The Mystery of the Druids (Demo)
CDV PC
Demo available here (approx. 47MB)

The classic point 'n' click adventure game simply refuses to die (thank goodness). Lucasarts may have done away with it in Monkey Island 4 and Grim Fandango but thankfully games like Discworld Noir and now The Mystery of the Druids continue to use the mouse driven interface. We took a look at the latest demo to see how it was shaping up.

The game itself sees you playing a Scotland Yard Detective (Brent Halligan) who gets to investigate a series of murders. It is not long before Detective Halligan figures out that the murders are something to do with an ancient conspiracy. On starting the demo I came across the first disappointment - the intro was not subtitled. Let's hope this was a feature of the demo and not the full version. The rest of the demo was subtitled apart from the final cutscene. The verbal information given in the introduction is as follows:

[Det. Halligan speaking]
I wrote down some notes on my travels through England and France. The text says that the last of the druids saw the fall of the priesthood in the year 1000AD. A demonic superior druid seized power and organized a final ritual in order to secure the survival of the druids' knowledge. To stop Sinclair (he appears to be the demonic superior druid) we have to stop those who gave him his power a thousand years ago.

You start outside of the Sinclair mansion and you have to attempt to get into the mansion. After being told that Lord Sinclair is not at home you agree to come back later. You can talk to the gardener to learn some more information and there is also a way into the grounds that involves you using various items to cut your way through a hedge and the electric fence that lies behind it.

The demo was small (they have kept the download size reasonable) but enjoyable. The interface was simple yet effective. Left click to walk, double left lick to run, put your mouse pointer to the bottom of the screen to bring up an inventory bar and right click to gain info on the items in your inventory. The pointer changes to a magnifying glass on items that can be looked at (outside your inventory). Conversations are in the Lucasarts style of picking the appropriate sentence rather than the clumsy icon selection of the Broken Sword games. The one improvement they could make is to put the subtitles closer to the character who is speaking rather than at the fixed position of the top of the screen. Sometimes it fells like you are missing something visually if your eyes are concentrating on the top of the screen. Otherwise the gameplay seemed very good and it is a title adventure gamers should look forward to.

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