Anacapri: The Dream
is the second game created by Gey and Silvio Savarese. Their first game, A
Quiet Weekend in Capri, was made using actual photographs of the beautiful
island of Capri. Anacapri: the Dream also uses photos of Capri, only this
time they're full screen and you visit parts of the island you didn't get
to see in the first game. Besides the long hikes along the shore and up
and down precipitous mountain paths, you'll explore various fortresses,
castle ruins, and gardens, as well as the Blue and Green Grottos. Nearly
every screen looks like a picture postcard.
Story and Characters
The story unfolds as you explore the
island. Your character is alternatively Dr. Nico N, "a renowned
investigator and expert on ancient civilizations" or Dr. Nico Fredi, a
neuroscientist who has been doing research involving dreams and the human
mind. Although you spend most of your time exploring the dreamlike paths
of Anacapri, you'll also need to visit Nico Fredi's house to learn his
story and find valuable clues about how to progress in the game.
At first, not much of the island is
available. Unlike A Quiet Weekend in Capri, you can't get everywhere on
foot. You must often take a bus to reach locations for the first time, and
in order to use the bus, you must first find money for a ticket. Once
you've visited these locations, you can either reuse your bus ticket or
access the teleport map through the icon at the bottom of your screen
(after right-clicking to make it appear). Besides using the bus, you'll
also take boat rides and use a chair lift.
You meet many characters in the
game, not all of which are in human form. Statues and mythological
creatures occasionally come to life to speak with you, and you'll meet
animals who were once people. Much of your motivation in the game involves
finding a mysterious obsidian disk, which confers great power on the one
who wields it, but which has also brought about great misfortune. Not
everyone you meet in the game is friendly, and you must decide which
characters are trustworthy.
Puzzles
There are quite a variety of puzzle
types in Anacapri: The Dream. One of the first puzzles you run into is
figuring out how to operate the bus-calling machines and the vending
machines for bus tokens. Before you are able to use the bus, the area you
can explore in the game is very limited compared to the number of places
you'll be able to access by the end of the game.
Many puzzles require performing some
action that activates a trigger. Objects may not appear or actions may not
become available until you talk to another character or visit some
location and examine a specific detail in the scenery. It is fortunate
that inventory items glow to get your attention, because otherwise it
would be hard to spot them in the detailed environment. Figuring out how
and where to use inventory can be as much of a challenge as locating it.
The most difficult puzzles have a
puzzle bypass feature (which can be found in the instructions on the main
menu). Among these are a puzzle that requires artistic talent (or a very
good memory), the requirement that you win a game of Scopa, and a
challenging sliding tile puzzle with different sized pieces. Most puzzles
require careful observation and attention to detail. For example, the
elaborate Limoncello puzzle requires you to remember where you might have
seen the ingredients, find a way to learn how it's made, and observe what
happens when you manipulate certain objects in the environment.
There are no puzzles that depend on
a fast reaction time. There is one puzzle that involves a timer as well as
a bit of lateral thinking. But the timer is long, and there is no problem
getting the job done in time -- provided you've figured out what needs
doing.
Graphics and Sound
The sounds in the game are nicely
done. Background sounds may include the sounds of water, wind, birds
singing, the occasional dog barking or cat mewing, clocks ticking, or
machinery, depending on your location in the game. Sound effects may also
accompany the animations that are seen when you use inventory. Music plays
occasionally, though not all the time. It seems to be triggered when you
enter certain locations and plays until the track is finished or until you
leave the area. There is more variety to the music in Anacapri: The Dream
than there was in A Quiet Weekend in Capri. The music may be ominous,
peaceful, or energetic, depending on the situation.
The graphics are made from
photographs and are mostly still shots. There are three resolutions to
choose from, 1024x768, 1280x800, or 1440x900. The instructions also
recommend setting your DPI to Normal (96 DPI). (If you don't know what
this means, you're probably already at the normal default setting. People
with high resolution laptops or monitors may change the DPI of their
screen to increase their font size if text is too small for them to read.)
