The foundation of my appreciation and enjoyment for adventure games is firmly rooted in my very first experience, which was Myst. One aspect of this experience, which has remained with me for the years of adventuring that have followed, is the resolute joy and excitement that accompany any gameplay in which exploration is a key element. Myst provided exploration with ground-breaking graphics that enhanced the visual experience of playing adventure games and launched me into a whole new world of entertainment.

My sense that Riddle of the Sphinx would be an adventure game with a strong emphasis on exploration piqued my interest in Jeff and Karen Tobler's project when I first learned about it some two years ago. Coupled with my love of historical adventure games in general and Egyptology in particular, I found myself enraptured by the prospects and potential that Riddle of the Sphinx presented.

It's safe to say that it was a deep interest in the beauty and mysteries of ancient Egypt that propelled Jeff and Karen into their project some five or more years ago. They say, "Specifically, we recreated with exacting detail the Sphinx and Sphinx Enclosure and the known chambers and passageways found inside the Great Pyramid. But we went beyond creating an educational experience. Riddle taps into the nature of every mystery surrounding these megalithic wonders and gives you the opportunity to solve each and every one, including the Riddle of the Sphinx."

Furthermore, they exclaim, "We hope that you experience the same excitement discovering Riddle's many detailed environments and exploring hidden chambers thousands of years old."

So ... focusing on the particular joy and excitement that can be provided through exploration of fascinating and mysterious historical environments and assessing whether or not you, the player/explorer, are drawn into these environments in a way that felt realistic and satisfying ... did Jeff and Karen succeed? For me, the answer is a resounding "yes."

Put on your archeologist's hat and persona, sit back, dim the lights, and take a walk through antiquity that will ignite your passion for exploration and captivate your mood and senses as you live and breathe your discoveries of the spectacular hidden chambers and treasures inside one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

The majority of the exploration takes place within the Great Pyramid of Giza, built over a twenty-year period (completed about 2560 B.C.) by the pharaoh, Khufu (Cheops), who was to use it as his tomb. Using over 2 million blocks of stone, each weighing at least two tons, the Great Pyramid stood 481 feet high and remained the tallest structure in the world for more than 43 centuries, until the 19th century A.D.

From its Great Gallery, the main passageways lead to an underground chamber, thought to be the initial choice for the location of Khufu's tomb. Interestingly, a funerary boat was found in a sealed pit at the base of the pyramid. It is further rationalized that Khufu changed his mind and that he wanted to be entombed in a place higher up in the pyramid, which led to the creation of the passageway to what is now called the Queen's Chamber and Corridor. Apparently, another change of heart took place and Khufu decided that he would rather move his tomb up to an even higher position in the pyramid; hence, the construction of the passageway to the King's Chamber, where an empty sarcophagus was found.

It is primarily from the Queen's Chamber and the King's Chamber that the discoveries of hidden chambers are made and the explorations take the player on a unique and exciting trip through such a fascinating historical environment.

Of course, Riddle of the Sphinx is more than just exploration, so let's take a look at some of the other important features of the game's presentation.

The Story's the Thing

Noted archeologist Sir Gil Blythe Geoffreys has uncovered a secret chamber in the Sphinx and found an ancient papyrus scroll. Upon breaking the scroll's seal, Sir Gil unleashes an ancient curse, which causes certain death. Realizing that he is doomed, Sir Gil sends for you, while he protects his discovery by hiding the scroll and his notes. Upon your arrival at the Sphinx campsite, you enter Sir Gil's tent, where you are presented with carefully disguised and hidden clues that hopefully will enable you to locate the missing scroll and Sir Gil's translation of its hieroglyphics.

Once you have located the scroll and its translation, you embark on your journey of exploration, taking you to the Sphinx hidden tunnel, then inside many chambers of the Great Pyramid, on a captivating side trip to the Lost Temple of Ra and beyond, and eventually back to the Sphinx to unlock the Riddle of the Sphinx.

