Long before Post Mortem and Syberia, even before Amerzone and Road
to India, Microids were making games. This flashback takes us back
to AD 1995 for an interesting adventure-plus title. Combining adventure
gaming with the French reality TV program Fort Boyard produced this
time-based competition with word and eye-hand dexterity puzzles.

The game begins with what
looks to be an old Chinese sage/wizard, with some of the worst
voice acting and makeup ever seen, who wonders
aloud about the quality of the next group of entrants to the challenge.
The old man’s name is Father Fouras, so perhaps he isn’t
Chinese after all! The old man harbors the Napoleonic treasure in
the abandoned French Fort Boyard.

The game is controlled
primarily with the mouse but the spacebar is used to escape the
room before the timer runs out. When Father
Fouras requests a certain word, use the keyboard letters to type
it in. Only challengers that have demonstrated the skill to defeat
the old man’s puzzles may claim the treasure. The game can
be played by up to six players. Each puzzle is prefaced by a required
skill, allowing a team of players to select the most skilled from
the ranks. These skills are “Clever”, “Tough”, “Agile”, “Sharp”, “Strong”,
and the dubious, “Captain”.

Puzzles are chosen randomly so no game plays exactly the same twice.
By selecting puzzles carefully, it is possible to avoid the dexterity
puzzles if they are tedious. The time penalty is only minor, thereby
allowing choice of a more cerebral challenge. There are twenty different
types of puzzles, which have different solutions each time so there
is much room for replay. Some of the puzzles are word puzzles from
Father Fouras, which are very hard to understand. He speaks very
quickly and with the accent and sound quality a little muddy, it
is a challenge to get them right.

There are cutscenes from the TV program interspersed with rendered
scenes that hold up quite well over the past eight years from its
creation. Having watched a video of the TV show, I know the scenes
are faithful to the show and represent a rendered real-life experience
in nearly all aspects of the show.

Although the first part
of the game (“The Trials”) is
in real time, there is opportunity to save and more than ample time
to complete enough tasks to collect the seven keys to progress to
part two of the challenge. There is seventy-five minutes of actual
game time in which to complete enough challenges to collect seven
keys. Once all seven keys have been collected, there is the opportunity
to free any team members who have been locked away as a result of
failing to completing a challenge. Before panicking, kind reader,
remember it is possible to bail out of any challenge by pushing the
space bar. Take careful note of the hourglass as it counts down the
remaining time and you need never worry about losing a team member
into jail.

Should any team member
end up in jail, the next stage of the game is the “Rat Game”.
This is essentially a heads and tails guess about whether the rat
will choose one colored exit over another.
If you choose correctly (red or black), the team member is freed.
Otherwise, they are held in for the remainder of the game.

The part of the game that
follows is the “Fortress Council” challenge.
Each player must play a puzzle game against the Fortress Council
to acquire twenty-five seconds to collect treasure from the Treasure
House in the next challenge. The total time collected is added to
three minutes and the team is returned to Father Fouras for further
clues, which are earned by completed successive challenges (“The
Adventure Stage”). Successive clues indicate a mystery word
that is the key to the Treasure Room. When the team has collected
enough clues to identify the mystery word, they are led to the final
challenge.

On a giant letter board, using a combination of team members and
cannonballs, the team must spell out the mystery word. When correct,
the team is allowed access to the Treasure Room to collect money
for the time earned earlier. This entails clicking on virtual players
to collect treasure and then sending them to the exit repeatedly
until time runs out, being certain not to allow them to be caught
in the chamber. The total loot collected is totaled and a score is
given.

The game is accompanied by a twelve page booklet. The readme is
virtually useless for background information. Remember once upon
a time, games had printed documentation, not just disk-based information.
Instructions are obviously translated from the French and are confusing
and lack detail. It mentions characters that are seen for only fractions
of seconds in the game but gives limited background to allow insight
to the events that have led to the challenge. should be in instruction
manual.

The game is a DOS one but performed perfectly from within Windows
98SE without any glitches whatsoever.

I quite happily play this game against the computer but it can be
played by up to six people which could make for an interesting evening
with similar minded people. This game manages to avoid pitfalls in
similar games (remember Survivor?) by making the puzzles challenging
without losing a sense of fun. The clock is always counting down
but time is so generous that everyone has a good chance of getting
to the later parts of the game.

Fort Boyard is a pretty spectacular place-an abandoned Napoleonic
fort on the coast of France near La Rochelle in the Charente-Maritime
region. Watch the opening cutscenes just to marvel at the engineering
feats that were required to achieve it. It must be quite breathtaking
as contestants arrive for the real-life series. How Fort Boyard could
have served a defensive purpose is unclear to me; but then again
I am neither an architect nor a military strategist!

Other titles in this series
include Fort
Boyard: The Quest, which
is an action-adventure title and Fort Boyard: The Legend,
which is more of an adventure game. All three titles are listed as
available
on the Microids
website
and I hope to get hold of the adventure game soon. Fort Boyard:
The Quest was quite enjoyable
as a Tomb Raider clone with more cerebral puzzles but I gave up mid-game
because there was no save feature. Others with more patience may
fare well with this title. Despite this, the Fort Boyard franchise
is one of considerable quality.

Although Fort Boyard:
The Challenge is no Syberia or even a Road to
India, the game continues
to hold my interest for days at a time
because of the adventure and puzzle elements. Most adventure gamers
will find Fort Boyard: The Challenge an experience worth having.
It deserves a B overall for anyone interested in a “not-quite” adventure
game.

Final Grade: B

System Requirements
(Good for reminiscing of the glory days!):

• 486 DX processor
• DOS/Windows 95
• 2X CD-ROM
• 4 MB free HD space
• 8 MB RAM
• 512 KB graphics card
  (VESA compatible)
• Soundblaster-compatible
  sound card
• Mouse
• Keyboard