Video games - The Colonel's Bequest

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	Video games - The Colonel's Bequest

The Colonel's Bequest - A Laura Bow Mystery is a computer game published by Sierra On-Line in 1989. This graphic adventure game was the first of the short-lived 'Laura Bow Mysteries' series created by Roberta Williams and was created using SCI0. It uses 16-bit color and a typing interface.

Story

Like the second game in the series, The Dagger of Amon Ra
, The Colonel's Bequest is set in the 1920s, which gives the game a unique, Art Deco style.

The game's main character is Laura Bow, a Tulane University student, daughter of a detective and wannabe journalist. Laura is invited by her friend Lillian to spend a weekend at the decaying sugar plantation of Colonel Dijon. When the reclusive, childless Colonel gathers his quarrelsome relatives for a reading of his will, tensions explode and the bickering leads to murder.

Throughout the game, Laura remains stranded on the island surrounded by suspects and potential victims in a classical Agatha Christie manner. All Laura can do is observe the family and witness murders. Apart from this, there is also an optional, secondary backplot concerning a hidden treasure. The game will be finished no matter how Laura solves the puzzles, since the score is expressed by the means of a clock and time advances by a quarter-hour when new plot elements are witnessed. A murder happens every 1 hour. This is sometimes unrealistic because a quarter can advance between few real-life seconds, if Laura happens to be in a proper place, close to another key place.

This is the only Sierra game which is more character-driven than puzzle-driven. Although solving puzzles is crucial for obtaining a high score, discovering information about the characters' backgrounds and their relationships with each other is more important to the game.

The game was designed to provide a virtual realism. Characters make plans to be in certain places at certain times and may be followed. Characters may get annoyed with Laura if they catch her snooping on them or asking too many questions, although this is obvious only in dialogue, and the plot is not affected.

Characters

As with classic murder stories, the plot revolves around characters, most of which are potential victims (and murderers). Most of the game characters are named after prominent figures of the time, such as Rudolph Valentino, W. C. Fields, and Gloria Swanson, and they are heavily based on well used archetypes.

Laura Bow- Player character, journalist student and daughter of a detective.
Lillian Prune- Laura's friend from Tulane. Her father died when she was young. She is also Ethel's daughter.
Colonel Henri Dijon - A reclusive, rich, eccentric old man, who fought in the Spanish-American War and lives alone on an antebellum sugar plantation island.
Ethel Prune - The alcoholic mother of Lillian and younger sister of the Colonel.
Gertrude Dijon - The snobbish widow of the Colonel's brother, and the mother of Gloria and Rudy.
Gloria Swansong - The daughter of Gertie and the sister of Rudy. She was a Hollywood actress, who'd gotten into some trouble, and was suffering from some sort of disease.
Rudolph Dijon - The son of Gertie, the brother of Gloria. He's a slick womaniser and gambler.
Clarence Sparrow - Henri's sneaky lawyer and a previous lover of Gloria.
Dr. Wilbur C. Feels - The Colonel's long-time and questionable personal physician.
Fifi - The sexy French maid that lives with and "serves" the Colonel (and secretly also Jeeves.)
Jeeves - Butler in the Colonel's house, who usually remains silent.
Celie - Henri's black cook from New Orleans, whose parents were slaves in the plantation. She is the only character that will befriend Laura.

Details

Although death lurks around every corner Laura Bow is almost neverendangered by the mysterious villain. In typical Sierra adventure game fashion, most, but by no means all, deaths experienced by the player occur by accident or misadventure, such as falling off a balcony, being crushed by a falling chandelier, tripping down a dark staircase, or being attacked by alligators. One of the more notable "illogical" deaths, however, occurs when the player simply attempts to shower.

The unusual title is due to Sierra's long-standing tradition at the time of including "Quest" in the title of nearly every graphical adventure they published. Other "quest" games include King's Quest, Space Quest
, Police Quest, Quest for Glory (which was originally titled Hero's Quest), Conquests of Camelot
, and Conquests of the Longbow
. This tradition was disregarded for non-adventure games, and was eventually abandoned.

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