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.
