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Daughter of Serpents

aka: The Scroll
Moby ID: 2534

Description official descriptions

Daughter of the Serpent is a graphic adventure game with a point-and-click interface.

An exotic, ancient city bustling with life. A strange, unnatural creature. A murder. And you, on a business trip to Alexandria, Egypt, suddenly involved in the case of a mysterious cult that deals with strange forces. Take a piece of ancient Egyptian mythology, add a pinch of demonology a la Lovecraft, and mix with a decent dose of colonial middle-east romanticism -- those are the ingredients for the sinister adventure game Daughter of the Serpents.

Daughter of the Serpents would be a pretty common adventure game, if it wasn’t for one remarkable feature. Quite unusually for a pedigree adventure game, you have to design your character at the beginning of the game. You may chose a gender as well as one of six professions, ranging from traveller to private eye or occultist. Each category consists of four to five talents, in which you can then invest skill points. You may thus specialise your character in toxicology, let him learn the Arabian language, make him an excellent observer or an expert in necromancy.

The talents have no influence on the plot, but a marginal one on the dialogues; you will get slightly different conversations depending on your knowledge of certain subjects. Your choice of profession, however, opens three slightly different approaches to the mystery, culminating in three different endings. Although the basic course of events does always stay the same, a few scenes are exclusive to each branch. Also, you will be accompanied by either the Greek occultist Ariadne Elytis or the rational inspector Bimbashi Cameron. Check out the screenshots section for examples of different scenes.

Groups +

Screenshots

Promos

Credits (DOS version)

19 People (11 developers, 8 thanks)

Game Design & Scripting
Programming
Game Graphics
Character Generator Graphics
Additional Graphics
Music and Sound Effects
Produced by
Documentation and RPG
Cover illustration
Typesetting and Box Design
  • Cassels Bennett Associates
Special thanks to
  • Edmund Swinglehurst (Thomas Cook archivist)
  • T S Pattie (Department of Manuscripts - British Museum)
  • Bill Tunstall (Africa Archives - for photographic source material)
  • Janet Cadera (for photographic assistance)
  • John Cadera (for hieroglyphic source material)
  • the staffs of the British Library at the British Museum Reading Room and Map Library Colindale Newspaper Library and Oriental Reading Room
  • Kevin Shrapnell (at EA)
  • everybody who bought The Hound of Shadow (last but not least)

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 42% (based on 18 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.2 out of 5 (based on 14 ratings with 1 reviews)

Unimportant.

The Good
You can say that Daughter of the Serpent is no catastrophe. But then, you can say that about a lot of games. Daughter of the Serpents is an utterly insignificant adventure game, possibly having tricked a few gamers into buying it for its nice graphics, but all in all common enough to be rightfully doomed to oblivion. There is, however, one single sparkle that is worth attention. It is the character creation system, and, more importantly: its impact on the game. The idea is excellent. Imagine the possibilities of talent-driven puzzles: You would only notice certain clues if you had the corresponding talent. You could influence conversations according to your knowledge. You could solve puzzle by using your special skills. And you'd have a real incentive to play again, as you could try a different approach to the problems.

The Bad
Unfortunately, Daughter of the Serpent wastes these chances. The developers went only half the way: you choose talents, yes. But you don't use them. Whether you have a skill or not does not influence a single puzzle, it just changes a text now and then. The three plot branches are an attempt, but nothing more: the differences are too few, too disappointing. Even worse, you don't really want to play the game again, as the story is weak and not the least thrilling. There's really not much room for the plot to develop: the game is much too short. Even inexperienced players reach the end in a couple of hours. If your progress is hindered, it's not by the rare, dead easy puzzles, but by the confusing interface. Developer Eldritch has done its best to build as many traps into the normally idiot-proof point-and-click system as possible. Some items can only be used after they have been dropped to the floor and examined (!) there, then taken again. If dropped over hotspots on the screen, objects are lost forever, as the "get"-icon won't appear.

The Bottom Line
If you really want to play Daughter of the Serpent, I dare say you won't be bored for a couple of hours. You won't be entertained, either. Historically insignificant, this is a game that you can skip without regret.

DOS · by -Chris (7755) · 2000

Trivia

Extras

The game box contained a pen and paper roleplaying game to set up the story.

Graphics

Technical scrap: Daughter of the Serpents switches between two different graphics modes. The main game is in 320x200, but the character generation uses the uncommon EGA high-res 640x350 resolution.

Inspiration

The game is based on H.P. Lovecraft's Mythos, though he is not credited. Prominent HPL figures such as Nyarlathotep appear in the game, and are woven into Ancient Egypt mythology.

Information also contributed by Istari and Jaromir Krol

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Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 2534
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by -Chris.

Additional contributors: Jaromir Krol, Patrick Bregger.

Game added October 21, 2000. Last modified July 8, 2024.