Bardworks (Company)

Bardworks

COMPANY

Toronto,Ontario,Canada

The Sequel to Jewels of the Oracle. Originally titled Gems of Darkness, the name was changed to Jewels II. The game got fantastic reviews, but terrible distribution. Check out reviews on the web.

Company Images Related Pages

EditHistoryPage info

Praised again for the graphics and music, Jewels II and its predecessor have been named among the best puzzle games on CD_ROM. It combines ancient games and puzzles along with some new ones and turns them into point and click devices made of rock and wood. Jewels II is the sequel. It got even better reviews than the first game, but had trouble with distribution. Corel summarily dumped their game division when they got into trouble in the late 1990s.

OVERVIEW

Released in 1998, Jewels had II incorporated an improved navigation system for jumping from room to room. It used an interactive map and a jewel box inventory system to keep track of the player's progress. There is also a helpful book of notes including explanations, historic information and hints about the puzzle devices. The game is far more sophisticated than the original too, requiring 3 CD-ROMs to contain all the files. Each floor of the cavern has its own disc.

GAMEPLAY

The ancient cavern is vastly improved with multiple floors and more sophisticated lighting than the original. There is also someone you can talk to this time. Professor Bhandam is the archaeologist in charge of the project. Once again, each puzzle solution is represented by a token. Some puzzles have multiple versions if the player wants to spend extra time playing with the devices. Only one solution is required (easy or difficult is irrelevant).

Jewels II was originally titled Gems of Darkness so as not to be confused with its predecessor which was owned by a different distributor (Dreamcatcher). Once Dreamcatcher got the distribution rights, they quickly re-named it Jewels II and created a new package.

TECH

The game was created and developed by Bardworks Ltd. and is the company's only game. Originally contracted with Corel for distribution, H A inherited the entire Corel game division and quickly went out of business. Dreamcatcher acquired the distribution rights.

3D was done on SGI (Silicon Graphics) computers this time using Alias Power Animator for modelling, lighting and rendering. The software is now called Maya and is platform independent. Interactive coding was done with MM Director again. One interesting little note - because it was 1997, it was particularly challenging to get the OS on both Mac and PC to understand CDs needed to be swapped. Today, we think nothing of popping multiple CDs in and out of the same tray, but back then CPUs were easily confused and it was a nasty hurdle all developers had to get over.