Company:Sanctuary Woods
Sanctuary Woods Multimedia, Inc. was a Canadian-American multimedia developer and third-party game publisher. It was one of the early multimedia companies developing products for CD-ROM distribution. The founders, Brian Beninger and Toni Beninger, were both experienced technologists who saw the potential for developing family-oriented and educational multimedia projects when Apple Inc. released Hypercard.
It published two games developed together with actress Shelley Duvall — It's a Bird's Life and It's a Dog's Life. It also published some well-known titles developed by Presto Studios.
In 1994 Sanctuary Woods purchased from MicroProse the MicroProse Adventure Development System game engine used to develop Rex Nebular and Return of the Phantom.[1] Following disappointing sales through 1995, the company underwent mass layoffs and a corporate restructuring.[2] Sanctuary Woods went out of business in 2001.[3]
Games published
3DO
- Dennis Miller: It's Geek to Me
- Dennis Miller: That's News to Me
- It's a Bird's Life
Macintosh
- Ripley's Believe It or Not!: The Riddle of Master Lu
- The Journeyman Project Turbo!
- The Journeyman Project 2
- Math Ace JR.
- Victor Vector & Yondo: The Cyberplasm Formula
- Hawaii High [4]
PC
- It's a Bird's Life
- It's a Dog's Life
- Ripley's Believe It or Not!: The Riddle of Master Lu
- The Journeyman Project Turbo!
- The Journeyman Project 2
- Radio Active: A Music Trivia Game
- Wolf — the first of two wildlife simulators
- Lion — the follow-up of Wolf
- Victor Vector & Yondo: The Cyberplasm Formula
- Victor Vector & Yondo: The Hypnotic Harp
- Victor Vector & Yondo: The Vampire's Coffin
- Victor Vector & Yondo: The Last Dinosaur Egg
- Math Ace Grand Prix Edition
- Word City Grand Prix Edition
- Hawaii High [4]
Games developed
Victor Vector & Yondo
Victor Vector & Yondo is a series of games published by Sanctuary Woods starring a superhero-like main character called Victor Vector, with a side-kick St. Bernard dog called Yondo. The games were published in the 1990s and had an educational spin to them. They were among the first CD-ROM games to be targeted at children.
- Victor Vector & Yondo: The Cyberplasm Formula
- Victor Vector & Yondo: The Hypnotic Harp
- Victor Vector & Yondo: The Vampire's Coffin
- Victor Vector & Yondo: The Last Dinosaur Egg
PC
- Once Upon a Forest
- Orion Burger
- Victor Vector & Yondo|Victor Vector & Yondo: The Cyberplasm Formula
- Victor Vector & Yondo: The Hypnotic Harp
- Victor Vector & Yondo: The Vampire's Coffin
- Victor Vector & Yondo: The Last Dinosaur Egg
- It's A Bird's Life
- Ripley's Believe It or Not!: The Riddle of Master Lu
Reception
Computer Gaming World in 1993 described Victor Vector & Yondo as "Heavy on the flash and light on the substance, this product is more of a talking comic book than a graphic adventure" and criticized the quality of the digitized speech.[5]
Entertainment Weekly rated Shelley Duvall's It's a Bird's Life a C− stating "While there are plenty of activities-an on-screen storybook, sing-alongs, connect-the-dots puzzles-the animation is primitive, the button-pushing can get awkward, and there are enough disc-access delays (blank screens to you and me) to shatter the attention span of even the most devoted bird fancier" [6] The game failed commercially.[7]
References
- ↑ "MicroProse Adventure Development System Purchased". Computer Gaming World: 12. April 1994. http://www.cgwmuseum.org/galleries/index.php?year=1994&pub=2&id=117.
- ↑ "News Bits". GamePro (IDG) (92): 21. May 1996.
- ↑ "Company Overview of Sanctuary Woods Multimedia Corporation". Bloomberg: pp. 1. September 2015. https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=339007.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Colker, David (17 June 1994). "THE GOODS : Everything a Girl Wants in a Game--and Less". https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-06-17-ls-5247-story.html.
- ↑ "Forging Ahead or Fit to be Smashed?". Computer Gaming World: 24. April 1993. http://www.cgwmuseum.org/galleries/index.php?year=1993&pub=2&id=105. Retrieved 6 July 2014.
- ↑ EW Staff (January 14, 1994). "Shelley Duvall's It's a Bird's Life". https://ew.com/article/1994/01/14/shelley-duvalls-its-birds-life/. Retrieved December 27, 2021.
- ↑ Carlton, Jim (June 25, 1995). "Competition stiff in video game arena". p. 39. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/91162776/the-news-tribune/. Retrieved December 27, 2021.
External links
- Sanctuary Woods profile from MobyGames
- Sanctuary Woods profile from IGN
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