Torin's Passage

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Torin's Passage

Developer(s)	Sierra On-Line
Publisher(s)	Sierra On-Line
Designer(s)	Al Lowe
Release date(s)	1995
Genre(s)	Adventure
Mode(s)	Single player
Rating(s)	ESRB: K-A
Platform(s)	MS-DOS, Windows 3.x, Windows 95, Mac
Media	Floppy disk, CD-ROM
Input	Mouse

Torin's Passage is a graphic adventure game developed and released by Sierra On-Line, designed by Al Lowe. The game holds the distinction of being a family friendly game by Lowe, designer of the adult-oriented Leisure Suit Larry series of games.

1 Gameplay
2 Plot
3 Development history
4 Reception
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Gameplay

The player interacts with Torin and the in-game environments using a point-and-click interface. Placing the cursor over certain "hot spots" in the environment allows him to move around, examine things and pick up items. There is also an inventory system used to access the items Torin collects during the course of the game. The player can switch to Boogle as well, although he is mainly used to morph into various items. The items he can morph into replace the items in Torin's inventory. Any item can be viewed as a 3-D model by using the item viewer. The game has a variety of puzzles, from puzzles involving items you pick up to sliding puzzles. Points are given after solving puzzles. A hint system is included as an in-game feature, and the player can ask for hints after certain time intervals, at the cost of game points. The specific time interval can be set as an in-game option. The hint system can also be turned off entirely. ^[1]

[edit] Plot

The protagonist of the game is Torin, the son of a farming family on the planet of Strata. A witch named Lycentia captures his family with a magic spell, and he embarks on a quest to the dreaded "lands below" traveling to worlds beneath the surface of the planet in search of her. He is aided by a purple cat-like creature called Boogle, who is able to change itself into a variety of shapes. ^[2]

[edit] Development history

Al Lowe states on his official website that he wrote Torin's Passage in 1994 after seeing the film Mrs. Doubtfire with his daughter. He states that while watching the film, he realized that audience was laughing in two different pitches: "high little giggles when the kids laughed at the slapstick parts of the film, and deep knowing guffaws when the adults caught something that they knew the kids wouldn't get." Lowe thought, "Why isn't there a computer game that my 9-year-old daughter and I could play that works like that?" ^[3] Lowe's daughter would take a small role in the development of the game, designing the maze puzzle seen late in the game. ^[4]

The game's developers included a variety of easter eggs in the game. Some of the more obvious ones occur near the end of the game. Several characters make cameo appearances at the same time, including Darth Vader, Yoda and Taylor from the original Planet of the Apes film. Hotaru Tomoe, also known as "Sailor Saturn" from Sailor Moon also makes an appearance. While the other characters were placed in there by the game's background artists, Hotaru was placed in the game by Bryan Wilkinson, an art tech working on the game. There are also various references made to Torin's Passage in a subsequent Al Lowe release, Leisure Suit Larry 7: Love for Sail!. ^[5]

Some members of the development team who worked on Torin's Passage went on to work for notable companies. Lead Animator Jim Murphy went on to work for Pixar and Lead Background Artist Bruce Sharp went on to work for Microsoft. ^[3]^[6]

The game was intended to be the first in a series similar to Sierra's King's Quest, but the declining popularity of adventure games put a stop to such plans. ^[3]

[edit] Reception

It was designed to be suitable for children, which surprised many of the fans of its designer, who was known for making rather "adult" games. In an interview Al Lowe stated: "I think many people misunderstood Torin's Passage, however. It was designed for a parent to share with a child, because I wanted a game that Megan (my then 11-year-old daughter) and I could play together." ^[7]

Critical reaction to the game is mixed, GameSpot's Jeffrey Adam Young gave the game a 7.0 out of 10, a "Good" rating. Young lauded it as an adventure game for players of all ages, although he commented that younger children and novice adventure game players might find some of the puzzles challenging. Young also noted that although the game is child-friendly, some of Lowe's characteristic toilet humor remains in the narrative. ^[8] The adventure video game website Adventure Gamers published a less glowing review in 2003 though, calling the game "A promising fairy tale that just never breaks through the wall of mediocrity." ^[1]