Some screens are oversized panoramic
views which are too large to display on your screen all at once. You are
able to pan around these screens by clicking on arrows at the top, bottom,
right, and left of your screen. Double-clicking the panning arrow speeds
up the pan, which is normally slow and leisurely enough to examine details
as the screen is moving. These oversized screens are usually found where
there are impressive vistas, such as when looking out towards the sea from
the top of a mountain. Many include the picturesque Faraglioni rocks as
part of the scene.
Some scenes have animations, such as
water movement or shop lights flashing. The characters you meet in the
game are not animated, but shown in a still image or series of still
images as they speak.
Virtual Tour (Exploration Mode)
As with A Quiet Weekend in Capri,
there is a virtual tour available for those who wish to look around before
starting the adventure game, or who don't want to play the adventure game
and simply wish to go sightseeing. During the tour, as you move around,
you will trigger the voice of a female narrator who will tell you a bit
about what you're looking at. Clicking the microphone icon at the bottom
of the screen will turn off the narration. Music will start playing at
certain points during the tour, just as it does during the game. There is
an option to raise or lower the volume of the music, though you can't get
rid of it completely.
There are a very few places that are
not accessible during the virtual tour which are accessible during the
game. For example, the downstairs parts of the forts are walled up and
inaccessible in the virtual tour. (I assume this is because the rooms that
you are able to enter during the adventure game don't exist in real life.)
The bus rides and boat rides don't seem to be accessible either, though
you can go on the chair lift. The delightfully spooky walk through the
caves near the Blue Grotto is intact, and includes all the creepy sound
effects and visual surprises as in the adventure game.
Controls
The point-and-click controls will be
familiar to anyone who has played A Quiet Weekend in Capri. For those who
haven't, there may be a bit of a learning curve because the controls are
slightly different from those in other adventure games. But getting around
in the game is essentially the same as in most other point-and-click
games, where clicking on an arrow moves you to the next screen. Anacapri
is played from the first person perspective, where you view the gameworld
through the eyes of the main character. You never actually see him
onscreen.
Upon starting the game, the first
game screen allows you to select which language you want to use (English
or Italian) and whether you want to play the "Adventure game" or use the
"Exploration mode." You can't change these settings once you've started
the Adventure game or Exploration mode. You must exit the game and restart
it to be able to access these selections again. Fortunately the game
doesn't take long to start.
While playing the game (or using the
virtual tour), a reverse arrow and a down arrow are visible at the bottom
of the screen. The reverse arrow will turn you around 180 degrees while
the down arrow will back you up a step. Right-clicking brings up a series
of icons along the bottom of the screen. At the far left, an icon that
resembles a laptop screen will take you to a screen where you can choose
to review the conversations you've had with different characters. Clicking
on a picture of the person (or animal) will bring up a screen with a text
version of what was said during the conversation. As you progress in the
game, new icons will appear for the different characters you meet.
Clicking the down arrow at the bottom of the screen will exit this screen
and bring you back to the game.
The icon that looks like a scissors
and screwdriver will take you to the main menu, where you can save and
load the game, review the instructions or change configuration settings
for the game, such as whether hotspots are highlighted (by a black
rectangle) or whether the scene number will be visible in the lower right
corner during game play. This feature is useful if you find you have a
special interest in a particular scene and want to use it for your desktop
or make a collection of your favorite screenshots. Once you have the
screen number, you can find the jpg image in the game folder and view it
outside of the game with an image viewer such as Irfanview or MS Paint, or
set it as your desktop background. There are nine save slots provided,
though unfortunately you aren't able to name your save and there is no way
to tell where and when the save took place from within the game. The game
does keep track of your latest save though, and displays a white square
around the number of the save to cue you into which save to select. You
click "Start" and then either "from where you are," the number of your
save, "from the beginning," or "jumping" to get back to the game. Some of
these selections aren't available at the beginning of the game. For
example, "jumping" won't appear until you've explored enough to have more
than one jump point.
An icon that resembles a beam of
light takes you to a map where you can teleport to places you've already
visited. These places appear on the map in the form of bull's eyes.
