Games - Simon the Sorcerer series

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	Games - Simon the Sorcerer series

Simon the Sorcerer is a series of point-and-click adventure games created by Adventure Soft. The series follows the adventures of an unwilling hero of the same name. The game has a fantasy setting and is a comedy.

The first two games are often compared with Monkey Island in terms of style and humour, and the Terry Pratchett Discworld novels and derivative games.

Both the first and the second episodes are playable with ScummVM

About Simon

Simon the Sorcerer is a teenage sorcerer dressed in a cloak and pointy hat; his cloak and hat are purple in the first game, but change to red in the second and third game. He must use his logic and magical skills to solve puzzles as he progresses through the games.

Simon is extremely rude and insults everyone in his way. This tends to interfere with the success of his quests, forcing him to go to ridiculous lengths in order to finish his adventures. Simon constantly breaks the fourth wall with his comments about adventure games.

Simon the Sorcerer

Simon the Sorcerer was released by Adventure Soft in 1993. The story begins with the protagonist, Simon, as an ordinary teenager. His dog, "Chippy", discovers a chest in the loft of his house containing a spellbook titled "Ye Olde Spellbooke". Simon throws the book onto the floor, but a portal opens above it. The dog goes through the portal and Simon follows.

After entering the portal, Simon finds himself in another world. After escaping from some trolls, he discovers that he has been brought on a quest to rescue the wizard Calypso from the evil sorcerer Sordid.

The game includes parodies of various popular books and fairy tales, including Rapunzel, Lord of the Rings, Jack and the Beanstalk and the Three Billy Goats Gruff.

Simon is voiced in this game by Chris Barrie.

Available versions

Different versions of this game were created. For the Amiga, the AGA A1200 version boasting 256-colour graphics was available on 9 double-density floppy disks. Shortly after, a 32-colour A500 edition was created so that any Amiga could play it, and finally a CD32 version was released on CD with 256-colour graphics and voice acting. This was the first Amiga adventure game to feature full voice acting, but only on the CD version.

Simon the Sorcerer 2

Simon the Sorcerer 2 (also known as Simon the Sorcerer 2: The Lion, the Wizard and the Wardrobe) was released by AdventureSoft in 1995. The title is a reference to the second Narnia book: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

In this game Sordid returns to life as a spirit, later transferred into a robotic body when the father of a peasant boy, Runt, burns his book of magic and throws it into the centre of a hexagram on the floor. In order to get revenge on Simon, Sordid sends a magical wardrobe to retrieve him, but due to a mistake the wardrobe ends up on the door-step of Calypso's Magic Shop. Upon returning to consciousness Simon learns that in order to return home he must find an extremely potent source of power called mucusade.

In this game, Simon spends a large part of the game traveling around the capital city of the Land, but later travels far and wide as certain events complicate his quest.

The game contains a lot of teenage humour and sexual allusions.

Simon the Sorcerer 3D

The third game, in a break from tradition, is not a point-and-click but instead a 3D adventure game. This time the stakes are higher, and the fate of everything lies on his shoulders. Simon the Sorcerer 3D was poorly received by critics.

The game was in development for a very long time and as a result, by the time of the game's release its graphics were already outdated.

Simon the Sorcerer 4

This is planned for release in Q3 2006, and is being developed by Silver Style Entertainment.

Trivia

Mike Woodroffe, head of Adventure Soft Publishing and HeadFirst Productions, has a son called Simon. Simon is credited as writer and the designer for Simon 1 & 2 and as creative director, writer and designer for Simon 3D.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Simon the Sorcerer series ]

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