Contents:

Prologue 1

Previews 2Nibiru: The Messenger of the Gods 2Still Life 4

Gossip 7

Lounge 9

Future Games 9

Reviews 13

CSI: Miami 13The Crystal Key 2 15

Extra 17

Bits and Bytes 17Invento-mail 19

Epilogue 21

Aword of warning, this is going to be a shortissue. This is due to several reasons. First ofall the editor (that�s me) has been very busywith two new endeavours...both adventure-rela-

ted. You will learn about both of them - and trust me theyare both very very exciting - soon. Second of all, a mem-ber of our staff received some review copies later than weexpected. Third of all, after a request from Prograph wehad to put an end to the Tony Tough comics.

But no need to worry, there are still quite a lot ofinteresting contents in this issue. First and foremost wehave a preview of Nibiru by Oliver Gruener. Oliver got toplay a German preview version and he tells us all aboutthis anticipated adventure from the makers of The BlackMirror. We also feature an interview with the developersof Nibiru in our Lounge, conducted by PTGamers, the lea-ding Portuguese gaming site.

I received a preview version of Still Life from MC2,the European publishers of Still Life. I know that a few ofpreviews have already made their appearance on the net,but after reading them they seemed more like pressreleases than an actual report of the game�s attributes soI tried to give a more balanced view of this long awaitedthriller.

In the reviews section you get the chance to readwhat we thought about the CSI add-o...emm sorry I meantto say new installment of the CSI series, CSI: Miami.Justin Peeples gives a good lesson to the Crystal Key 2student (younger brother of Crystal Key 1). Later onOliver Gruener talks about everything you need to knowbefore you buy a new PC monitor. But before, that let�ssee what he thinks of Nibiru...

Dimitris MManos

CreditsEditor: Dimitris ManosAuthors/Contributors:Dimitris ManosJustin PeeplesOliver GruenerVitor Braz

Hosts:www.theinventory.orgwww.justadventure.comLayout: Dimitris ManosCover Art:Still Life

Contact InformationAddress:The Inventory MagazineGrankottevägen 55 AÖrebro 702 82SwedenE-mail address:info@theinventory.orgPhone No:+46702053444

Other EditionsFrench:http://www.planete-aventure.netItalian: http://www.adventuresplanet.it/Russian: www.questzone.ru

Copyright Note:The Inventory is copyright DimitrisManos and may not be reprinted else-where without the express written con-sent of the owner. If anyone sees TheInventory or portions of The Inventoryposted someplace without express writ-ten consent, then please contact us at:theinventory@yahoo.com

Prologue

PREVIEWSNibiru | Still Life

2 February 2005

Does anybody know theadventure "Posel Bohu"? It was thegame of the year 1998 in the CzechRepublic. The developers earnedworldwide fame only last year withtheir hit-game Black Mirror. By theway Black Mirror was the most com-mercially successful adventuregame in Germany in 2004. A goodreason for publisher dtp to alsorelease Future Games / UnknownIdentity's newest title: NIBIRU -Messenger of the Gods.

But what the hell is "Nibiru"or what does it stand for? Accordingto more or less scientific legendsthere is a tenth planet in our solarsystem: Planet X. Some astrono-mers believe there may be a largebody in the Oort cloud which is dis-rupting the orbits of some of thelong-period comets. In 1976Zechariah Sitchin published a bookcalled The 12th Planet (includingsun and moon into the count).Totally ignoring the laws of physicsand misinterpreting some Sumerianarchaeological discoveriesZechariah Sitchin brewed up hisown theory about a colossal planethe called Marduk or Nibiru that issupposed to pass the inner solarsystem every 3600 years and isinhabited by wonderful aliens whoare supposed to be our origins andresponsible for example for parting

the Red Sea� Those interested inmore background information shouldhave a look at http://www.badastro-nomy.com/bad/misc/planetx/. Theworld and as an image also theinternet are full of freaks who havethe weirdest theories and some - atfirst sight - even look plausible. Withtime and anticipation myth canbecome truth as history shows us allthe time. So Future Games thoughtof taking such a fable and weave aninteresting, fantastic story. After allthis made Indiana Jones famousand also Dan Brown with his books(i.e. The Da Vinci Code - next yearin theatres with Tom Hanks asRobert Langdon) is very successful.

Late at night Archaeology

student Martin Holan gets a telepho-ne call from his uncle, Prof. Wildewho tells him that an old tunnel hadbeen discovered at the constructionsite of a new motorway. The tunnel,as he thinks, was built during theSecond World War by the Nazis andmight lead to a secret undergroundresearch facility. Martin travels backfrom France to his homeland tomeet an informant on the famousCharles Bridge in Prague. That'swhere the player takes control ofMartin Holan. Of course the infor-mant isn't there but a street paintertells him that a woman obviouslyhad been waiting for someone. Aftersome easy tasks consisting of sear-ching for a note and talking again

Nibiru:Messenger of the Gods

Oliver Gruener from Germany got the chance to play a preview ver-sion of Nibiru and he is telling us what he thought of the game.Make sure to read also the interview with the developers in ourLounge.

Martin�s uncle resides in a huge mansion

Nibiru| Still Life

3February 2005

and again with the painter, the pain-ter tells Martin that it looked likesomeone had been followingBarbora (the informants name).Martin leaves for her apartmentafter calling Prof. Wilde with his cellphone. Once inside Martin is knock-ed out cold. When he wakes up thenext morning the flat looks like abattlefield and Holan makes a horri-fic discovery inside the bathroom. Itlooks like someone has high inte-rests at the tunnel and what may lieat its end and it is important enoughthat they will kill. This is the preludeto an adventurous cat and mousegame, amazing discoveries and avery promising game. Maybe alrea-dy a candidate for the adventuregame of 2005 title?

Nibiru features 80 beautiful-ly rendered locations in 1024 x 768pixels. The highly detailed screenscome to life when a tram drives byor neon signs light up. Nibiru's grap-hic style is completely similar to thatof Black Mirror alas the technologybehind it has advanced. The motioncapture animated, featurs 35 cha-racters that are real-time 3Dmodels, spiced up with volumeeffects and anti-aliasing, that blendperfectly into the 2D backgrounds. Afeast for the eyes! A minor drawbackin the preview version was that theplayer's character couldn't run bydouble clicking so it took ages tomove over the screen, this should

be fixed in the final version. Leftclicking an object brings up adescription, right clicking examinesit further. The inventory disappearsinto the lower border when not nee-ded. In other words the interface iswell tested and approved.

