In the year 2500 the surface of Earth is uninhabitable due to climatic changes. Mankind has retreated to subterranean refuges to survive. But the situation keeps deteriorating. The protective magnetic field of the planet on the verge of breakdown and upcoming solar flare of tremendous dimensions threaten total extermination of life. A group of time pilots sends back several teams to the past to fight climatic change early enough to avert the imminent catastrophe. The first attempt fails and decimates the teams. Only idealistic young radio operator Fay and ruthless team leader Salvador manage to venture further into the past of the 20th century. While Fay tries to convince retreated bio engineer Bent Svensson to resume his research on his blue algae as alternate energy source, Salvador believes only in desperate measures and is determined to do whatever it takes to fulfill his mission.
A New Beginning adheres to the classic adventures in the style of The Whispered World or the Runaway Series. The player controls Fay or Bent Svensson depending on the section of the game. The game includes typical item combination riddles, machine puzzles and a few dialogue riddles. Most machine puzzles are designed as mini-games that can be skipped if it takes more than three minutes to find the solution. A New Beginning features an inventory, a hot-spot system and a context sensitive interaction menu comparable to A Vampyre Story.
The graphics consist of hand-painted backgrounds and animated cel-shaded characters. The visuals follow a comic or graphic-novel style. In particular, intermediate movie sequences are presented in animated elements that result in comic panel structures.
The UK retail release includes additional content next to the main game:
Soundtrack disc
Double-sided poster
A New Beginning: Final Cut is a revised release. There is no free update from the original game to update to the Final Cut version. It contains these differences:
The original German release by Deep Silver includes a soundtrack CD-ROM. It features the same disc artwork as the game DVD of the publisher's Lost Horizon release.
Final Cut release
The final cut edition is an updated version of the Windows game. It includes full localization for English, German, French and Russian, and subtitles for Italian, Spanish and Polish. It is also the first Macintosh version of the game. Next to the localization options some bugs and errors were fixed. For the Steam release achievements are included.
