Avarice Preview: Software Development as an Audience Participation Sport

By Joel Canon

'Personal Systems ''asked Joel Canon to review Avarice Preview from Stardock Systems. If you're like the editor, you won't finish reading this review before you'll want to rush out and buy a copy. This game is sure to be another big hit from Stardock. So, you've got that brand-spanking-new Pentium PC unwrapped, Warped, and now you're looking for something cool to show off your new toy. Got a few hours to kill? Well, give Stardock Systems (or Indelible Blue) a call for a copy of Avarice Preview.'

Avarice Preview is a new game from the same guys that brought you Star Emperor, Galactic Civilizations 2, and Object Desktop. It's not the full game, though, and it's not yet complete. But Avarice Preview gives you a chance to play a limited version of what will no doubt be another best-seller like Galactic Civilizations.

Avarice is billed as a "virtual reality" game, but that term doesn't do justice to the beauty and complexity wrapped up on Avarice's CD-ROM. Let's take a closer look at what makes Avarice Preview such a neat diversion. We'll start by looking at the game itself and then go into some of the technology that makes it happen. And finally, we'll take a look at what's planned for the final version.

The Plot
Avarice is a role-playing game that allows you to assume the character of Gareth O'Hara. Gareth has received a letter from his fabulously wealthy uncle, Kindel, inviting him to the O'Hara mansion in Hawaii. There are only two problems: First, Gareth never heard of his uncle before receiving the letter, but the offer of an "opportunity of a lifetime" tempts him to visit. Second, when Gareth arrives at the mansion, he finds that his uncle has disappeared, leaving only a blood-stained hat behind. The game begins as Gareth enters the O'Hara mansion to unravel the clues to Uncle Kindel's fate.

Playing the Game
When you play Avarice, you see a virtual world (well, a virtual mansion) through Gareth's eyes. You view a scene within the mansion that covers the upper three-fourths of the screen. The bottom of the screen displays several informational items, including a log of your activities and a display of Gareth's personal inventory. The log keeps a text version of your activities and, optionally, any results of your interactions with objects in the mansion. The results of your interactions include both sounds and visual clues.

As you use your mouse to move about the O'Hara mansion, animated cursors give clues as to where you are allowed to move. For instance, if the cursor becomes a large arrow pointing "ahead" on the screen, you can click the mouse to move forward--down a hall or into a room, for example. If the cursor points "backward" (actually it points down on the screen), you can move backward without turning around. For other moves, an animated cursor consisting of a circle with a flashing line at an angle indicates the direction, or legal moves, you can make.

Other cursors indicate the types of actions that can be performed on an object. One becomes a pair of eyeballs when the mouse pointer is over an object that could use some further inspection. For example, when the cursor moves over a fireplace, eyeballs indicate that you can look into the chimney. Another cursor shows a crosshair pattern when you can work with an object in the room. For example, a crosshair cursor appears when the mouse pointer is within a doorway that you may enter.

There are many objects lying around the mansion, and the curious player can use them in many ways. Any object that can be used works like any OS/2 object. A click of mouse button 2 (the politically correct way of describing my right-hand mouse button) shows a list of things that you can do to that object. (See Figure 1.) For example, clicking on a buffet shows that you can either "approach" it or "look ..." at it. The second choice, followed by the ellipses, indicates that secondary actions are possible. For an object that shows "look ..." on its pop-up menu, you may be able to look on the object, inside the object, or under the object. And objects can contain other things. The buffet's drawers can be explored, for example. And the bricks on the fireplace ... well, you'll just have to see for yourself.



You can also examine objects to see a close-up of the object in place of the current scene's view. You can examine the contents of a note, for example. And since some notes arrive wadded up into a ball, you have to "unwad" them. You can pick up objects to add them to Gareth's inventory. You never know when you'll need that can opener!

The potential for this game is obvious, and Stardock gives us hints of what it can really do. One of the "teasers" in Avarice are the various pieces of fruit lying around for Gareth to peel and eat. It's not obvious what the oranges do for the virtual player's status or to advance the game, but it makes for a nice break in the hunt for clues.

During the game, you move Gareth throughout different parts of the O'Hara mansion. Several areas are obviously accessible and easy to enter. Other rooms require you to collect certain objects or information before you can enter. Sometimes you must use information (clues in some form or another) to manipulate objects that allow entry into other areas. For example, to enter through certain doors, you need a key. And, kindly Uncle Kindel did not leave his keys lying around for just anyone to pick up!

While it's certain that Stardock will change much of this for the final game - for example, they've promised that the mansion will be much bigger - don't look to this review for too many clues. There's no cheat guide for Avarice, and we're not going to create one here.

Now that we've taken a spin around the O'Hara mansion, let's briefly look at what makes the game tick.

