almost, oh I don't know, too 'nice'. You play the mighty - although newly-elected and not yet proven - Callash, King of Gran Callahach. Callash is a thoughtful soul; unswervingly diplomatic, kind to his citizens, potty about his beautiful wife and deferential to his overbearing mum. An all-round nice guy. Everything is going swimmingly in the kingdom until one day Callash wakes up with a big problem. Sinister Sanwe, a dimension-surfing sorcerer, all-powerful and all evil intent, has been imprisoned in his run-down castle ever since Callash's dad and his best wizard mate put a spell on him 20 years ago. This spell is linked to a 'Dragonsphere' (believe it or not, a sphere with a lil' old dragon in it). If the sphere breaks, Sanwe is free - and it's started to develop a big crack. Sadly, Sanwe hasn't mellowed at all over all these years and has sworn vengeance on Callash. Your task is to get on over to his place and slice him up before he gets a chance to break out. That's the basic plot. Starting off in your own bed you have to get up, have a wash and get going on the quest for Sanwe, which leads you to all sorts of strange and quirky lands gathering stuff you will need to confront him.
On the face of it
As with most interfaces these days, this is made-for-mouse territory - although you can use the keyboard it's not advisable if you want to keep a healthy head of hair. The bottom of the screen supplies all necessary verbs - push, pull, talk, give etc. Choose one and then choose a noun on screen to do it to. It's all very intuitive and simple to get around. For that matter, so is the actual gameplay. There are two modes of play: novice and challenging, but there doesn't seem to be a great deal of difference between the two. The problems aren't too strenuous, ranging from the type of stuff you get in those soft-backed puzzle books you find at train stations ('if there are four brothers and two sisters, and the girls wear green skirts, which boy wears a red dress?' type logic) to guess-work and probability games. The secret to most of the puzzles is in the conversations you have with others, so be sure to pay attention to everything they say.
And say they do. To accompany the state-of-the-art animations, the cd-rom only version of Dragonsphere has extensive digitised speech. Your voice as the King is understandably Brian Blessed-like; other voices range from a child's high pitched squeak for the annoying little prancing fairies to the Darth Vader dulcet tones of the Soptus Ecliptus race. This can become hilarious when the characters wish to speak in a totally different language, but it s essential atmosphere-inducing fare. The digitised speech combines with innovative music to encapsulate the mood of each part of the kingdom along with solid, if uninspired, sound effects.
The tower balance chart. They are eager to move their eyes, their mouths, and their bodies toward the people and objects that comfort and interest them. Physical DevelopmentFrom the start, babies want to explore their world.
After all that glowing praise for sound and visuals, you must be thinking 'what's the damage?'. Well, all the speech and super scrolling makes for much fiddling about with your Config and Autoexec files unless you have a terabyte of ram or just don't do anything else but play games. You need 575.ooo bytes of free conventional memory to get up and running with the whole shebang intact (decent graphics, sound and speech). This can be a tall order, especially as the manual also suggests you have a memory cache installed to speed things up while playing, and ems is essential. Still, Dragonsphere is worth the tweaking and there is no point buying the game on cd unless you are going to bring the delights of the programmer's voice-over talents to your home.