Why?

[Unknown,Unknown]

Why are so many people obsessed with Phantasmagoria?
I’ll admit, it had a good story(The Shining), and a really cool interface(Point and Click instant puzzle solving).
I own all six or seven some odd disks, and it was probably one of the only two lame games by Roberta. That and KQ8.
Kq8 was a fun game, but it was not an adventure. That was like a kick in the face to those of us who actually loved the KQ series. I guess KQ7 was the pre-kick, seeing as you added the instant puzzle solving icon.
Well, Phantasmagoria had that same icon, so I don’t even call that an adventure game. All it was was basically a cheaply made movie with a “choose your own adventure” click option.
 
 

[Unknown,Unknown]

To really understand why Phantasmagoria was such a big hit (one million copies sold, back in the days when the industry was a lot smaller), you need to view it in a historical context.

It was “ahead of its time” in many areas:

– First game with live actors
– New user interface
– Controversial subject matter not previously seen in computer games (a rape scene, and it was shot with a nude scene that we later became chicken and yanked)
– We were trying to build a game that could reach beyond the classic “gamers” and bring a new tier of buyers into the market. Specifically, we were saying “is this a game my mom could (or, would want to) play. This worked.
– First experiment with a huge budget.

Phantasmagoria should have been the start of something, but for some reason, the industry didn’t evolve beyond it. If viewed as the first step in an interesting direction, it is interesting.I think that if we had taken the direction we were moving with Phantasmagoria, and evolved it by another 10 years, you would be looking at some very interesting games now.

-Ken W

[Unknown,Unknown]

i remember being amazed at phantasmagoria when it came out. i’ve been gaming since the mid 80’s, and i’ve seen a lot of ‘wow’ games, but that one probably impressed me the most of any PC game. it’s by far not my favorite, but i was extremely impressed with it at the time. it is strange that the industry didn’t go in that direction. it was a huge hit and usually their are tons of copy cats when that happens. maybe if phantas 2 was as big as 1 then the industry would have taken more notice.

[Unknown,Unknown]

I liked Phantasmagoria becuase it took the horror genre which was all ready done by the movie industry by that point in time and the gaming industry barley touched phase with it with the alone in the dark games if those were horror. Phantamagoria really touched the adventure horror genre with its surprises ect (when I first played the game I got really scared by the deamon near the end of chapter 7 beacuase it was so suddenly). and I think it was one of Roberta’s best games. Man I wish that Roberta could have done a Phantasmagoria 3 either with both charcters from the 1st two or just the one from the 1st.

[Unknown,Unknown]

Ken, when I read that Phantasmagoria was the first game that used actors, I must admit that I couldn’t contain the chuckles.
The first game that had actors in it (which I know of), was Myst (only two, and not professional but hey, they’re people) and it came out in 1993. http://www.mobygames.com/game/macintosh/myst

[Unknown,Unknown]

I remember some other games before Myst with video actors, e.g. Amazon Guardians of Eden, Countdown or Heart of China. But these didn’t show in general complete live actors like in Phantasmagoria.

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