Our preview copy didn'thave voices, yet but dtp promisedexcellent actors once again. MartinNolan will be dubbed by MatthiasHinze, the German voice of MattDamon also on board are the voicesof Doug and Carrie Heffernan wellknown chaos-couple from the sit-com King of Queens.

The most important part ofan adventure game, next to thestory, is the puzzles. The previewversion featured the first two chap-ters of the game and I was alreadypresented with a wide variety of

diverse brainteasers starting withconversations over password crack-ing and item combination. The diffic-ulty level starts quite simple butbecomes more and more deman-ding - very good! Let's just hope thatthe rest of the game will be also sowell balanced.

My first impression of Nibiru- Messenger of the Gods is thatFuture Games / Unknown Identityand dtp have a certain hit candidatein line. Dialogues are short and tothe point, riddles are old school andproved point and click adventurestyle and the graphics looks fantas-tic, altogether a brilliant package. Inother words: I can't wait to lay mygreedy claws onto the final result.

- Oliver Gruener

PREVIEWS

The porter won�t let you in A scene outdoors

The graphics are very similar to Black Mirror

Nibiru | Still Life

4 February 2005

Some years ago, whenMicroids released the first trailer ofPost Mortem, extremely excitedadventure fans began countingevery single second till the day thatthe game would be released. Thefact that Microids had released theaward winning Syberia only a shorttime before the trailer was publishedwas one more reason for the overallexcitement. The fanfare howeverwas brought to an end when thefirst reviews started coming out.

Some illogical puzzles com-bined with an inconsistent dialoguesystem and an outdated graphicsengine added Post Mortem in the�could have been great if...� list ofadventure games. Now Microidsattempts to bring the Post Mortemuniverse back to life, with a lighttouch of Syberia to the graphics.The technical aspects of the gameimpress from the very beginning.The introduction is one of the mostawe-aspiring cutscenes you havewatched in gaming in general. Themarriage of classical music andgory pictures set the mood rightfrom the start.

And since we are talkingabout images and music, let me tell

you first what you already knew formonths now...the graphics aregreat. As great as graphics with pre-rendered backgrounds can be doneanyway. The animation is slick, andthe backgrounds are very detailed.The 3D models are very well desig-ned. The only complaint here is thatsome models don�t have equal qua-lity as some others. This is mostlyevident with the main character,Victoria, whose facial details are

much clearer than those of othersecondary characters. Another grap-hics feature that could have beenimplemented better are the videosthat are somewhat blurry. Thesecomments however are very strictnitpicking, and the game�s overallperformance in the graphics factoris amazing - this should come as nosurprise to anybody who has playedadventures from Microids in thepast. The burning question with Still

Still life

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PREVIEWS

Victoria outside of the crime scene

Nibiru | Still Life

5February 2005

Life, is how do the gameplay andthe story fare? The previous titles ofMicroids (Syberia, Post Mortem)were not really perfect in thoseaspects. Well at first glance, StillLife seems to be avoiding some pit-falls that Syberia and Post Mortemfell into.

Victoria McPherson, is ayoung FBI agent. It appears that aserial killer means business, withthe body count having reached fivealready, and the killer being still onthe run. When the game starts youtake the role of Victoria investigatingthe latest victim of the serial killer.Later on in the game, you will alsoget to play a second character, GusMcPherson, that was also the mainhero of Post Mortem.

In Still Life there are notthat many �empty screens�, with not-hing to interact with, a certain impro-vement to Syberia. While it is notexactly �interaction-heaven�, there issomething to do in most screens. Inthe little time I had the chance toplay around with Still Life, I found noextreme cases of pixel-huntingwhich is also a plus. The interface isa mixed bag. It is simple, but at thesame time, a tad too simple. You

can choose whether you want toplay with a mouse or with a keybo-ard. I really doubt that there wouldbe many people who would choosethe keyboard option when they canplay with the mouse, but givingoptions to players is always the bestway to go. The cursor will changeinto different symbols whenever youcan interact with something on thescreen, like in Syberia. So all youhave to do is to search the screenfor an interactive spot and then clickon it.

As for using items on otherobjects or people within the game,that�s a bit more complicated. Thedevelopers have decided to follow adifferent approach to what we havebeen used to recently. Normally inmost adventure games you choosean item from your inventory andthen you click on the object or per-son in the world that you want touse that item on. Well in Still Life,it�s the other way around. First youget to choose the object or personfrom the gameworld that you wantto use an item on - you do that bylooking at the object/person - andthen you select the item from yourinventory. Think of it this way. If Still

Life was a text adventure, instead oftyping USE SWAB ON BLOODPOOL, you would type ON BLOODPOOL USE SWAB. To be honest itfelt kind of weird, and although I gotused to it after a while, I still preferthe usual method of selecting anitem first and then the object or per-son that I want to use this item on.

Another slight drawback inthe interface is that the Inventory isa separate full screen, so everytimeyou want to use an item you have towatch this green screen, whichresults in you getting �outside� of thegaming world quite often. It is obvio-usly not a very immersion-friendlyfeature. The dialogue interface issimple...actually way too simple, tothe extent of getting boring after awhile. You either click the left mousebutton if you want to talk aboutsomething relevant with your caseor the right mouse button if youwant to have a discussion with acharacter that is not necessarilyconnected to the game�s overallstory. A little icon on the bottom rightcorner of the screen shows you ifyou can click the right mouse buttonor the left mouse button at anygiven moment during a conversa-

PREVIEWS

Top: In the elevator heading up toher office

Right: Inside the interrogation room

Nibiru | Still Life

6 February 2005

tion. I really don�t see the point in�clicking through� a conversation. Itwould feel different if there wassome text showing what the charac-ter is about to say, that I could clickon. In this case I feel like I have achoice. But to click just in order tocontinue a conversation, that justfelt redundant. It�s not really ashowstopper or anything nor does itdetract from the overall fun of play-ing the game, but it doesn�t feel verycreative either.

The gameplay is very remi-niscent of late investigative gamesbased on TV-series like CSI andLaw and Order, but with more ele-ments of 3rd person adventuregames. You have to look for cluesand gather evidence while at thesame time you will have to overco-me certain obstacles by using otheritems on them. All the problems thatI had to play through seemed prettystraightforward.

