Windows

80 Days

Advertising Blurbs

Feb. 17, 2006 .. 80 Days: Adventure game freely adapted from Jules Verne's novel...

Focus Home Interactive, the computer games publisher, and the development studio Frogwares, are pleased to announce the release of 80 Days, the Adventure game based on the famous novel Around the World in 80 Days. From now, internauts all over the world can download the game from: www.80days-game.com.

For the very first time, 80 Days will be distributed worldwide and, to mark this event, we have created an associates’ program that will enable you to sell the game online and to be remunerated for your services. [snip]

We look forward to welcoming you among our associate partners very soon.

With best wishes,
The Focus Home Interactive team
Sébastien Pensivy, Affiliation Manager


Contributed by Jeanne (59103) on Feb 23, 2006.

Drawing on the famous novel Around the World in 80 Days, the Frogwares studio inspired itself on the novel's structure, graphic design and themes to produce a unique home-styled game, with humour and high quality graphics. The playing character is Oliver, a young adventurer, who has to circumnavigate the world in under 80 days to help his billionaire Uncle pull off a spectacular bet. However, transport possibilities are limited and only the most cumbersome forms are available - boat, train, camel, or the legendary Zeppelin.

In the game, entirely in real-time 3D, the player will discover vast interactive cities and environments featuring hundreds of characters. He will have to solve a whole host of fascinating puzzles and enigmas. 80 Days is groundbreaking and ambitious and brings together adventure gameplay with a subtle mix of investigation, exploration, and infiltration. The project's huge development team has surpassed itself and expects to bring novelty and surprise to the Adventure game genre.

Features:
• Adventure game entirely in 3D, freely adapted from Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days.
• Play the part of Oliver, a young adventurer, in his quest to go around the globe against the clock.
• Cross whole vast cities like San Francisco, Cairo, Bombay, and Yokohama, by foot, camel, elephant, or flying carpet, among other crazy vehicles!
• Transport designed for total adventure: trains, steamboats and Zeppelins on a huge-scale.
• Incredible graphic rendering thanks to a real-time 3D engine enabling the display of particle effects, shaders, character animations and much, much more.
• All the classic adventure game features - exploration, enigmas, puzzles, dialogues - as well as a roller-coaster rhythm and real life attributes with a hero who runs, jumps, drives vehicles, gets tired, hides, manages his own money, interacts in real time with the décor, characters and time.
• Infiltration, exploration and flying game phases are integral to Oliver's adventure.
• Meet and converse with more than 100 characters! All texts and voices in English!
• Three difficulty levels: Tourist Level for newbies with no time limit. Globetrotter Level and Adventurer Level for hardened players for the full-on race against time experience.


A TOTALLY ROUND THE WORLD 3D ADVENTURE
The playing character is Oliver, a young adventurer, who has to go round the world in less than 80 days to help his billionaire Uncle pull off a spectacular gamble. Oliver's Uncle, a genius inventor, has been ordered by fellow members of his elite London scientific circle to prove the existence of 4 amazing machines that he claims to have invented and that are located in the four corners of the world.
In a wild race across the world against the clock, Oliver has to collect the necessary proofs that his Uncle's incredible inventions actually exist to save his Uncle's reputation not to mention the family silver which at stake in the enterprise.

THE SPIRIT OF YESTERDAY'S ADVENTURE GAMES
WITH TODAY'S GAME MECHANISMS
Frogwares' major challenge in 80 Days is to bring the rules of traditional adventure games together with modern gameplay. Enigmas and puzzles to solve, investigations to complete and exploration phases are always at the heart of the game. But added to this, by using 3D, the studio has injected a roller-coaster rhythm and real dynamics.
Free camera, day and night cycles, weather, vehicle variations, time development, amazing movement and character action possibilities: we are light-years from the static 2D snapshots of classic adventure games. Oliver jumps, runs, climbs, uses ropes, ladders, drives machines, rides elephants and camels. All of which make the game breathtaking and heighten the excitement of the race around the world against the clock.

