Software:The Sydney Mystery

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Short description: 2003 video game
The Sydney Mystery
Cover art
Developer(s)Twilight Software
Publisher(s)Twilight Software
Designer(s)Brendan Reville
Writer(s)Brendan Reville
Composer(s)Brendan Reville
EngineAdventure Game Engine[1]
Platform(s)Windows
ReleaseApril 13, 2003
Genre(s)Adventure
Mode(s)Single-player

The Sydney Mystery is a point-and-click Adventure game released by American studio Twilight Software on April 13, 2003. The game takes place in Sydney, Australia.

Plot

In the city of Sydney in Australia, a retired detective has been kidnapped. The detective's niece looks for leads to rescue him.

Gameplay

The gameplay is simplified without the need to click on any verbal commands or items in an inventory. The player interacts with the current area by hovering the mouse over particular objects or any people present and left clicking to perform an action. The mouse pointer changes to an icon that matches the appropriate action. Right clicking cycles through any available items the player possess. Left clicking while holding the selected item uses it. Whenever the player leaves a starting area, the game switches to an over world map of Sydney, allowing the player to travel to any known locations to progress.

Development

Brendan Reville was inspired by many story-driven Sierra and LucasArts adventure games to create his own, and distanced his title from other FMV video games instead hoping to make a first-person adventure game that happened to be photographed and filmed on location.[2] He started the creation of the game from scratch in the year 2000. He programmed the entire game engine AGE (Adventure Game Engine), but much work had the project in progress for three years.[3] In addition to coding the engine, Reville almost singlehandedly designed the game, photographed and filmed all live action sequences, scripted the game, compiled and created the art, video and sound, programmed the puzzles, recorded the dialogue, tested the game, made a demo, created an installer, built the website, and did PR.[2] The game's budget was around $500.[4] By Monday 9 September 2002, Brendan had presented his game to the Independent Games Festival.[5]

Filming

Filming of the game was done in the very plot-centered city Sydney itself around 17 different locations with over 240 scenes in total.[6] Capturing pictures was done using a wide-angled SLR Camera provided by Shanno Sanders. Paul Fiore also lent a digital video camera which was used together with a Shotgun microphone for quality filming.[3] Due to the low-budget, the cast of 11 actors were either friends or friends-of-friends of Reville, and only one cast member had previous acting experience.[2]

Reception

Reception
Review scores
PublicationScore
Adventure GamersStarHalf star[7]
MetzomagicStarStarHalf star[8]

Michelle Whicker of PC Gameworld argued that the game could be used as a public relations marketing tool for Sydney due to its use of several scenic locations throughout the city.[9] Meanwhile, Alex Tait of Just Adventure described the game as the equivalent of buying a CD based on hearing one song on the radio only to be disappointed, and thought its unintentional humour was stylistically similar to that found in The Curse of Monkey Island and The Feeble Files.[10]

References

  1. ↑ jkdmedia (September 27, 2011). "The Sydney Mystery price reduction & Bonus Game Engine!". Gamezone. http://www.gamezone.com/news/the_sydney_mystery_price_reduction_amp_bonus_game_engine. 
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "Exclusive: Sydney Mystery Interview". PC Gameworld. March 20, 2003. http://www.pcgameworld.com:80/article.php/id/89/. 
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 "The Sydney Mystery - Production". http://www.twilightsoftware.com/sydneymystery/production.htm. 
  4. ↑ "Independent Games Festival: Sydney Mystery". CMP Media LLC.. 2002. http://www.igf.com:80/php-bin/entries.php?entry_id=8. 
  5. ↑ "The Sydney Mystery - News". http://www.twilightsoftware.com/sydneymystery/news.htm. 
  6. ↑ "The Sydney Mystery Demo". SPOnG. April 11, 2003. http://spong.com/press_release/4741/The-Sydney-Mystery. 
  7. ↑ Eivind Hagerup (September 7, 2003). "The Sydney Mystery Review". Adventure Gamers. http://adventuregamers.com/display.php?id=275. 
  8. ↑ Steve Ramsey (May 2003). "The Sydney Mystery Review by metzomagic.com". metzomagic.com. http://www.metzomagic.com/showArticle.php?index=561. ""All in all it was a middling experience, enjoyable in a low key way but reaching no great heights, and better for being a shared experience."" 
  9. ↑ Whicker, Michelle (May 7, 2003). "The Sydney Mystery". http://pcgameworld.com/review.php/id/383/The_Sydney_Mystery/. 
  10. ↑ Tait, Alex (May 20, 2003). "Review: The Sydney Mystery". http://www.justadventure.com/reviews/SydneyMystery/SydneyMystery.shtm. 
  • MobyGames is a commercial database website that catalogs information on video games and the people and companies behind them via crowdsourcing. This includes over 300,000 games for hundreds of platforms.[1] Founded in 1999, ownership of the site has changed hands several times. It has been owned by Atari SA since 2022.

Features

Edits and submissions to the site (including screenshots, box art, developer information, game summaries, and more) go through a verification process of fact-checking by volunteer "approvers".[2] This approval process after submission can range from minutes to days or months.[3] The most commonly used sources are the video game's website, packaging, and credit screens. There is a published standard for game information and copy-editing.[4] A ranking system allows users to earn points for contributing accurate information.[5]

Registered users can rate and review games. Users can create private or public "have" and "want" lists, which can generate a list of games available for trade with other registered users. The site contains an integrated forum. Each listed game can have its own sub-forum.