What a wonderful trip you will take. Years ago in the earlier days of television, some may remember a historical program called You Are There. Well ... you will not only be there to discover the mysteries of the past that have been entombed for centuries by the ancient Egyptians, but you will be confronted with deathtraps, ancient puzzles, and logical challenges that will test your decision-making skills and determine your survival.

The Gameplay

Riddle is played from the first-person perspective using the mouse and icons on the screen to move about, look around, turn pages of books, collect objects, and use objects. Not all objects (e.g., books) can be carried away or placed into your inventory (backpack), so you will be required to take notes from the information presented.

At most navigational intersections (e.g., when you first enter a chamber), your cursor will change to indicate that you are in VR mode. In this mode, you will stand still and by depressing your left mouse button, holding it down, and rotating in any direction, you will be able to effect 360-degree virtual reality panorama views of the room or area that you are in, and you will easily discern hot spots that show the best choices for movement or selecting points of interest to investigate. Curiously, while in the VR mode, the views become slightly fuzzy, which makes this function somewhat distinctive.

The interface is toggled on or off by pressing the spacebar and consists of a menu that includes new game, open game, revert to last saved game, quit, save, save as, and various options for sound and video performance. Also, you can enable a warp setting that will allow you to travel quickly between areas that you have already explored.

In addition, the interface brings up the backpack, which is your inventory storage area. An inventory display panel gives the player information about the inventory item when the cursor is placed over it. Double-clicking on the inventory item will activate that item, so that you can attach it to your cursor for use in the game or simply, as is the case with scrolls, look at the "opened" scroll in order to have a full view of the hieroglyphs and information illustrated on the scroll.

Although there is no dialogue between characters in the game, because the player is alone and has no interaction with others, there is a need to listen to audiotapes, which I found to be difficult to understand on occasion, and therefore I would have liked subtitles for the speech on the tapes.

The Graphics, Music, and Sounds

The replication of the wonders of the Giza plateau, the Sphinx, the Great Pyramid with its passageways and many chambers, and the indoor/outdoor areas within and around the Lost Temple of Ra were carefully and skillfully rendered in 3D. The result, from my perspective, was a terrific visual presentation that often gave me chills as I conducted my searches of the unbelievable environments and uncovered their mysteries and secrets.

When I was in passageways or certain chambers without much light, the graphical presentation made, I think, appropriate use of the color shades that you would expect to see in those environments (browns, grays, and muted colors), displayed with low light intensity. The resultant feeling was often eerie and gave me the sense that I was not only ... alone ... in very foreboding places, but that I was discovering simply amazing ancient Egyptian artifacts, treasures, and the wonderment of the construction of the passageways and rooms for the first time.

In some chambers, the contents are more elaborate or colorful, as you discover gilded treasures, tapestries, painted artifacts, and ornate statues. The graphics, in these instances, make use of brighter colors, and the added reflections and refractions of light give a somewhat different but no less spectacular feeling of awe and amazement at the discoveries that lay open before you.

When you move to the outdoor scenes, the intensity of the sun and the blue skies brought the colors up to full brightness, and the graphical impact is equally impressive as you observe the historical structures, the unusual cliff statues, and the puzzling Gold Pyramid that are to be found across the lake from the Lost Temple of Ra.

Perhaps the only criticism that I might have about the wonderful 3D graphics provided throughout Riddle would be the representation of bodies of water, such as the River of Death or the aforementioned lake outside the Lost Temple of Ra. In these instances, the presentations lacked realism due to a lack of feeling of the flow or real movement of the water.

Exhibiting unexpected versatility, Jeff and Karen Tobler are also responsible for the music, sound, voices, and acting in Riddle. The music and sound presentations are particularly interesting and very effective, as they always seem to enhance the mood and feeling of the game's conditions, influences, and surroundings in a manner that gets your heart pumping just a little faster, especially when you are on the verge of discovery or about to encounter an important decision point in the game.

Jeff appears in a documentary acting role at the end of the game, and you may need to turn up the volume, as his speech is often difficult to hear. Also, in a strange bit of direction, he systematically turns from facing the camera to profile views that make it hard to understand what he is saying and gave me an uncomfortable feeling that detracted from the intimacy and effectiveness of his presentation.