The music of the game was

of high quality - I still can�t get theintroduction track out of my head -and the voice overs were very pro-fessionally performed. The dialoguelines however vary from very inte-resting to so and so. Some vulgarlanguage is used, and although Ihave no problems with vulgarityitself - point of proof is that one ofmy favourite characters ever isBurns Flipper - I think there is a dif-ference between using vulgar lan-guage because it fits and using vul-gar language just for the sake ofusing it. To bring a movies parallel,some movies that featured vulgarlanguage appropriately in my opi-nion were Pulp Fiction and The 25thHour, while on the other hand inThe Matrix Revolutions vulgar lan-guage was used just for the sake ofit. From the little time I got to spendwith Still Life, I�d say that the wayvulgar language is used in the gameis inappropriate and it is there justfor the sake of controversy. But I�ll

have to hold judgement on that forthe final release of the game.

I will try to sum up my fee-lings about the game by answeringsome questions. Will Still Life be thereally innovative title that will bring anew renaissance in adventuregaming? I highly doubt that. Will itbe a very enjoyable experience? Itlooks so. Will it be better than PostMortem and Syberia? My impres-sion is that it will be a much bettergame than Post Mortem andSyberia 2. Syberia 1 on the otherhand was the first adventure fromMicroids that featured high produc-tion values and it came at a timewhen the only alternative options inthe market where low budget Mystclones. So I am not sure whetherStill Life will give us the wow factorthat Syberia 1 gave us back thenbut I will have to hold judgement onthat one for the final version of thegame.

- Dimitris Manos

Talking to your partner

How thoughtful of Victoria to bringcoffee for everybody

PREVIEWS

7February 2005

TellTale Games announced Bone, a 3D adventure based onan award winning independent comic book. According to thepress release: Telltale, a company that takes you to theworlds where characters like Bone play and invites you toplay with them, will be creating new episodes for PC gaming."Detailed rich characters and incredibly immersive story tellingare everything to us," said Telltale's CEO Dan Connors. "Weare proud that Jeff Smith and Cartoon Books have decidedthat we are the best partners to bring Bone to life in a seriesof PC games. The Bone world has so much texture and depthand combines a unique blend of superb adventure, mysteryand humor � it is a great first license for Telltale."

GOSSIP

TellTale GGames aannounced BBone

Fenimore FFillmore 33 ffirstscreenshotIt appears that the sequel to The Westerner(winner of our Best Adventure 2004 award)is already in production according to thewebsite Mr Bill�s Adventureland. They alsoposted the first screenshot of the game, andby the looks of it, Revistronic will be usingtheir fantastic 3D engine once more for thepurposes of the game. You can find thescreenshot here:http://www.mrbillsadventureland.com/reviews/0-9/3skullsR/fenimore3R.htm

Sequel tto TThe MMomentof SSilence

The other big winner of The InventoryAwards 2004, The Moment of Silence, alsoseems to be getting a sequel sometime in

the future. During a developer�s chat atGameboomers, Martin Gantefoehr, projectleader of The Moment of Silence, announ-

ced that they will be developing a sequel toTMOS but it is not the next title they are

working on. Here is the link to the thread:www.gameboomers.com/ubboard/ultimat-

ebb.php/topic/33/10.html

Star WWars ffan-mmadeadventure ddemoA group of Star Wars fans are working on a3rd person point and click adventure calledShadows of the Empire. The team behindthe game has also recently released a veryinteresting tech demo. The mission in thedemo won�t be featured in the final game.You can download the demo, which hasalready exceeded 2000 downloads as weare writing this newsbit, from the website ofthe game:http://dsgames.guerrestellari.net

Orgastic 44 pprequel fformobile pphones

Bad Brain Entertainment announced that inco-operation with Magixoft they will release aprequel to their upcoming Orgastic 4 adven-ture game. The prequel will be playable in a

wide range of mobile phones. The editor ofThe Inventory is also working on an adven-

ture game for Magixoft, called The ExchangeStudent. To learn more about the coopera-tion between Bad Brain and Magixoft visit:

www.bad-brain.comwww.magixoft.com

GOSSIP

8 February 2005

The Inventory has already been featured on cover CDsof gaming magazines around the world, and since lastmonth we started co-operating with yet another PC-gaming magazine. This time the magazine is PC-Club,one of the leading PC games magazines of Bulgaria.Apostol Apostolov, editor of PC Club, was also kindenough to invite the editor of The Inventory, DimitrisManos in an interview, discussing topics around TheInventory and adventure games in general. We wouldlike to thank Apostol Apostolov and the rest of thePC-Club Crew for helping us spread the word onadventure games. Adventure fans in Bulgaria willbe able to find the latest issue of The Inventoryevery month in the CD of PC-Club. If you work for amagazine that offers a CD and you would like tofeature The Inventory, feel free to contact us atinfo@theinventory.org . It doesn�t matter where themagazine is located or what the focus of the maga-zine is, we would like to promote adventures to allsorts of demographics.

Announcements and Opportunities:

Would you like to advertise your products through TheInventory? Would you like your products to be expo-sed to thousands of readers around the world? Learnabout our wide variety of advertisement offers startingfrom as low as 30 Euros per month and reaching up to200 Euros per month depending on the size and theposition of the advertisement. Learn more by emailingus at:info@theinventory.org

Advertise wwith uusWe want to open a PR department for the magazine and

we are looking for people that will create advertisementdeals for us and that will build new relationships with

developers & publishers inside the adventure industry andwith members of the press (both adventure and non-

adventure related). Good skills in English is a must. PRexperience is an advantage but not a requirement. Salaryto be given in form of commission. More than one position

available. Apply by sending an email to: info@theinventory.org

We nneed PPR Staff

Cooperation wwith TThe IInventory?As you see, we are interested in all sorts of cooperation endeavours. There are a lot of magazines and newspa-pers out there whose focus is computer games, story-telling mediums (movies, books etc) or technology (compu-ters, graphics etc). It would be possible to co-operate with any magazine, newspaper or website that covers any ofthe above subjects, wherever it might be published around the world. Cooperation methods could include hostingthe PDF magazine, printing it out and including it in a bundle offer with a magazine or a newspaper, maybe evensome articles exchange or whatever else possible. One thing is for sure, only the sky is the limit! Contact us at:info@theinventory.org

The IInventory ffeaturedin PPC-CClub MMagazine

The interviewabout The

Inventory inthe latest PC

Club issue

The cover of thelatest PC-Clubissue

Future Games

9February 2005

YYoouurrsseellvveess

Tell us a bit about yourself, andFuture Games: How did it allbegin, and how many peoplework there?

