Terry Pratchett's Discworld: The Computer Game
Created | Updated Jul 18, 2003
Take a series of stories by a best-selling author, a computer programmer and the voices of two English actors from two classic British comedy series... What do you get?
The first Discworld game, (brought out on PC then Playstation) that's what!
WHAT IS A 'DISCWORLD'?
The Discworld is a world created by fantasy and sci-fi author, Terry Pratchett (who also wrote 'Strata', 'Only You Can Save Mankind' and 'The Carpet People') that is flat and travels on the backs of four giant elephants who in turn stand upon the back of The Great A'Tuin, a turtle.
THE STORY:
The game designers decided to take Terry Pratchett's most popular of the Discworld's many characters and create an insane point-and-click puzzle game...
Instead of taking the stories straight from the books, they combined 'The Colour Of Magic' starring Rincewind the Wizzard with the plot of 'Guards! Guards!', a book in the Watch series of novels...
In the game, members of a cult call up a giant dragon and release it upon the city of Ankh-Morpork (for no particular reason) leading the wizards of Unseen University to take up all of their power... and make Rincewind (voiced by Eric Idle) do it ie. YOU... The problem is, Rincewind is a coward and only has a chest that walks on dozens of tiny little legs for companion. He also has a hangover.
THE CHARACTERS:
"But what about the other Discworld stars?" I hear you cry.. Well have no fear as many of your favourite characters have cameos, and are voiced by non other than Blackadder star Tony Robinson... with Jon Pertwee, Kate Robbins and Rob Brydon.
These characters include:
Rincewind, the Luggage, the wizard faculty, CMOT Dibbler, Nanny Ogg and her cookbook, the Patrician, though not mentioned in name- pre watch Detruitus and let's not forget the Librarian and Death. Death is also good enough to try and convince Rincewind to commit the occasional suicide to make things easier for you...!
And you also get to see the how The Drum bar got it's name: 'Broken'... (not a character but you fans want to know this kind of thing!)
THE GAME AND ITS GRAPHICS:
Let's be honest. The game isn't really a game as it is merely you controlling Rincewind and getting him to talk to the many... many characters and using objects to progress through ridiculous puzzles where logic doesn't seem to exist as you get an item that you SHOULD be able to use straight forward but get Eric Idle's repetitive phrase.
For example, you need to catch a butterfly and you've got a net YET you can't catch it until you've put a frog in the mouth of the man sleeping that its hovering over to grab it! [You'll go insane by the time you hear the 100th "That doesn't work"!!!].
And chances are that you'd need a guide to complete it as the tasks are complecated and the game gets cruel when it brings in the forth dimension of time which creates nasty paradoxes!
But the important thing is that it is a Pratchett story and contains all style humour though the animation is lame in the starting sequence ("Dragon! Dragon! Dragon! Dra--... Dragon! Dragon!) and as the game is pixelated it is difficult to see a 'useful' object!
Rincewind's conversations come in five different styles of speech:
The greeting (usually sarcastic),
The question (usually sarcastic),
The anger (somehow sarcastic),
The sarcasm (not sure about this one),
And the goodbye...
A great game with stupid puzzles but has all the Pratchett humour in pixel form although Pratchett was only credited as the person who shouted at people as he did not write the story himself but did give an introduction in the instruction manuel. Perfection! (Except for the mistakes!) And once you hear Eric Idle as Rincewind you know this guy IS Rincewind much like you can picture John Cleese as Death after seeing him on Monty Python's Meaning Of Life.
After finally reaching the end, you'll demand a sequel... problem is... they give you one!
The first Discworld game, (brought out on PC then Playstation) that's what!
WHAT IS A 'DISCWORLD'?
The Discworld is a world created by fantasy and sci-fi author, Terry Pratchett (who also wrote 'Strata', 'Only You Can Save Mankind' and 'The Carpet People') that is flat and travels on the backs of four giant elephants who in turn stand upon the back of The Great A'Tuin, a turtle.
THE STORY:
The game designers decided to take Terry Pratchett's most popular of the Discworld's many characters and create an insane point-and-click puzzle game...
Instead of taking the stories straight from the books, they combined 'The Colour Of Magic' starring Rincewind the Wizzard with the plot of 'Guards! Guards!', a book in the Watch series of novels...
In the game, members of a cult call up a giant dragon and release it upon the city of Ankh-Morpork (for no particular reason) leading the wizards of Unseen University to take up all of their power... and make Rincewind (voiced by Eric Idle) do it ie. YOU... The problem is, Rincewind is a coward and only has a chest that walks on dozens of tiny little legs for companion. He also has a hangover.
THE CHARACTERS:
"But what about the other Discworld stars?" I hear you cry.. Well have no fear as many of your favourite characters have cameos, and are voiced by non other than Blackadder star Tony Robinson... with Jon Pertwee, Kate Robbins and Rob Brydon.
These characters include:
Rincewind, the Luggage, the wizard faculty, CMOT Dibbler, Nanny Ogg and her cookbook, the Patrician, though not mentioned in name- pre watch Detruitus and let's not forget the Librarian and Death. Death is also good enough to try and convince Rincewind to commit the occasional suicide to make things easier for you...!
And you also get to see the how The Drum bar got it's name: 'Broken'... (not a character but you fans want to know this kind of thing!)
THE GAME AND ITS GRAPHICS:
Let's be honest. The game isn't really a game as it is merely you controlling Rincewind and getting him to talk to the many... many characters and using objects to progress through ridiculous puzzles where logic doesn't seem to exist as you get an item that you SHOULD be able to use straight forward but get Eric Idle's repetitive phrase.
For example, you need to catch a butterfly and you've got a net YET you can't catch it until you've put a frog in the mouth of the man sleeping that its hovering over to grab it! [You'll go insane by the time you hear the 100th "That doesn't work"!!!].
And chances are that you'd need a guide to complete it as the tasks are complecated and the game gets cruel when it brings in the forth dimension of time which creates nasty paradoxes!
But the important thing is that it is a Pratchett story and contains all style humour though the animation is lame in the starting sequence ("Dragon! Dragon! Dragon! Dra--... Dragon! Dragon!) and as the game is pixelated it is difficult to see a 'useful' object!
Rincewind's conversations come in five different styles of speech:
The greeting (usually sarcastic),
The question (usually sarcastic),
The anger (somehow sarcastic),
The sarcasm (not sure about this one),
And the goodbye...
A great game with stupid puzzles but has all the Pratchett humour in pixel form although Pratchett was only credited as the person who shouted at people as he did not write the story himself but did give an introduction in the instruction manuel. Perfection! (Except for the mistakes!) And once you hear Eric Idle as Rincewind you know this guy IS Rincewind much like you can picture John Cleese as Death after seeing him on Monty Python's Meaning Of Life.
After finally reaching the end, you'll demand a sequel... problem is... they give you one!