Avarice is Warped
Avarice is a native, 32-bit, multithreaded OS/2 game. It uses the heck out of Warp to interact with you and your computer. For example, as you're thinking about your next move, you may notice disk activity. Avarice is busy caching more beautiful graphics in anticipation of your next move. The sound runs on a separate thread so that - unlike games like Myst--you can do something while the sound keeps running in the background. This sounds like a nit (or simple Warp fanatic techno-bragging), but it isn't. One of the charms of a game like Myst or Avarice is its ability to draw you into another world, one that exists only in your head. This world exists only in your imagination and is constructed from your involvement with the game. Nothing will burst your bubble faster than waiting for the game to catch up with your CD-ROM or hearing the music stop during a scene change. If your car ran like that, every time you shifted gears, your radio would stop!

Performance is always a tradeoff in computer games. Greater detail or high-quality graphics almost always mean an equivalent decrease in performance. Through some clever programming, Stardock has neatly sidestepped that issue. In the first update (see details below on how to get updates), Stardock added a multithreading function that decodes the high-resolution graphics. When you change scenes, Avarice will quickly paint the screen with a low-resolution version of the current view. Then, if you pause to look at the scene, it continues to generate the high-resolution version of the scene, which appears after a brief delay. You can configure the duration of the delay from "right away" to 10 seconds.

Avarice is Beautiful
The graphics for Avarice are absolutely gorgeous. Nothing can really quite prepare you for the atmosphere, artistry, and attention to detail this game provides. When you enter the O'Hara mansion, you enter a main hallway lined with interesting paintings. (Actually there are a lot of them in the mansion.) In front of each painting is a green marble pedestal. The pedestals and the polished marble floor gleam. (See Figure 2.) And as you begin to explore the mansion you'll find the dining hall adorned with exquisite green wallpaper, complete with fleur-de-lis, as shown in Figure 3. Wooden items have real wood-grain patterns. And everything is textured - whether it's the smooth, shiny marble, wooden doors, or the stucco walls in the atrium.



If necessary, Avarice could serve as more than a game. It's conceivable that Stardock could add a few more rooms, more paintings and a tour guide, then sell it as a virtual art gallery. In fact, it already has a virtual library (but we wouldn't want to spoil the game by telling you where it is!).

One thing is certain about the Avarice Preview: You won't get hung up on the video problems that plague the graphics of much of today's commercial software. Many games (and CD-based reference material) depend upon your computer running at a specific video resolution and color depth. Myst, like many Windows games, runs at a resolution of only 640 by 480 at 256 colors, regardless of the machine's actual capabilities. Avarice can handle just about any common SVGA resolution and can even run in gray scale for extra speed on lower-end hardware. But at 1024 by 768, the graphics are truly gorgeous and will justify spending the extra money for a 17-inch monitor.

Avarice supports a wide variety of resolutions and color depths. If your system can't show 65 million colors or you don't have a 17-inch monitor, that's fine. You'll still like Avarice. But if you've made the investment in high-end graphics or a larger monitor, Avarice will be your reward. Friends and relations will look over your shoulder with comments like "ooh" and "aah." Avarice's lush graphics are a non-fattening feast for the eyes.

Should You Buy Avarice Now?
Avarice Preview is not the full Avarice game - it is a "prequel" to the full game, which Stardock bills as "Avarice: The Complete Saga." In other words, it is a limited-function version of the complete game, and even includes a coupon that's good for $30 off the final version.

Stardock has also promised that before the final version's release, they will issue some updates to the game that will add function and/or complexity. (As of mid-February 1996, Stardock issued the first update and one small patch.) Updates will be available electronically through several sources:
 * The Stardock home page - http://www.stardock.com
 * The Stardock BBS - (313) 453-1845
 * CompuServe - GO STARDOCK

What's Coming in the Final Version?
Brad Wardell, Stardock president, has been very active in cyberspace to keep us informed on some of the features that will be added to the full version: No release date for the final version has been announced. Instead of committing to a date, Wardell has indicated that they'll release the final version "when we're happy with it."
 * An updated version of the O'Hara mansion - "The only thing the final version will have in common with the Preview is that part of the house will be the same," Wardell says.
 * NPCs or non-player characters - For Avarice Preview, you are alone in the house. For the final game, you'll have some friends to deal with. Or maybe they're not really friends...
 * DART (IBM's high-speed audio interface for OS/2 games) - This should allow for more and better music and sound effects.
 * Much smaller memory requirements.
 * Better performance - the first update from Stardock provided quite a bit.
 * More complex and challenging puzzles and clues.

Summary
Avarice follows in the footsteps of the original Adventure game and its PC-based successors like Zork. It takes a cue from the graphics and sounds of Myst. And it uses OS/2's power to make it one of the most beautiful interactive games to hit your screen. Not bad for a "prequel"!

If you like mystery games and have access to any of the electronic sources for Avarice updates, then the Avarice Preview is for you. I've beta-tested several Stardock software titles, including Object Desktop. Stardock has done a good job of soliciting feedback from users of their software. There is no doubt this game will only get better. I expect Avarice: The Complete Saga to be Stardock's follow-up hit to Galactic Civilizations 2.