Future Games s.r.o. is a privatecompany, established in the year1999 for the purpose of computergames development. Over the timewe were dissatisfied with the ser-vice, that was offered to us by thedistribution companies (our productwas mostly simply "placed" in thedistribution only) and in order to pro-vide ultimate support for our games,we founded a division for distribu-tion, which is specializing in distribu-tion and support on the internationalscale. Based on our experiences,we know that it is better to choosecreating a distribution company, sothat your product isn�t only being"thrown" in the line as another pro-duct in a row, but it will really take agood care of the distribution withregards to all aspects, which aremaking the specific game interestingfor the players. And this is just ourphilosophy. And I think that Black

Mirror is the living proof that theroad we're walking on is going in theright direction. Out of our gamesthat we released in the past, wecould name for example Boovie,Posel Bohu (messenger of Gods) orBubwiny. At this time we are puttingout on the market the adventuregame Nibiru and action adventureBonez Adventures. We have indevelopment several other projects.Currently there are 22 employeesworking in Future Games s.r.o.

The Black Mirror is the adventurethat made us - and a lot ofEuropean gamers - accustomedto Future Games. Is this yourfavorite kind of game, or are you

also action gamers?

Basically most of the people whowork in Future Games s.r.o. likeadventure games. On the otherhand some of us play differentgames as well. I personally alsoplay strategies and action games aswell, my business partner doesn´tplay other games than adventures,our musician plays only rpgs ... .

Adventure games aren't conside-red the most profitable genre inthe market, especially in the USA.Why did you choose this genreinstead of another FPS / RTS /RPG?

LOUNGE

Interview wwith Future GGamesFuture Games are the developers of the popular point and click horror adventure, The Black Mirror. The BlackMirror has been very successful both in terms of sales and critical acclaim, and Future Games are now workingon an adventure that is similar to The Black Mirror when it comes to graphics and gameplay style, but with a diffe-rent story setting. The name of their upcoming title is Nibiru. The interview was conducted by the Vitor Braz ofPTGamers, the leading gaming Portuguese site, and is featured both in The Inventory and in their website (trans-lated in Portuguese) as part of our co-operation agreement. So let�s see what did the developers of Nibiru have tosay to PT Gamers.

Future Games

10 February 2005

We had an interesting story in ourhands and our intention was toimplement the atmosphere of thestory into the game without com-promises. Later on we found outthat only one way how to do it isto make an adventure game. Ourgoal is to make games whichplayers will like to play and that´swhy the most important thing inour decision-making process wasto create the good game and notwhich genre is currently mostpopular ... .

Is Future Games going to focussolely on adventures, or doesthe idea of developing a gameof another genre sound appea-ling to you?

Of course we can. You know it -never say never.

Did you receive a lot of feed-back from the players of TheBlack Mirror? Are there anyplans for a sequel?

Yes, we did. It´s always a pleasu-re for us when we are able toread that people from all over theworld know our game. It´s also

very important to us becausebased on feedback we are able tolearn what players like and dislikeon our games. Such informationthen helps us to improve our nextprojects in line by adding whatthe players prefer.

NNiibbiirruu:: TThheeMMeesssseennggeerr ooff tthheeGGooddss

Nibiru: The Messenger of theGods is your next and soon tobe released adventure game.Tell us a bit about it.

In contrary to the horror storyBlack Mirror, Nibiru is an adventu-re game. But as in the case ofBlack Mirror, we focused duringour work on Nibiru above all onthe story and on the gamingatmosphere. During the game, wewill visit interesting places likePrague at night, a deep forest, asecret German shelter, Franceand Mexico. The player will livethrough the story of Martin Holan,a Czech student who studiesthanks to support of his uncle inFrance. Martin's uncle ProfessorVilde asks him for help with aseemingly routine investigationconsidering a newly discoveredGerman tunnel from the end ofthe World War II. The story willbring Martin to the path of anextraterrestrial civilization thatvisited the Earth a long time ago.

One of the strong points of TheBlack Mirror was the mysteryin its storyline. Is Nibiru goingto be as suspenseful, or will ithave a clearer and more direct

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LOUNGE

Future Games

11February 2005

approach to things?

BM was a horror story so it logicallyexploited more the dark tension.Compared to that, Nibiru ratherexploits the adventurous atmosphe-re, but magical moments won't bemissing either. You can just imaginethe dark and silent corridors of anold German tunnel or the magicalatmosphere of secret spaces insidethe Maya pyramids.

The Black Mirror is a game with adark and somewhat gory setting.Is Nibiru on the same trend, orare things less heavy this time?

As we already suggested, Nibiruexploits a different kind of story, sothings won't be so dark this time.But you will definitely not miss dra-matic turnovers in the game.

The engine for Nibiru is the sameused on The Black Mirror, butupgraded. What are the most

noticeable changes?

There are several changes. Many ofthem are hidden behind the "faca-de" of the engine and the playerwon't recognize them. The mostimportant changes of those that arenot hidden to the player are theimprovement of graphics resolutionto 1024/768/32bit and full 3D cha-racters that set the standards ofgraphics processing of our gamesmuch higher. But there are of cour-se other changes as well - the pos-sibility of anti-aliasing, more detailedshadows of characters, atmosphericeffects supported by 3D, graphicposition Save and Load.

Is Nibiru going to have someaction sequences mixed in thegameplay? Are you for or againstit in general?

There are some "action" sequencesin the game, but we say it intentio-nally in quotation marks becausethese are not typically action issues

like jump here, move objects etc.,but rather moments when the maincharacter Martin must face confron-tation or danger. The solution tothese situations is, however, alwaysadventurous. We do not resistaction components in adventures,but they cannot be the main aspectof the plot in adventures.

How different will it be comparati-vely from The Black Mirror? Is it abigger game, with more dialogu-es, cutscenes and puzzles?

As for dialogues, we think that therecent trend is to play more and totalk less. Reactions we receivedfrom players that we already men-tioned above confirm the above.Gaming time should not be muchshorter than in the case of BlackMirror (but less dialogues will havesome impact). But it of coursedepends on the "experience" ofeach player how quickly will he beable to overcome particular puzzles.

LOUNGE

Future Games

12 February 2005

We play as Martin Holan. Do weget at any time in the adventureto control other characters?

No, the whole story is a story ofMartin Holan and we therefore playonly as Martin Holan.

OOtthheerr qquueessttiioonnss

What are your thoughts onadventure games in full 3D, likeBroken Sword: The SleepingDragon? Do you think that itbenefits or hurts the gameplay?Is this a path you may take in thenear future?

