The Colonel's Bequest

aka: Laura Bow 1, The Colonel's Bequest: A Laura Bow Mystery
Moby ID: 461
DOS Specs

Description official descriptions

The year is 1925. Laura Bow is a young student attending the Tulane University in New Orleans, and an aspiring journalist. Her friend Lillian invites her to spend a weekend in a mansion belonging to her uncle, Colonel Henri Dijon, a veteran of Spanish-American war and the owner of a large, but decaying sugar plantation on a secluded island. During the dinner Laura meets members of Lillian's extended family and their alleged friends. As Laura begins to explore the mansion and talk to its inhabitants, she unravels old family feuds and realizes some of those people - if not all - have their own plans and schemes. It all gets much worse when strange accidents and murders start to occur. Laura must investigate those gruesome events and find the culprit.

The Colonel's Bequest is a detective mystery adventure game very similar in style and presentation to Agatha Christie's novels. The game world is confined to the island and consists of numerous interconnected areas, such as various rooms in the mansion, garden, smaller structures, etc. The player is free to explore much of the game's world right from the beginning, with only a few areas being initially inaccessible. The game's clock advances a quarter of an hour each time Laura performs an action pertaining to the plot. Characters have their own schedules and clues are often obtained by discretely observing their actions.

The player interacts with the environment by typing verb-object command combinations (such as "Look Garden", "Talk Colonel", etc.). Some of the most common actions have keyboard shortcuts. The gameplay largely focuses on exploration. Much of the plot stays in the background and can be uncovered by talking to the characters about various topics (mostly other people). There is an inventory and a few puzzles, but they play a much less prominent role in the game compared to other adventures by Sierra. It is possible to complete the game without having discovered the entire plot or even without having identified the murderer. There is no scoring system, but after the game is finished the player is given a detective ranking and told about story branches or other elements he might have missed.

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Critics

Average score: 76% (based on 29 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.6 out of 5 (based on 73 ratings with 6 reviews)

The embodiment of Roberta Williams' virtues and flaws

The Good
Unlike other reviewers, I have a lasting affection for this game. "The Colonel's Bequest" is built around the kitschy, mid-1920s atmosphere of an Agatha Christie novel. The unusual structure and limited locations place emphasis on plotline rather than discovery, and this seems to be one of the things that annoys people about it. As things progress, though, as the guests at the mansion start dropping, as the rooms become deserted and you're wandering around with an ever-decreasing circle of suspects, the game comes into its own. The (surviving) flaky characters become more real, and the dark, windblown island becomes an eerie wasteland.

The Bad
Take away the atmosphere and structure and you're left with typical Roberta Williams; lightly drawn cliches for characters, bad jokes, and moments of frustration as the difficulty level periodically soars. The take-it-or-leave it Sierra mentality also shows through, with several highly logical actions being made impossible.

The Bottom Line
The Colonel's Bequest doesn't have the near-universal appeal of, say, Hero's Quest 1. People who are even slightly irritated by Sierra humor or Roberta Williams will probably dislike this game intensely. Having said that, if you accept the game's faults and compromises, if, in other words, you achieve the necessary suspension of disbelief, you may find great enjoyment in an old, Southern murder tale.

DOS · by Colin Rowsell (43) · 2002

Top mystery game.

The Good
| Mystery |
The game starts casually but immediately pulls you into the web of intrigues, danger, and suspense. You play Laura Bow, a young girl whose friend calls her to come at a spooky old mansion to keep her company with all the oldtimers that will be on the gathering. She doesn't know why they were all summited, but she convinces you it just might be more interesting than studying for biology exam. And indeed it does become, the moment you sit on the table with the rest of 'family', and plot starts ticking while suspects and 'victims of accidents' are piling.

| Meet Laura Bow, the Noise Detective |
The whole game starts kinda late, I believe it was 8pm or so, and consists of about eight acts. Each act lasts one full hour in the game, and is triggered as you witness specific elements. However, that is only to make the game easier. But if you wanna be a full-time detective, you must try to gather all the clues and to connect the strings eventually, since once you finish the game, you get to see a nice set of what all you did discover, and what all you missed. So don't play to end, like I did, but play to understand. However, being an outsider of the family ring, people will not run to your aid or likeness, so you'll basically have to do everything on your own. Just to be greeted by surprising twist in the plot, highly unexpected and well fitted, for whichever ending you choose, and there are more than just right one.

