Fraught with danger and steeped in history, the Road to India is
a strange, mysterious and rocky road along which you must proceed
quickly yet cautiously. As the player, you will take the role of Fred
Reynolds, who is living peacefully in New York City with his fiancee,
a beautiful young Indian woman named Anusha.

Just one week ago, Anusha returned to India for a visit with her
parents, and you have now received a disconcerting note from her stating
that your engagement must be ended and that you are not to try to
see her again. You have a strong sense that there is more to this
situation than the note reveals, so you decide to embark on a trip
to India to find Anusha, meet her parents, and discover what explanations
lie behind the apparent mystery.

As you sit on the plane, traveling from JFK to India, you fall asleep
and have a disturbing and ultimately prophetic dream about events
occurring in India. First, one year ago, a man is seen carrying a
briefcase into a marketplace in New Delhi. He places the briefcase
on the ground near one of the stalls and leaves. The famous Indian
actress Laj Vanti appears nearby, and the briefcase explodes. Laj
Vanti must have been injured in some way by the detonation of the
bomb, but all we know at this time is that she has disappeared from
the scene. Eventually, the dream sequence concludes with a scene at
the Taj Mahal, where Anusha is abducted.

What does the dream mean? Is there a connection between Laj Vanti
and Anusha? There are no explanations … just the sinking feeling
in the pit of Fred’s stomach that Anusha is in deep trouble and that
he must act quickly to find her and unravel the unexpected circumstances
that his dream seems to have foretold.

Upon arrival in India, Fred is unnerved to discover that Anusha’s
abduction and the events in the dream are somehow tied to a secret
religious sect of murderers and robbers, called Thugs, who were devotees
of the Hindu goddess Kali but were thought to have passed from existence
during the middle of the 19th century.

History tells us that the Thugs sect dates back to the 13th century,
but its criminal activities were most prolific and, hence, troublesome
beginning early in the 19th century. Also called Phansigars (stranglers),
membership was primarily hereditary; it included both Hindus and Muslims;
and all members were fanatical worshipers of the goddess Kali in whose
honor they would kidnap their victims and perform human sacrifices.

The members of the Thugs sect were for the most part ordinary citizens
with ordinary occupations, but in the autumn they would travel about
the roads in groups, often disguised as merchants. When they encountered
wealthy travelers, they would first befriend themselves and then wait
for an opportunity to rob them and murder them using a ceremonial
scarf that was reserved for the purpose. The Thugs were protected
by the secrecy of their organization and also by the local government
officials, with whom they shared the spoils.

Early on, under the British rule of India, it was decided that the
terror of the Thugs, which at the time had accounted for over 40 thousand
murders across India, must end, so they passed the anti-Thug law of
1836. Sir William Sleeman, using informers, troops, and mercenaries,
managed to infiltrate the Thugs’ network and break the wall of silence
that protected the membership of the sect. By 1848, nearly all of
the members were thought to have been identified, arrested, and tried.
Judgments had been meted out, and the Thugs, as an organization, were
thought to have been eradicated.

Thereafter, the Thugs became a part of history, often the subject
of literature but more familiarly a part of films, such as Gunga
Din in 1939 and the more recent Spielberg film Indiana Jones
and the Temple of Doom in 1984.

So what is this new association that links the disappearance of Laj
Vanti and the abduction of Anusha to the Thugs sect? Are the Thugs
truly an active, albeit secret, society? How do you obtain the information
that you need to discover their whereabouts? In a strange and unfamiliar
land, how will you know who to trust and who might turn out to be
an enemy? These are just a few of the questions that you, as Fred,
must ponder as you arrive in India.

An Occidental Tale

Following the events from your dream about the circumstances and
scene of the abduction of Anusha, you go to the Taj Mahal and find
it locked up. Convinced that answers to the mystery and perhaps even
Anusha herself may be inside, you explore the outer area around the
building and seek clues and information about Anusha, her abduction,
and how to get into the Taj Mahal.

Your investigation will take you to the streets of New Delhi, where
you meet a variety of characters that can be helpful or present threats
to your health and survival. Also, you will go to the home of Anusha’s
parents, where you will discover a disturbing surprise that will cause
you to become very wary of appearances.

Eventually, as you recall and consider some of the details from your
dream, you will discover the identity of a well-known man in New Delhi,
who is likely to be the leader of the present day sect of Thugs.

As the mystery deepens, you will discover that you are in a race
against time. If you have any hope of finding and rescuing Anusha
from her captors, you will have to proceed quickly, yet cautiously,
into the world of the Thugs and undo the sacrificial plans of the
sect’s fanatical leader before it’s too late. (Note: The game is not
timed.)

Progress through the game will be affected by additional dream sequences
as well as the events of the game itself, so you will need to consider
the information that you gather from different experiences and determine
whether or not occurrences are simply illusions or that they should
be taken as representative of real happenings. The game is linear
in that you always must perform investigations in sequence and complete
selected activities before you can move on to subsequent environments.

At the end, your questions will be answered, but it is the story’s
journey that will be the most fun. What is the connection between
Anusha and Laj Vanti? Why are the Thugs so interested in Anusha? How
do Anusha’s parents fit into the mystery? What of the leader of these
modern-day Thugs … what is his motivation?