When you seize 3D correctly, it canbenefit an adventure game and itsplayability. But we do not considerBroken Sword 3 to be a turningpoint in the genre of adventure. Wethink this also on the basis of thefact that our Black Mirror (that didn'tby far have such a marketing sup-port as BS3) overtook BrokenSword 3 both in terms of players�evaluation and number of sold pie-ces in several countries. We havesome plans concerning 3D adventu-

res for the future but everything willdepend on the work that we aredoing in this direction now and alsoon whether we will believe that sucha change will bring something to theplayers. But now it is too soon tospeak about this more.

What are the adventure gamesthat you really enjoyed?

Mhm... Without any order, I canmention the following ones: MonkeyIsland1, Curse of Enchantia, GabrielKnight the Beast Within,Phantasmagoria, Pandora1+2.

Is there any movie or book licen-ce that you'd like to see conver-ted to an adventure game?

Sure. The first thing I have in mymind is the work of E. A. Poe andhis wonderful stories.

To be considered a hit, or even todeserve a sequel, how manycopies does a adventure gamehas to sell?

This is a tough question. We do notthink that a game must necessarilybe a commercial blockbuster in

order to deserve a sequel. But if youstill want to hear a number from me,then I would say that it pays to con-sider it from 250,000 sold pieces.

Finally, how do you predict thefuture of adventure games? Doyou think they'll captivate moreand more players, or stay in asmall spot in the market?

Our opinion is that adventure gamesare slowly gaining back popularityamong the players. This is also pro-ven by the wide variety of titles thatare in development at this time andwill come to life within two years.Adventure genre is not dead as itwas believed in the past and thegood times are still to come. We areglad that our games are helping outin its resurrection.

Thanks for your time.

Thanks a lot to you as well. Also wewant to wish to all your readers andplayers all the best (especially a lotof entertaining games).

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LOUNGE

CSI: Miami | Crystal Key 2

13February 2005

CSI: Miami the game is based onthe TV CSI spin-off series. The pre-vious CSI games featured greatvoice overs and some good story-telling but on the other hand thegraphics were as outdated as theycould get and the exploration factorof the game felt very limited due tothe graphics engine used.Unfortunately Ubisoft decided thatinstead of improving on the aspectswhere the previous games failed,they would rather release an identi-cal title. A strategy that remindedme a lot of Electronic Arts and theirannual sports games instalments(NBA Live, Fifa and NHL series) thatfeel more like add-ons than new ori-ginal games.Story: Even the story feels a bit likeyou have heard it all before in theprevious games. There are fivecases again, and the last case isconnected to the previous ones(oohhh surprise). You take the roleof an intern and you team up with aCSI agent in the beginning of eachnew case. You have to find who isbehind the crime committed by col-lecting evidence and talking to wit-nesses / suspects. Miami is of cour-se a much warmer place than LasVegas, where the last CSI gameswere located, therefore lots of thecases take place in quite differentenvironments than the previous CSIgames. The dialogues are pretty

interesting as most of the charac-ters, but the identical way of plotdevelopment between CSI: Miamiand the previous CSI games willmake you tired of the cases quitesoon. At the beginning of each casethere are 3 to 6 suspects, and thegame throws quite a lot of red her-rings towards you - a member of theCSI crew even makes a joke aboutit later in the game - and in the endyou find the person who committedthe crime with the help of evidence.If you haven�t played any CSIgames before you might find it exci-ting but if you have played CSI:Crime Scene Investigation or CSI:Dark Motives, you will feel like youare just replaying one of those two.

Graphics: If these were the 90s Iwould say that the game�s graphicsare spectacular. But the thing is...we are not in the 90s. As in the pre-vious CSI games, the graphics engi-ne in CSI: Miami is one of the mostprohibiting in terms of explorationyou have ever seen in adventuregames. You cannot move freely in aroom, you cannot look up or down.All you can do is look around your-self, as if someone placed someglue underneath your shoes andtied a collar around your neck thatprohibits you from moving yourhead up or down. Animation?Unfortunately, the only animatedobject on your screen seems to beyour mouse cursor! Well, unless you

REVIEWS

CSI:Miami

Ubisoft released a while back the third title based on the CSI TV series. Doesthis installment have something new to offer, or is it more of the same?

A lot of the cases are based on family problems

REVIEWSCSI: Miami | Crystal Key 2

14 February 2005

want to call trembling bodies andmouths opening and closing wit-hout any synchronization anima-tion...in that case yes there issome animation. To be absolutelyfair, the 3D models themselves aredesigned in great detail, but thefact that the animation is non-existent makes CSI: Miami lookmore like a tour in a wax museumthan an immersive gaming experi-ence. The reconstructions videosare nice once again, but this timethey are shorter than in the previo-us games.Sound: In contrary to the game�sgraphics, the voice casting is onceagain stellar. Both the main cha-racters from the TV-series and thesecondary characters are veryappropriately acted, and it is a pitythat the graphics engine is not upto par with the acting, cause in thatcase we would have a very cine-matic experience. The music of thegame is nothing special and not-hing that will stay in your memoryforever, but the little of it that thereis in the game, serves its purposequite ok.Gameplay: I really feel like I havewritten all this before and I am noteven sure this game deserves areview of its own, I could as wellhave referred you to the review ofDark Motives since the games are

almost identical. But anyway, letme say once again that the mainflaw of the gameplay is intercon-nected with the limitations of thegraphic engine. There are a fewminor improvements in CSI: Miamicompared to the last CSI games. Ifyou have set the difficulty level atits lowest, your cursor becomeshighlighted when you cross over ahotspot, even when you are usinga tool for evidence detection. Thusthe pixel hunting seen in DarkMotives is not a problem anymorein Miami. That was a necessaryaddition, but one that could not�save� the day for CSI: Miami. Onemore small addition is that someti-mes you will have to reconstruct atorn picture, a puzzle that we haveseen also in some Law and Ordergames.In a few words: If you have play-ed CSI: Crime Scene Investigationor CSI: Dark Motives, spare your-self the money and just replay oneof the aforementioned games. Ifyou haven�t played them, then youmight want to give CSI: Miami atry, you will probably enjoy the sto-rytelling and the performances bythe actors. It is high time howeverthat the developers updated theirgraphics engine for the CSI licen-se.