History

Logo used until March 2014

MobyGames was founded on March 1, 1999, by Jim Leonard and Brian Hirt, and joined by David Berk 18 months later, the three of which had been friends since high school.[6][7] Leonard had the idea of sharing information about computer games with a larger audience. The database began with information about games for IBM PC compatibles, relying on the founders' personal collections. Eventually, the site was opened up to allow general users to contribute information.[5] In a 2003 interview, Berk emphasized MobyGames' dedication to taking video games more seriously than broader society and to preserving games for their important cultural influence.[5]

In mid-2010, MobyGames was purchased by GameFly for an undisclosed amount.[8] This was announced to the community post factum , and the site's interface was given an unpopular redesign.[7] A few major contributors left, refusing to do volunteer work for a commercial website.{{Citation needed|date=June 2025} On December 18, 2013, MobyGames was acquired by Jeremiah Freyholtz, owner of Blue Flame Labs (a San Francisco-based game and web development company) and VGBoxArt (a site for fan-made video game box art).[9] Blue Flame Labs reverted MobyGames' interface to its pre-overhaul look and feel,[10] and for the next eight years, the site was run by Freyholtz and Independent Games Festival organizer Simon Carless.[7]

On November 24, 2021, Atari SA announced a potential deal with Blue Flame Labs to purchase MobyGames for $1.5 million.[11] The purchase was completed on 8 March 2022, with Freyholtz remaining as general manager.[12][13][14] Over the next year, the financial boost given by Atari led to a rework of the site being built from scratch with a new backend codebase, as well as updates improving the mobile and desktop user interface.[1] This was accomplished by investing in full-time development of the site instead of its previously part-time development.[15]

In 2024, MobyGames began offering a paid "Pro" membership option for the site to generate additional revenue.[16] Previously, the site had generated income exclusively through banner ads and (from March 2014 onward) a small number of patrons via the Patreon website.[17]

On February 13, 2025, Freyholtz stepped down as the site lead to move onto new projects, leaving operations to Tracy Poff, a veteran coder on the site, and Atari staff.[18]

See also

  • IGDB – game database used by Twitch for its search and discovery functions

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Sheehan, Gavin (2023-02-22). "Atari Relaunches The Fully Rebuilt & Optimized MobyGames Website". https://bleedingcool.com/games/atari-relaunches-the-fully-rebuilt-optimized-mobygames-website/. 
  2. ↑ Litchfield, Ted (2021-11-26). "Zombie company Atari to devour MobyGames". https://www.pcgamer.com/zombie-company-atari-to-devour-mobygames/. 
  3. ↑ "MobyGames FAQ: Emails Answered § When will my submission be approved?". Blue Flame Labs. 30 March 2014. http://www.mobygames.com/info/faq7#g1. 
  4. ↑ "The MobyGames Standards and Practices". Blue Flame Labs. 6 January 2016. http://www.mobygames.com/info/standards. 
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Miller, Stanley A. (2003-04-22). "People's choice awards honor favorite Web sites". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 
  6. ↑ "20 Years of MobyGames" (in en). 2019-02-28. https://trixter.oldskool.org/2019/02/28/20-years-of-mobygames/. 
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Plunkett, Luke (2022-03-10). "Atari Buys MobyGames For $1.5 Million". https://kotaku.com/mobygames-retro-credits-database-imdb-atari-freyholtz-b-1848638521. 
  8. ↑ "Report: MobyGames Acquired By GameFly Media". Gamasutra. 2011-02-07. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/game-platforms/report-mobygames-acquired-by-gamefly-media. 
  9. ↑ Corriea, Alexa Ray (December 31, 2013). "MobyGames purchased from GameFly, improvements planned". http://www.polygon.com/2013/12/31/5261414/mobygames-purchased-from-gamefly-improvements-planned. 
  10. ↑ Wawro, Alex (31 December 2013). "Game dev database MobyGames getting some TLC under new owner". Gamasutra. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/game-dev-database-mobygames-getting-some-tlc-under-new-owner. 
  11. ↑ "Atari invests in Anstream, may buy MobyGames". November 24, 2021. https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2021-11-24-atari-invests-in-anstream-may-buy-mobygames. 
  12. ↑ Rousseau, Jeffrey (2022-03-09). "Atari purchases Moby Games". https://www.gamesindustry.biz/atari-purchases-moby-games. 
  13. ↑ "Atari Completes MobyGames Acquisition, Details Plans for the Site's Continued Support". March 8, 2022. https://www.atari.com/atari-completes-mobygames-acquisition-details-plans-for-the-sites-continued-support/. 
  14. ↑ "Atari has acquired game database MobyGames for $1.5 million" (in en-GB). 2022-03-09. https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/atari-has-acquired-game-database-mobygames-for-1-5-million/. 
  15. ↑ Stanton, Rich (2022-03-10). "Atari buys videogame database MobyGames for $1.5 million". https://www.pcgamer.com/atari-buys-videogame-database-mobygames-for-dollar15-million/. 
  16. ↑ Harris, John (2024-03-09). "MobyGames Offering “Pro” Membership". https://setsideb.com/mobygames-offering-pro-membership/. 
  17. ↑ "MobyGames on Patreon". http://www.patreon.com/mobygames. 
  18. ↑ "An update on MobyGames leadership". 2025-02-13. https://www.mobygames.com/forum/3/thread/269628/an-update-on-mobygames-leadership/#post-269628. 
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