| Parse This You Sonovagun |
This was the first game to add to my collection that had something else than just mouse user-friendly interface. It has text-parsing, and I enjoyed using that even more than just clicking with a mouse up on a certain object of a person. And parsing was fairly well done, and overall entertaining. Not too hard even for newcommers like me (hey, don't blaim me for being too young in the time of text adventures). Combining your own wit with your sight is what makes a real detective out of you, and gives you all the answers.

The Bad
| I Wanna Play |
Well, one thing does make a trembling annoyance in the distance. You can collect clues, proofs, ideas, and what all not, but you cannot share them. I mean, you can, but it's just as talking into the wind. You can easily die in the game, yet you cannot try and stop any murder in particular. You cannot do any action that might even the odds.

The Bottom Line
| Technicality |
'Tis an outstanding mystery game with lots of adventuring on a rather small ground. I always found fascinating topics in "whodunnit" style, and this game really made a miracle out of it. It has great graphic, especially due to fact it uses 16 colors only. Uses either mouse or keyboard for character movement and interaction with objects and NPCs, and has neat sound effects and music samples whenever they appear. Plus, it offers intriguing story that will keep you guessing and probably second-guessing until the very end. Whatever more can you expect from a decade old game (duh, rethorical).

DOS · by MAT (240759) · 2012

Suspensful non-stop rollercoaster riding murder-mystery adventure game!

The Good
I loved this game from the first 10 minutes after installing and playing it. The game was very different from the usual Roberta Williams designs. The game is set up like a drama play that you are actually participating in except that the choices you make during the game effect the outcome of it all. It was probably one of the first of it's kind. The atmosphere of the plantation is downright errie, scenes ranging from a creepy "Chucky-Like" doll house, an abandoned chapel, mucky swamps and of course the main attraction, the huge mansion! All around you and throughout the game, there are people conspiring and plotting with and against each other trying to rub each other out for the Colonel's inheritance. As you move through the game (or through acts), you must take notes, interrogate people, spy on people, eavesdrop on conversations and solve puzzles to find out who-dunnit. There are some pretty creepy scenes you sometimes stumble on to which adds to the suspense. Another great thing about this amazing game is that there are multiple endings! and a meter guide to tell you how well you did as a detective... this game is a one of a kind. Roberta Williams did it again!

The Bad
The copy protection was terrible. It was annoying having to distinguish between those blotchy finger prints.

Sometimes it was hard to know what to do to trigger the next event, sometimes leaving you aimlessly wandering for awhile.

The Bottom Line
A great one of a kind mystery adventure game that was the first of many detective adventure games that were soon to follow. A must play for all adventure game lovers..

DOS · by OlSkool_Gamer (88) · 2004

[ View all 6 player reviews ]

Trivia

Copy protection

In one of Sierra's more creative copy-protection schemes, The Colonel's Bequest came with a red-lined foldout with "fingerprints" of characters in the game. Using a special red-gel "magnifying glass," you would identify these fingerprints for entry before being allowed to start the game.

Fifi

In the sequence in Fifi's room while she get ready to meet her lover-boy Jeeves, when she goes behind the screen to change type in "Open Door" and you can see Fifi in her underwear.

Laura Bow

Laura Bow, the heroine, was modeled after Clara Bow, a well-known actress from the 1920's.

References

Once Laura is in the washroom, type in "Take Shower". Laura strips, gets in and scrubs away while the hooded killer slips in and murders her in a parody of the horror classic Psycho, complete with high-pitched violins playing.

Information also contributed by Itay Shahar and uclafalcon

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Eurythmic.

Amiga added by POMAH. Windows added by Cavalary. Atari ST added by Belboz.

Additional contributors: Trixter, Jeanne, formercontrib, Patrick Bregger, Nate Ridley.

Game added November 23, 1999. Last modified January 20, 2024.