TAKE A DRIVE NOT A STROLL!
80 Days presents huge 3D cities in all four corners of the globe that are entirely interactive. There is no time to lose and Oliver will have to get right across them and no delay. Luckily there are vehicles on hand, to hire or borrow, and the occasional mammal: elephants in Bombay and camels in Cairo.
The game's developers were hugely inspired by the work and inventions of Jules Verne and players will have at their disposal such way-out transport possibilities as a monocycle, an vintage-style race car, a chopper tricycle, as well as a series of boats for travelling the Nile and even a flying carpet. Every means is a good means if it means saving time!

A RACE AROUND THE WORLD AGAINST THE CLOCK!
Just as in the original book, Oliver has to cross the 5 continents in under 80 days. The player has to manage time spent in the different environments, but also Oliver's money and energy throughout the game.
Annex missions will help you renew Oliver's finances which will vary according to how he eats, the vehicles he rents, how he spends his nights and the "souvenirs" he may or may not have to bring back. The days are only 24 hours long and Oliver is but a man. You will have to make sure he eats well in fine restaurants and rests sufficiently in 5 star palaces to retrieve energy expended so that he can pursue his adventure in fine physical form. Don't forget that vehicles generally mean you can get around quicker and not get tired.

During the game, the player will watch the days count down in real time and the environments will change according to the different moments of the day. There are many missions that will help Oliver save time. But if he fails them, they will slow down his progress, without necessarily compromising the pursuit of his goal.
Each phase is unique thanks to real time changes in weather and day/night cycles that make each visit to a place unique. Oliver may arrive in Japan to sun or snow, or to day or night, depending on when he arrives; he may also sail beneath starlit skies or on stormy waters. What's more, according to how he performs, he will not always arrive in a place on the same day.

Thanks to cunning gameplay time management, Oliver may arrive ahead of or behind Phileas Fogg's own timetable and still retain his chances of winning. The game is calculated in real time and a margin is defined within which the player may succeed. The game stops as soon as the limit is very clearly reached and the player will be warned in real time of his margin for manoeuvre.
Players can attempt the adventure in one of three difficulty levels (and thus play several times): Tourist, and not have to manage parameters, Globetrotter, for easy management of variables and Adventurer for the big challenge. For smarter players, as each mission gives points according to time spent, scores can always be beaten. Rumour has it that there is a bonus available for those who succeed in every mission.

DETAILED, LIVELY ENVIRONMENTS FOR YOUR DISCOVERY
For the first time in all-round real-time 3D, the player will be able to explore incredible interactive cities and environments, produced in the same vein as Jules Verne's Steampunk. The world is wholly immersive thanks to the quality of rendering of the real-time 3D engine, as well as to the game's excellent animation, detailed graphics, particle effects and attractive shaders.
During this incredible race against the clock, you will meet hundreds of interactive characters in 7 gigantic settings. These 7 environments have been subject to huge creative industry in terms of modelisation and animation.

The architecture, decors, textures and sizes of the 7 levels have been finely tuned to offer players a really journey into unfamiliar territories, reinforced by specific atmospheres that continually change due to the armies of inhabitants and extras present.
The player and Oliver will visit India and Bombay, the United States and San Francisco, Japan and Yokohama, Egypt and Cairo and will travel across the world in a huge Zeppelin, a "Goliath" train, and an impressive multi-storey boat. The ways the player travels between continents are beyond the wildest of imaginations and could well have been the fruit of Jules Verne's crazed imagination.


Contributed by Jeanne (59103) on Oct 26, 2005.

In 1899, Oliver Lavisheart, young adventurous Englishman, accepts to help his uncle Matthew to win a bet: going around the world in 80 days or less to collect proof that the wacky uncle has created 4 major inventions in 4 different cities all around the world. Oliver follows Phileas Fogg's tracks through Egypt, India, Japan, and finally to America. He has only 80 days, or his uncle will lose his bet and will be ruined.

For this trip you will become Oliver, discover your uncle's fantastic talents, his adventurous life and his secrets. You will also learn a lot about yourself, the truth about your family and the true nature of this incredible bet.

As the game progresses you will help a strange German Archeologist, rescue a distressed - not overly bright actress from Bollywood, organize a SM contest, win an elephant race, drive the biggest airship ever, find a way to make the Scottish tartan the coolest street wear worldwide, fool a shogun's samurai, burn your own boat to go faster, avoid the traps of inspector Fix's nasty son, get into disguise, bribe, steal...


Contributed by Jeanne (59103) on Oct 26, 2005.