The Game Interface

The game is played using a first-person perspective, except for a
number of animated video sequences, which portray Fred from a third-person
view. The player will have no control over these videos but will simply
observe what Fred does often in action scenes that have been initiated
by you. Again, once initiated, you will have no command over the scenes
… just sit back and watch as Fred knocks somebody out or gets overcome
himself. Nothing for us adventure purists to worry about here, since
any action scenes are always scripted into these videos, and if action
does occur, it is because it is supposed to.

The main menu, which appears at the start of the game, provides choices
for starting a new game, loading a previously saved game, and quitting
the game, as well as an options menu that includes graphics quality,
sound and music volume, mouse sensitivity, and subtitles choices.

The game is basically a typical point-and-click adventure, using
the mouse. Movement and actions are performed by clicking the left
mouse button and include icons that tell the player that they can
walk, talk, zoom in or out, take an object, or perform some sort of
action. Clicking on the action icon will usually lead to an animated
video sequence, such as opening a door and walking through or knocking
out a guard. To look around your game environment, simply move the
mouse in the desired direction. You will be able to look 360 degrees
in any direction from any location.

You can skip an animated video sequence by pressing the space bar
or escape key.

Pressing the right mouse button will access an electronic diary,
which has three submenus, each of which is useful in following or
recording your progress through the game.

The inventory menu is where you will find the objects that you have
gathered during the game. You can combine objects in the inventory
and select objects for use in the environment that you are in during
the game.

The logbook menu is where Fred records his impressions and stores
any documents that he obtains.

The save/load menu is used to save your game, which you should do
often, or to load a previously saved game.

The electronic diary is also used to display preselected replies
that are available to you for use in conversations with the characters
that you encounter in the game. From the list of replies, you will
want to choose those that best fit the action underway or will most
likely provide the information that you need from the character that
you are speaking with.

A Mixture of Graphics and Sound

As is typical of just about every adventure game developed in France,
the graphics in Road to India are outstanding. In particular,
the movements of the 3D characters were wonderfully realistic, as
they glided gracefully across colorful 2D backgrounds. Also, the video
animations, such as the firebomb explosion at the market or the taxi
driver smoking his cigarette as he pulled his fare through the landscaped
streets in a jinrikisha–okay, a rickshaw–were superb.

Despite the beautiful overall graphic quality of the game, there
was one unnerving problem that I encountered. Whenever a scene included
a fire or flames, I got a graphic rainbow that surrounded the fire
or flames. Very colorful … but somewhat of a graphical bug that
detracted from the visual impression that I was enjoying.

The music presentation was surprisingly good. Balancing the traditional
compositions that you would expect to hear in an Oriental locale with
more modern, more dramatic, pulsating musical sounds that define the
action sequences with crescendos, I found to be very effective, and
it added to the experience of enjoyment when playing this game.

The most annoying bug, however, was to be found when holding conversations
with other characters. Now … the voice acting was reasonably good,
but I experienced an intermittent problem with the voice sounds that
was very peculiar and troublesome. It seems that while holding a conversation,
Fred’s vocal tones and those of the other character that you were
speaking with would become garbled, distorted, and slowed, as if you
suddenly had filled your mouth with marbles or wads of cotton or something.
If it weren’t for the subtitles, I wouldn’t have known what they were
saying and would have been unable to gather important clues needed
to progress in the game. This was a major diversion for me and generated
the only serious negative impression that I experienced while playing
Road to India.

Searching for Puzzles

Road to India has a variety of puzzles that bridge the gap
from nonstory-based, manipulation type puzzles, such as tile puzzles,
to puzzles that are inventory-based, where the player must collect,
combine, and use objects in order to progress in the game.

For those who react badly to these things, a word of warning: There
is a tile puzzle right at the beginning of the game. Then a little
further, on there is a puzzle that requires you to perform multiple
movements in a certain order. Later, there is a puzzle that requires
you to deal with a rat. Oh, yes … there is also a maze to get through.

Overall, I found that the above puzzles were rather easy to work
through, and the inventory-based puzzles were very nicely integrated
into the story, so no complaints from me.

The End of the Road

In general, I enjoyed playing Road to India, primarily because
it moved along at a pace that sustained my interest in a story with
a fair amount of tension, excitement, and historical interest. Although
Road to India is clearly not a historical adventure in the
manner that some of the Cryo or Index+/Wanadoo games are, it has a
built-in historical reference: the legends of the Thugs and the goddess
Kali. So for those of you that like an adventure that has a historical
foundation, Road to India will add value to your game-playing
experience.

It would have been nice to have more background information about
how Fred and Anusha met and what drew them together in New York, before
Anusha’s abduction in India. This might have heightened my emotional
involvement and feelings for wanting to succeed in rescuing Anusha
and bringing them back together. As it was, it was not an emotionally
draining experience.

The graphics and video animations, except for the flame rainbows,
were beautifully done, with high-quality, 3D character movements being
a definite highlight.

The vocal sound presentation was the only real disappointment in
the game. The puzzles were interesting but often predictable and,
hence, not particularly challenging.

Final Grade: B-

System Requirements:
Windows 95/98/00
Pentium II 350 MHz
3D video card
64 MB RAM
16x CD-ROM
Direct X 8