George Stobbart is an American tourist spending his autumn vacation in Paris. He barely escapes a bombing of a café and decides to investigate the clues left behind by the killer. This eventually leads him to a mystery dating back to the legend of the Knights Templar.

Circle of Blood is the first part in the Broken Sword series. It is a third-person puzzle-solving point-and-click adventure game with 2D cartoon-like graphics. The player moves the character around using the mouse, examines the environment, talks to other people and collects items stored in an inventory. These items need to be used or combined with other items to solve puzzles. George gets help from Nicole Collard, a French journalist. The story is divided into eleven chapters and takes place in locations such as Paris, Ireland, Syria, and others.

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Alternate Titles

"断剑：圣殿骑士的阴影" -- Chinese spelling (simplified)
"Сломанный Меч: Тень Тамплиеров " -- Russian spelling
"Slomannyj Mech: Ten' Tamplierov" -- Russian title
"Les Chevaliers de Baphomet" -- French title
"BS1" -- Common abbreviation
"Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars" -- US GBA/PSX title
"Broken Sword: La leyenda de los Templarios" -- Spanish title
"Broken Sword: Il Segreto dei Templari" -- Italian title
"Baphomets Fluch" -- German title

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Part of the Following Groups

Merchant	Title	Platform	Price
	Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars	Game Boy Advance	$1.99
	Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars	PlayStation	$3.99
	Circle of Blood
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User Reviews

An extremely well-executed adventure for the Game Boy Advance.	Game Boy Advance	Ruben van der Leun (11)
Learn about the Templars while searching for the café bomber	Windows	Katakis (37454)
A strangely ordinary adventure	Windows	hydra9 (3855)
Mediocre in every way	Windows	YID YANG (162395)
One word.....BRILLIANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!	Windows	Grant McLellan (546)
Jones!? You've got some nerve...	Windows	MAT (53452)
The great game that might have been.	Windows	PCGamer77 (3027)
Shadow of the Templars is best described as a "diet coke" of the Adventure genre, only with much better aftertaste.	Windows	Gonchi (3675)
one fine adventure game... and it's not from lucasarts !	Windows	Xa4 (274)
One of the last true adventures of the 90s	Windows	Depth Lord (946)

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The Press Says

Adventurespiele	Windows	Jun 07, 2005		100
Aventura y Cía	DOS	Aug 14, 2001		100
Playback	Windows	2006	9 out of 10	90
Quandary	Windows	Nov, 1996		90
RPGFan	PlayStation	Mar 11, 1999	84 out of 100	84
neXGam	Game Boy Advance	2002	8.3 out of 10	83
PC Gameplay (Benelux)	Windows	Dec, 1996	83 out of 100	83
Just Adventure	Windows	Feb 06, 2003	B+	83
PC Player (Germany)	Windows	Sep, 1996		80
IGN	Game Boy Advance	Apr 09, 2002	7.5 out of 10	75

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Trivia

Animation

The game's animations and artwork were done by former animators and artists from Bluth Studios, makers of The Secret of NIMH, An American Tale, The Land Before Time, and the Dragon's Lair and Space Ace interactive arcade laser games.

Engine

The Game Boy Advance version does not use the Virtual Theatre game engine.

Extras

Some versions of the game came with the Knights Templar book Savage Warrior written by Steve Jackson.

Installation

The DOS/Windows installation program instead of showing a progress bar during the copying phase runs a Breakout variant. The paddle is controlled with the mouse.

Music

The game contains over two hours of original music from Britain’s composer Barrington Pheloung, also known for his TV theme music on Central Independent Television’s renowned Inspector Morse detective series starring John Thaw and Kevin Whately.

Information also contributed by Garcia, Rola and Sciere

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This entry was contributed by Kartanym

(10796), Sciere

(206030), Kabushi (105226), Ummagumma (73), Scaryfun (11063), Grant McLellan (546) and MAT

(53452)