- Dimitris Manos

The Verdict

Story: 70Graphics: 35Sound: 88Gameplay: 75Overall: 69

�If you have played CSI:Crime Scene Investigation orCSI: Dark Motives, spareyourself the money and justreplay one of the aforemen-tioned games.�

Highs: Some improvements ingameplayLows: Use of a restrictive andnon-immersive graphics engineonce again, no animation, feelslike replaying the previous CSIgames

*Overall = ( Story x 2 + Graphics + Music + Gameplay x 2 ) / 6

Developer:369 Interactive/UbisoftPerspective: 1st personInterface:Point and clickSite: www.csigame.netDifficulty:Easy

At a golf club in MiamiYou can�t have a CSI game without interrogations

CSI: Miami | Crystal Key 2

15February 2005

Hello class, and welcome toRemedial Being-A-Good-Adventure-Game 101. You arehere because you have failed, inthe past, to be either enjoyable,playable, entertaining, or� I'msorry, Conspiracies, I see you inthe back there, are you chewinggum? Did you bring enough for therest of the class? Hey, AlfredHitchcock's Final Cut, put downthat comic book. And Traitors Gate2, I will not hear that languageused in class! You can all sit downand be quiet or its detention foreveryone again.

Now we have a new stu-dent today; please welcomeCrystal Key 2. Crystal, you can goand take the seat next to yourolder brother on the left thereand� I'm sorry? You don't thinkyou belong here? Oh really� welllets just look at what your reportcard has to say.Story: Now, I'm not familiar withyour brother's work, but if it's anyt-hing like what you turned in, youmust come from a dull and confu-sing family. Now we start off withthis fellow named Call Lifeson,whose home planet of Evany hassuccumbed to some kind of zom-bie-illness that Call is, by stroke offortune, immune to. What are theodds, right? And this strangewoman mysteriously appearsthrough a magic portal, gives afraction of a message, and is taken

by faceless soldiers, let's call themStorm-troopers. Call follows, endsup on this alien planet, finds outthat other planets have been infec-ted, and must now find a sage wholives in the desert and work tosave the entire universe from thisevil, menacing, yet perpetually off-screen character Ozgar.

What's wrong with it? Wellignoring the sloppy parallels to StarWars, there's the issue of relevan-cy. If the means to save the univer-se all exist on this planet you travelto, and it has citizens who activelywant to save the universe, thenwhy do they bother bringing youinto it? Taking it to plot points, whyis Call immune to the zombiedisease? Why did Evany contractit? What was it like before, andwhy should we care about it now?My point, Crystal, is that this is justplain lazy story writing. You didn'teven try, and that's really what's sodisappointing.Graphics: Now honestly, I wouldexpect this kind of graphic workfrom your brother. He is five yearsolder, expectations were lower,then. But this is just laziness onyour part. Poor character renders,drab textures, motionless worlds;honestly, am I supposed to enjoylooking at this game? And thegraphical glitches just compoundmatters. I don't know how youmanaged to make so many mista-kes when all the other games in

REVIEWS

The CCrystal KKey 22

Justin Peeples reviews this sci-fi first person adventure released by TheAdventure Company.

Developer:The Adventure Company

Perspective: 1st person

Interface:Point and click

Site: www.adventurecompa-

nygames.com/tac/crystal_key2Difficulty:

Medium - Hard

The models are not what one wouldcall state of the art

A nice view

REVIEWSCSI: Miami | Crystal Key 2

16 February 2005

your class, with the exact sameproject (3D pan from unmovingpoint) at least managed to do itpassably.

That said, I can see asense of visual style here, but it isone in need of serious refinement.It says something interesting butunflattering that you can createsuch elaborate architecture, andleave the buildings barren and life-less. That you can make lush gree-nery, and such ugly little creaturesto inhabit it. You really need towork on that a lot before you tryagain.Sound: Well, you could've donemuch worse. Ambient sound is welldone, music is decent withoutbeing intrusive, sound effects arefine and voice-over work is compe-tent. Nothing outstanding, mindyou, but sufficient. It is sort of tel-ling of the rest of your scores thatthe best job you can do is whenyou don't really aspire to anythinggreat. Ordinarily I'd say not to letthat discourage you, that it'salways better to try harder and doyour best, because its more rewar-ding, but all things considered youmight have done better if you didn'teven apply yourself in all the otherfields too.Gameplay: Now here is where youdo really poorly. I'm noticing herewhere your instructor penciled in"Pixel-Hunting." Now haven't wetalked about this? What is the firstrule of being a quality Adventuregame? Class? That's right, "Pixel-hunting is evil, evil, evil." I'm sure Idon't need to tell you why, and Ihope I don't need to explain thisagain. He also said there's just toomuch distance, as in putting twodifferent parts to a puzzle solutionon entirely opposite sides of theplanet, and then having the player

walk there, and walk back.Which brings us to the

puzzles. A representative sample:To gain access to a doctor's house,you need three different doorcodes; one code is on a medicalrobot, the other in a submarine,and the third on a shipping crate.This might make some sense asthe doctor built/owns all threethings, but why write the three dif-ferent door codes in these threedifferent things? And for that mat-ter, why should the player expectthem to be written there? Do yousee the problem? There's no realpattern there, there's no logic, andit was just plain silly of you to dothat. Also there's the roasted nutsincident. What's that? Well sure itmakes sense to roast nuts in a potover a fire, but if the nuts are in acan already, and your standing at afire pit, why should you need toseek out an entirely different fireand metal container just to roastthem? This is just unnecessarybacktracking through twenty scre-ens just to solve a problem thatshould be so much easier. See,here you're just being difficult, andnot in a challenging way, but in abelligerently irritating way.In a Few Words: Now I hope youdon't take this personally, it's justthat these are things you're goingto need to know if you're going tobe a good, playable Adventuregame. You have a lot of potential,and I hate to see it wasted. If youwant, I can get you a tutor. Sure,Myst is usually pretty busy, but Ithink Aura could teach you a thingor two, being of the same generalformat. Alright now, just take yourseat. Class? Please open yourtexts to page 177: History of theGreat Underground Empire.

