The Real Neverending Story Part 1: Auryn Quest

Auryn Quest
Developer(s)	Discreet Monsters Attraction
Publisher(s)	Octagon Entertainment DreamCatcher Interactive
Release	June 12, 2002

Auryn Quest is a

Discreet Monsters was founded in Germany in 1996 with only five employees, as a subsidiary of parent company 3-DD.[5] Development on The Real Neverending Story started in 1998.^[5] The game received much media attention, who were impressed with the released demos and screenshots. The studio was considered a "New Economy shooting star".^[6] Discreet Monsters founder Siggi Kogl raised 6.5 million marks in venture capital, and had a goal of the game being in 15 languages and selling 400,000 units worldwide.^[7] The company invested into cartoon and internet TV development to expand the franchise.^[5]

Design

The game was designed so the player's actions would affect their reputation, which in turn would affect how other characters interacted with them.^[8] The company created a proprietary software called Monster Engine, which used two game engine variants; one for indoor and one for outdoor.^[9][10][11] The developers often referred to "Quake 3" when trying to describe the project they were trying to achieve.^[12] It was designed to have multiple ways of completion, and once the player had played every single combination, they could use elements from the main game to form an ongoing offline/online world called the Parallel World.^[9][13] Each puzzle was crafted in such a way as to be solved in at least three ways; for instance when rescuing a princess the player can either take the key from the security guard (a battle segment), convince a companion to distract the guard, or shrinking into a small device (a jump and run segment).^[14] The game took place in the land of Fantasia.^[15] The title had an emotion-based dialogue function, in which the player sees the stream-of-consciousness thoughts of their character in a conversation and click all that apply.^[16] The game was designed as the first of a series of three chapters, one released each consecutive year.^[17]

Challenges

Due to over-ambition, the game went over budget and at one point had 60 people working on it full-time. This spooked investors who began to pull out.^[18] In September 1998, it was reported the game would be released in Easter 1999.^[19] The game was shown at the 1999 E3 expo.^[20] In February 2000, a release date of that year's summer was reported.^[21] As each release date approached, it kept being pushed back until July 2000 when development was discontinued entirely.^[22] Kogl made two rounds of financing throughout development, and failed in the third in early 2001.^[23] Discreet Monsters went bankrupt and the whole team was fired.^[18]

A year later in January 2001,^[22] Kogl managed to secure the rights to the game after the bankruptcy and started a new company called Attraction consisting of a sample of the previous company's employees. With more modest plans, and the work of the previous version already completed, the company put a six months development schedule on the game.^[24][25] As of 17 and 18 March 2002, the game had not yet been given a release date.^[26][27][28] Mr Bills Adventure Land reported that the developers wanted to allow players to decide whether to play the game as an adventure or action.^[29]

Release and aftermath

Released on June 12, 2002,^[30] the game's basis in Michael Ende's novel was used extensively in the game's marketing in order to pique buyer interest.^[31] The game was made available in the major parts of Europe throughout the first half of 2002.^[32] On August 31, Akella had signed a contract to publish the game in Russia and countries within the Commonwealth of Independent States.^[33] The game was published in Europe by Octagon Entertainment,^[27][34] and by DreamCatcher Interactive in North America.^[35] The distributors' press releases made several comparisons to Myst.^[36]

In 2006, Octagon Entertainment attained the North American publishing rights to the game.^[37]

Plot

The

The game has 6 levels, and has level design reminiscent of Myst.[42]^[43] The game is largely non-violent and suitable for players as young as six.^[44] Gameplay is typical of jump and run games like Rayman.^[45]

Critical reception

The Real Neverending Story

The game received highly positive reviews in preview articles.

Edge felt the game "presents some interesting technological propositions" and successfully created believable character interactions.^[46] Level23 thought the game was an important step in the field of 3D first person action adventure games.^[47] PC Powerplay noted the overconfidence of the development team, as they explained their ambitions.^[48] MeccaWorld liked the idea of meeting interesting and strange creatures just like in the novel.^[49]

Interest surrounding the game was significant; Just Adventure reported receiving "dozens of emails concerning the fate of Siggi Koegl's labor of love",^[50] and encouraged its readers to email the developers about releasing the game in North America.^[51]

Auryn Quest

The game received mixed reviews upon release.

GameCaptain praised the atmospheric level design.^[52] World of Cheats felt the first person perspective suited the game well.^[53] Sputnik thought the game was successful all-round.^[54] While offering a positive review, Computer Games warned the developers that brand name recognition and nice graphics alone would not make the game a standout example in the genre.^[55] Xenosys noted that the game was impressive considering it consisted of "painstakingly assembled remnants of a failed adventure project".^[56] Internet Kurier praised the game for not aiming at the mainstream.^[57] TachAuch felt it would be a nice alternative to those who liked Myst.^[58] PC Games Portal felt it would be a nice game to play after a long day at work.^[59]

Game Chronicles criticised the "groan inducing gameplay".^[60] JeuxVideo felt the title was one of the worst the site had played in a while.^[61] GamesDesk felt the game was too poor quality to appeal to adult players, but might be a fair substitution for Rayman to younger players.^[62] GameZ felt the story behind the game was a textbook example of how things go wrong in the gaming industry.^[18] GameZone noted that if the sequels' development were predicated on the success of the first title, they had doubts that the sequels would come to pass.^[63] The Adrenaline Vault felt the developers squandered their potential to make a challenging and innovative entry in the adventure genre.^[64] Gamers.at was disappointed by the experience.^[65]

References

External links

• Interview with PC Player
• Mobygames
• Main page (under Discreet Monsters)
• Main page (under Attraction)
• Reviews off Discreet Monsters site
• Behind the scenes featurette