Players will pursue the quest by exploring the mysterious world of Fells Church, Virginia, interacting with game characters and navigating through town, collecting clues and solving puzzles for the information and objects needed to vanquish an evil vampire. Character interactions will incorporate blue-screen motion picture sequences within the game's 3-D rendered graphics.
"Teen girls told us they like spooky, scary stories, rich in character but without the gore found in many games," said Patricia Flanigan, Executive Director of Her Interactive. "We anticipate Vampire Diaries will appeal to girls, women and men, really to anyone who enjoys a good suspenseful story."
The Vampire Diaries will be native to the Windows 95 environment, Her Interactive's first title to be so programmed. The new Microsoft game software development kit will be utilized to deliver leading-edge multimedia crafted with the kind of gameplay that girls love.
In addition to 360 freedom of movement within settings, players will be able to "look" up and down within scenes as well. Three-dimensional sound, music and effects will give players directional cues and set the mood, from romantic to scary.
Other features include an internal game-time clock, tied to real time, which will cause scenes to go from day to night settings. This is important to game play because certain actions can only be accomplished during the day or at night. An option for closed captioning will supplement all dialogue with text transcripts on screen. Players will also have the option to "step back" to critical junctions in the story if they get into a game-ending scenario before reaching the final climactic scene.
The Vampire Diaries CD-ROM, based on the HarperPaperbacks books by L.J. Smith, is scheduled for PC Windows 95 release in October, 1996 and will retail for $59.95.
"The 2,000 girls we surveyed told us they prefer games with dynamic characters, and that they would definitely enjoy games based on favorite characters from books," noted Flanigan, adding,"We'll be announcing additional CD-ROMs based on literary licenses in the near future."
The Vampire Diaries will be Her Interactive's second product. The company's first title was McKenzie & Co.(TM), a comedy adventure about life in high school. The five-disc game for Windows and Mac is proving popular with girls 10 to 15 years old.
Her Interactive's mission is to create a multimedia world for young women -- a world inhabited by savvy girls with Sure She Can!(TM) attitudes. By providing entertainment, education, information and a comprehensive on-line service using state-of-the-art technologies, Her Interactive will inspire girls to explore the wonders and power of computers.
At the beginning of the year, Her Interactive launched Her Online, a web site with content geared to pre-teen and teenage girls. In addition to other upcoming entertainment titles, Her Interactive will also produce Sure She Can!, a not-for-profit initiative to profile real-life girls who are doing remarkable things. A portion of the proceeds from all Her Interactive titles are donated to support breast cancer awareness.
Her Interactive was established as a new division of American Laser Games, Inc. in November, 1994. The company is based in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
This press release was provided by American Laser Games