- Justin Peeples

The Verdict

Story: 60Graphics: 65Sound: 75Gameplay: 50Overall: 60

�Now I hope you don't takethis personally, it's just thatthese are things you're goingto need to know if you'regoing to be a good, playableAdventure game. You have alot of potential, and I hate tosee it wasted.�

Highs: Mercifully short, and it'sunder $5Lows: Bad Puzzles, LameStory, Sub-par Graphics, and Ithink the game even gave mefood poisoning

*Overall = ( Story x 2 + Graphics + Music + Gameplay x 2 ) / 6

A futuristic living room

Bits and Bytes | Invento-mail

17February 2005

Certainly the most importantinterface between man andmachine is the monitor.Recently LCD panels (LCD =Liquid Crystal Display) havebecome cheaper, bigger,more brilliant and faster. So itno wonder that when mostpeople consider getting anew monitor they decide tobuy an LCD-screen sincegood 17' and 19' displayshave become affordable andeven bigger screens rapidlydrop in price. The year 2005certainly will be the year ofthe flat screens, in fact itmight already become difficultto fetch a fine traditional CRT.

Before going on let�smake a short comparison bet-ween LCD's and the "old-fashioned" CRT's (CathodeRay Tube). LCD monitorsneed less power and space,the picture usually looks shar-per. CRT's on the other handare still less expensive, havezero response time and candisplay more colours andmore vibrant - no print maga-zine's layout is made on aTFT but on traditional calibra-ted CRT's. But TFT's are cat-ching up faster and faster.For example it took themanufacturers not even ayear to drop the responsetime from 12 to 8 millise-

conds, of course these num-bers are very exaggerated inreality most 12 ms displaysdon't even reach 20 millise-conds but 20 ms screensalso are much slower sothese numbers are sort ofcomparable even when theyaren't true.

But before we get intomore technical detail letshave a really summarizedlook at the history of the flatscreens. In the late 19th cen-tury the Austrian botanistFriedrich Reinitzer discoveredthe liquid crystals that consistof an almost transparentessence showing equal signsof liquid and solid material.About 40 years ago scientistsfound out that electric char-ges would change the mole-cular alignment and thereforethe way light bypasses thecrystals which ultimately ledto the first LCD screen in1971.

Today there are twokinds of LCD displays com-mon for computer screens,DSTN (Dual Scan TwistedNematic) and TFT (Thin FilmTransistor). I'm not going tobabble much about the tech-nology behind the first kindsince DSTN screens used ascomputer monitor almosthave died out and are only

used in verycheap notebooks nowadays.TFT panels themselves againcan be separated into twokinds, the ones using IPS (InPlane Switching) and theones using (M)-VA ((Multi-)Vertical Alignment). Both met-hods have their pros andcons. In IPS panels the crys-tals are arranged horizontallywhich improves the viewingangles at the price that twotransistors need to be usedfor every pixel resulting inless display transparency sothat a brighter backlight isneeded and that again consu-mes more power so theyshouldn't be used in note-books. VA only needs onetransistor per pixel. The liquidcrystal molecules are alignedat a 90 degree angle whenpower is off, resulting in aperfectly black image andwhen power is applied themolecules turn horizontal pro-ducing a white image. Thistechnique offers a very goodviewing angle of about 140

EXTRA

Bits aand BBytesThe Hardware Corner

In the last issue Oliver talked about RAM. Now in this issue Oliver talks about flatscreens and gives you some advices on what to look for if you are about to buy one.�You are what you are looking at...�

A cheap LCDdisplay mightdo whenspace is rareand mostlyoffice work isdone. Forgaming theirresponse timeis too bad

EXTRABits and Bytes | Invento-mail

18 February 2005

degrees in all directions.Another advantage is a max-imum contrast ratio of 300:1without the consequence ofusing more power.

Especially older grap-hic cards only deliver an ana-logue output signal so manyLCD screens offer analogue,digital or both inputs. Thedisadvantage of an analoguesignal is that first the grap-hics board has to translatethe digital signal into an ana-logue one and the screenhas to convert it back whichlogically results in big losses.Analogue displays are chea-per even though they additio-nally need the A/D converter.When buying a display it isstrongly recommended toonly get a digital one.Graphic cards that have therequired DVI (Draft VisualInterface) port start at around50 Euros/Dollars. In contraryto CRTs, TFTs work with afrequency of 60 Hertz, due tothe technical differences thisis more then enough whiletube screens need at least85 Hz to be ergonomic. One very important thing thatneeds to be mentioned isthat TFT displays have onlyone native resolution! Usual15' displays 1024x768, good

17' displays 1280x1024 andquality 19' 1600x1200 pixels.Many cheaper panels offerless resolution with 86 dpi(dots per inch) which isn'trecommendable anymorebecause a high resolutionwith 100 or more dpi resultsin a very sharp and clear pic-ture and of course a lot ofspace on the desktop. Onlydrawback is that even thelatest Windows was program-med many years ago andadjusting the font size so itdoesn't appear too smalloften results in cut off text indialogue boxes especiallywith poorly programmed thirdparty software. Today's dis-plays can run other resolu-tions than their native oneeither by putting a black bor-der around it (very small orcut off picture) or by scalingto fit the screen. The latteroften results in a bad picturebecause one pixel either hasto be displayed by more thanthree cells (lower than native)or even worse some pixelsshare three cells (higher thannative). Three cells is onepixel, one for red, one forgreen and one for blue(RGB). Luckily manufactu-rers develop better and bet-ter scaling methods nowa-days. Another problem isthe aspect ratio. Ordinaryscreens have an aspectratio of 4:3. 16:9 or 16:10screens however have torescale the image so itdoesn't appear stretched orbutted. Also many displaysshine too bright in theirstandard setting. This is agood thing when working onthe computer during summer

on the porch but will hurt theeyes after a short while in adimmed room.

Someone who is inte-rested in buying a modernflat screen perhaps shouldtry one out for a few hours ata friend who already ownsone. By the way the bestTFT displays I've seen so farare from Eizo, their prices ofcourse display this verygood, too. Compared to otherbrands they are often 1/3more expensive.Some basic advice for shop-ping: The potential buyershould view exactly the units/he is going to buy becauseLCD panels very often havepixel errors and since this isa common manufacturingfault the companies made it apolicy that a few alwaysblack or always white pixelsare no reason to exchangethe screen even though it isreally annoying. Also don'tsave at the wrong place, apair of glasses in this dayand age is pretty expensiveand your eyes will thank you!

- Oliver Gruener

A digital LCD television is a goodcomputer screen alternative andperfect for couch potatoes.

A good high end TFT display is thehighlight on every desk. I wish Iowned such a beauty ;-)

Bits and Bytes | Invento-mail

19February 2005

EXTRA

Invento-MMailThis is the part of the magazine where you can make yourselves heard. Send youremails to info@theinventory.org and we will reply to you in this section in one of ourfuture issues. Now let�s move on to the mails that we received lately

HI, i have a question since you do game tunes on your website. in syberia - the character helena sings a song - anopera russian aria. i wanted to know the name of the song she sings?

thanks naz

The Inventory: Hi Naz. A long time ago someone told me the name of that song. But I don�t remember it and Idon�t have contact with that person anymore, so instead, I will start a topic at the forum and I hope that one of ourforum members will answer your question there.