The Puzzles

Along with exploration, the discoveries should not simply be the result of observations but should arise or proceed as a consequence of your actions, circumstances, or the situations that you encounter. Thankfully, throughout Riddle, you will most often succeed in finding clues to Sir Gil's knowledge about the Riddle of the Sphinx, unlocking the secrets of the Great Pyramid and solving the mysteries of other game locations by utilizing deductive, logical reasoning and solving puzzles.

Many of the puzzles involve acquiring inventory items that can be used at appropriate game locations to further your progress. Audiotapes to reveal clues, keys to open trunks, sacred amulets to charm snakes, weights to balance scales, scrolls to unlock mysteries and a unique robotic vehicle called a Cheoptronic, whose purpose shall not be revealed here, are but a few examples of inventory items that must be found and used.

Other puzzles depend on utilizing your logical thinking by examining books or documents (scrolls) that are discovered and then reveal information that is vital to unlocking a mystery, a door, or a puzzle at another location in the game.

The puzzles are always seamlessly woven into the game and are generally easy to moderate in difficulty. They should not be a problem for adventurers with even a small amount of experience.

Warning ... there is a labyrinth that you will confront near the end of Riddle. By carefully recording your movement choices and judicious use of saves as you go through the maze, you shouldn't have any problem finding your way to the exit location. It took me only about an hour to get to the end point, and I'm not necessarily the best at navigating through labyrinths.

In Conclusion ... The Riddle Is Solved
Click Here to Skip Spoilers

When you have succeeded in solving the Riddle of the Sphinx, you are rewarded by having found an object that has been described as the most sacred object mentioned in the Bible, also considered to be one of the most frightening artifacts described in all of biblical history.

An object thought to have the power to strike men dead, to the ancient Hebrews it was both a divine manifestation and a talisman so powerful that they carried it with them into battle. Then ... six centuries before the birth of Christ, it mysteriously disappeared and has never been found.

While some ponder the whereabouts of the missing artifact, others search for a scientific explanation of its miraculous powers. Recent experiments and theory have raised a possibility that the artifact was, in design, some sort of primitive but powerful electrical capacitor device, that could have built up and discharged lethal charges of electricity.

The subject of a well-known pop-culture movie released in 1981 and a 1992 bestselling book, there have been myriad theories over the centuries about the whereabouts of the missing artifact. Even today, the search goes on ... researchers and explorers ponder clues in ancient texts and clamber about in dark caves in Africa and the Middle East.

Well ... none of that really matters now that you (the player) have solved the Riddle of the Sphinx and found this valuable and revered artifact.

The only questions that remain are ... what new mysteries and revelations will your discovery engender? And what should be done about revealing the Riddle of the Sphinx to the world?

My experience with exploring the hidden chambers of the Great Pyramid, as well as the other locations, and unraveling the secrets and mysteries of the Riddle of the Sphinx was well worth the two years or so that I had to wait for its publication. My love of and interest in edutainment adventures, particularly those based on ancient Egyptian history, has been enhanced and rewarded by the obvious passion, dedication, and quality of effort put forth by Jeff and Karen Tobler in bringing their dream to fruition and sharing it with us.

Thank you Jeff and Karen ... I suppose that it would be folly to wish for another similar historical adventure or sequel with discovery and exploration as the driving experiences.

For me, Riddle was a very satisfying and exciting opportunity to reexamine a fascinating period of history, presented and captured with beautifully and appropriately detailed 3D graphics, and to interactively participate in the discovery and exploration of enigmatic environments within the magnificent structural wonders of the Giza Plateau. What a wonderful trip ...

It was a totally enjoyable adventuring experience, and I am placing Riddle of the Sphinx on my completed game shelves ... next to Myst.

Final Grade: A

Minimum System Requirements:

PC:
Pentium 166 MHz
Windows 95/98
32 MB RAM
SVGA monitor, 640×480 with thousands of colors
8X CD ROM drive

Mac:
Power PC 80 MHz
System 7.5
32 MB RAM
640×480 monitor with thousands of colors
8X CD-ROM drive