The Crystal Key

Earthlight, 2000

The Crystal Key is an underrated Science Fiction adventure game developed entirely using Quick-Time technology. Earth's space satellites have picked up some strange messages from some alien world warning about a danger and advising to abandon all the colonies including Earth and return to a Planet named Arkonia. Now, you are chosen by the high officials to travel to Arkonia in a spaceship and solve the mystery of these strange messages.

The 2D graphics used in the game are still images tied together in such a way to give the player a 360 degree panned view, which can be viewed by moving the mouse in the desired direction while keeping the left mouse button pressed. In addition to this beautiful 360-degree panning effect, the zoom in and out view options are also available. While the game has a few glitches that include a weak storyline, illogical and simple puzzles, inferior quality of music and quite few sound effects, the cut-scenes are well done. In my opinion, it's another playable Myst-Clone, which can be picked up from most bargain-bins for $6.95 or most probably less.

Chemicus: Journey to the Other Side

Heureka-Klett, 2002

Chemicus is a classical adventure game developed in a Myst like environment with an educational theme. After watching the fantastic introductory animated sequence you enter your friend's house in an effort to rescue him. Your friend Richard is a expert chemist and while doing his routine experiments in a hidden lab he accidentally opened a portal to the bizarre and mysterious city of Chemicus. Before he could walk into the city some strangers kidnapped and imprisoned him inside the city. Your quest is to follow Richard's footsteps to Chemicus to rescue him and you must also solve the mysteries hidden in the city of Chemicus.

The puzzles in Chemicus are very challenging and hard to solve without having some good knowledge of chemistry and chemistry experiments students usually conduct in Labs in real life. Other good features of the game include brilliant graphics, extraordinary music and an easy to use point-and-click interface. On the whole, Chemicus is an excellent educational adventure game, which will definitely fascinate chemistry students and other adventure gamers.