Hi There,

I just wanted to pass my congratulations on to you and your team for taking the time and trouble to publish anmagazine that focuses on only adventure games.

When I was a kid (I'm 26 now) I always loved the LSL series, Sam and max, full throttle, Spycraft etc. Despite aperiod there where I turn to the dark side (playing games like doom etc.) I have come back and now have playedsyberia 1 + 2, the longest journey, moment of silence, dark fall lights out etc. I have also just purchased somegames I missed out on back in the old days such as Grim Fandango and Maniac Mansion which I am looking for-ward to playing.

Thanks once again as your magazine has had some impact of my rekindled love of adventure games.

Glen HastingsMelbourne, Australia

The Inventory: And thank you Glen for your kind words. It is always great to get such feedback from our fans andit gives us more strength to continue with The Inventory. I hope you enjoy our future issues as well. Greetings toAustralia!Hi..this is the first time i read your on-line magazine.Very good work.Excellent!!I I didnt know that there is such agood place with the games i love the most.You bring me back to the good old days.thank you!

Konstantinos TsofasGreece-Ioannina

The Inventory: Wow, someone from my birthtown! Thank you Konstantine for your kind words. We hope that youenjoy our future issues as well, and soon we will have one more website for European adventurers, so even onemore good place with the games you love the most ;-)

Bits and Bytes | Invento-mail

20 February 2005

Hi Dimitri,

Please to read you and your team every month. Thanks for this great job. I just read The award 2004 booklet. It isvery interesting, specially the indie section. But i'm surprised and disapointed (i must admit) not to find the game idevelopped called Atlantzone. I just can't keep out of my mind the last poll Just Adventure made a few days agoabout Best Independant games in 2004. Here are the results: Apprentice 2 (50) 5% , Atlantzone (406) 44% , BrainHotel (44) 5%, Case of the Crabs (189) 21%, Cirque de Zale (40) 4% , Lifestream (45) 5%, No-Action Jackson (18)2%, Other Worlds (87) 9%, The Arrangement (39) 4% Total Votes: 918

Sincerely,Yves RobinAtlantzone project http://atlantzone.free.fr

The Inventory: Hello Yves. First of all thank you for your kind comments. Now regarding your game. There weremany indie adventures released last year and it was not possible to play all of them. Unfortunately we did not havethe chance to play and review your game in 2004. But we will try to review it as soon as possible. Thank you for let-ting us know of your project, it looks quite interesting.

I have been reading the recent issues lately and I think the magazine is too much oriented towards the commercialmarket of the adventure genre. While this is great and it is the commercial games that need the most support inthese days, I think there are two adventure "scenes" that get the short end in the monthly publication but still coverthe "pure adventure" requirements - those are the indie adventure games and the always neglected interactive fic-tion (text adventures). Both are doing great on their own, with some surprising commercial ventures such as theacclaimed text adventure 1893: The World's Fair Mystery, but are always outside the perimeter of major publica-tions such as The Inventory... and are always in need of more publicity. Maybe you should try to get in contact withpeople at AGS and other independent development communities, and also IF magazines as SPAG (which gets ahuge amount of reviews thanks to the strong review-writing community on Usenet) and ask if they would like topublish one or two pages worth of material in The Inventory. I can assure you that even if they will not need articlesfrom your magazine in exchange, this is the free advertising of their "scenes" they so much need. I speak from myown experience as four months ago I published an article on text adventure scene in our magazine; after that a lotof readers have tried to contact me, surprised that text adventures still exist and that they are doing so good. If TheInventory can do it's job to pull those two scenes from obscurity (okay, semi-obscurity for indie adventures andtotal obscurity for text adventures) it would be a great thing. And the magazine will grow in size with little or noeffort from your side as both parties will be interested to supply you with information and reviews to make their sce-nes more popular. Let me know what you think about it, even if my suggestions won't fit in your plans.

Apostol ApostolovPC Club Editor

The Inventory: Hello Apostol. Trust me when I say that The Inventory has treated indie adventures with morerespect than any other adventure publication. We have featured long interviews with the likes of Rebecca Clements,AGDInteractive and Peter O�toole, we have featured several detailed previews of indie adventures (Sam and Max:Case Gilbert, Quest for Glory 2: Remake, Shadowplay, Legend of the Lost Lagoon etc) and we were the first publi-cation to feature reviews of King�s Quest 2 VGA, Cirque De Zale, The Apprentice 2, No-Action Jackson and more. Ithink these facts alone speak for themselves. On the other hand our space and time is quite limited, and in themonths prior to xmas we have a lot of commercial adventures to cover. After xmas, commercial games are notreleased that often and then we have the chance to turn our attention to the fan scene. For example our next issuewill be a special on indie adventures with lots of surprises to come. I am afraid however that we do not have thetime to cover also text adventures, we can hardly cover all the graphic adventures released as it is. Thanks for youremail Apostol and good luck with PC Club :).

EXTRA

Some of you are probably wondering: Is this theend already?!?!? I suspect that especially ourlong time fans might be a bit disappointed. Ihope that you will see �why� sometime between

April and March, when one of the endeavours I am wor-king on will be hopefully completed. And I also hope thatyou will think it was worth it.

But The Inventory is coming back next month witha special on independent developers. We will have lots ofcontents on indie games, previews, interviews andreviews. Actually one of the previews we will feature isone of the most anticipated indie games for a couple ofyears now! We will also try to get the rights to new comicstrips, because we know how much you love theAdventure Comics feature.

But until our next issue, keep supporting us byclicking on the Google ads at our front page (www.thein-ventory.org). If you do that, we get some money in return.Let us know what you think of our magazine by either wri-ting to info@theinventory.org or by writing in our forum(www.theinventory.org/forum). Speaking of our forums,you probably want to check out the Keepsake forumwhich is redesigned. Wicked Studios also started a newDeveloper�s Journal which will be updated often. If youthink you could contribute to The Inventory from the posi-tion of a writer, then send us an email with some idea onwhat would you like to write. We are especially looking fororiginal ideas.

Well that�s all for now. Until next month, happyadventuring and keep visiting the Inventory forums for thelatest news on our magazine.

Dimitris MManos

Epilogue

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