Hovering your mouse over them will bring up a labeled picture of the place
they connect with.
The icon resembling a world globe
will bring up a close-up map. Its appearance varies with where you are in
the game. Depending on where you are, it may resemble a road map or the
floor plan of a building and its surroundings.
An icon of a bag brings up the
inventory screen. Clicking an item will cause an eye icon and a hand icon
to appear at the bottom of the screen. Clicking the eye icon gives you a
close-up view of the object along with a description. Sometimes side
arrows appear that allow you to turn the object over to view a clue on the
other side, or to turn the pages of a book. The down arrow returns you to
the previous screen. The hand icon lets you use the selected object at the
location where you are in the game. Once you click the Use icon, it is
automatically used in the proper matter, provided you've selected the
right item at the right location, and you see an animation of the item
being used. If the item is not applicable, you hear a buzzer.
The icon of the trumpet adjusts the
volume of the music. Continuing to click on it will raise or lower the
volume, though it won't eliminate it completely.
Most of the icons you see during the
virtual tour (Exploration mode) are the same as when playing the game. But
in addition there is a microphone icon which allows you to turn off the
tour guide's narrations. Exploration mode has "Start" options from the
main menu screen that include "from the beginning" and "jumping." "From
the beginning" starts you out at the Piazza Vittoria jump point. "Jumping"
starts you out at the teleportation map, with all possible teleportation
points activated.
Installation
Installation takes a looong time.
Anacapri: The Dream comes on DVD, and the files are compressed. So your
computer has many many files to decompress and copy to the game folder,
which is more complex than simply copying files directly. I played on a
3.2 GHz computer with 1 GB of RAM and a 16X DVD drive, and installation
took about 40 minutes. The game takes up almost 7 GB of hard drive space.
Specs of the Computer I Played it
on
Dell 8400
Windows XP SP1
3.2 GHz
1 GB system RAM
ATI Radeon X800 SE with 128 MB video
RAM
SB Live sound card (Dell's version)
Minimum System Requirements
(according to the readme)
Windows XP
XGA monitor capable of displaying
1024x768 and 16 million colors
7 GB free hard disk space
DVD reader
256 MB system RAM
Suggested System Requirements
(according to the readme)
Windows XP
XGA monitor capable of displaying
1024x768 and 32 million colors
7 GB free hard disk space
DVD reader
1 GB system RAM
Miscellaneous Comments
Anacapri: The Dream is for the most
part a relaxing game to play. But there are a few areas that are a bit
spooky. As you descend into the caves near the Blue Grotto, you hear
ominous sounds, and as you are on the way out, a rather startling surprise
awaits you. Although you can't "die" in the game, there is some tension
towards the end as you are being stalked.
Some of the more well known places
you'll visit include Red Beard's Castle, the Palazza a Mare, the Walkway
of the Forts, Villa San Michele, Marina Piccola, and the Grotto of Ferns (Grotta
delle Felci). The Walkway of the Forts may be of special interest to those
who enjoy wildflowers. Along the main path, there are ceramic tiles with
descriptions of Capri's many wildflowers and the uses and folklore
associated with them.
There is no connection between the
story in Anacapri: The Dream and the story in A Quiet Weekend in Capri.
You can play the games in any order.
Negatives
Some of the voice acting, especially
by lesser characters, could have been better, at least in the English
version. I would also have appreciated being able to hear the game in
Italian while using English subtitles, which was an option in Quiet
Weekend in Capri. I also would have liked more slots for saved games, as
well as the option to provide my own names for the saved games.
Recommendations
I feel confident in saying that
anyone who enjoyed A Quiet Weekend in Capri will also enjoy Anacapri: The
Dream. The virtual tour of Anacapri might also be of interest to people
who don't normally enjoy computer games, but enjoy looking at pictures of
scenic places like the Isle of Capri. Anacapri: The Dream is a non-violent
game that takes place in one of the most beautiful locations in the world.
And unlike most games, it does not require much in the way of a video
card.
Final
Grade: A-
September 2007
design copyright ©
2007
GameBoomers
Group
