'Patrimonium' is a classical 2D-graphic adventure. It is also called a fanadventure because is developed by fans of the adventure genre. Their normal jobs have nothing to do with game development. On the 'Patrimonium' homepage we will offer free download of the game after it has been translated into english.

From the graphic to the controls it represents the style of older adventure games like 'Day of the Tentacle', 'Monkey Island' or 'Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis'. In the early 90th, many players called the period of publication of such games also "The bloom" of the genre. After a few commercial flops around the turn of the millennium when the adventure market almost froze, which was also caused by the Ego-Shooters becoming more popular, the idea to develop 'Patrimonium' emerged.

Screenshot from 'Indiana Jones 4'

The game is meant to be a tribute to the adventure genre. It has to be available to everybody for free, it should entertain, it should be a challenge and it should also remind the fans on the 'good old days' of the graphic adventures. It should give a taste of adventure games to players not familiar with the genre and last but not least it should tell a unique story and convey a one-off game expierence.

Screenshot from 'Patrimonium'

After the first steps of orientation in the fields of graphics and programming, we started the design and development in 2003. After the first three of 5 acts (we scheduled) were finished, we published these immediately to see the reaction of the players and to get a feedback. Lots of the feedbacks and emails from the players and also the positive reaction of the press strongly motivated us to go on with 'Patromonium' and to keep our high quality standard.

Commercially, the adventure genre boomed again since the beginning of the new millennium. The commercial success of 'Runaway', the bearer of hope at the time, changed the interest of publishers in adventure games to the better. Some insiders of the scene speculated that in reality 'Patromium' is responsible. The counter evidence isn't written yet. ;-) 'Patrimonium' is produced by a conglomerated team of three. Philipp Lauthner conjures the background graphics in the distinctive comic look, Thorsten Kraemer is responsible for the design and the animation of the characters and project leader Jonas Jelli assembles at last all the material into the game, looks after the programming, the implementation of the story, public relation and quality assurance. Further information about the associates and their work as well as contact information you will find in the credits section of this homepage.

Between 2001 and 2003, the main features of the story of the game arose during the phase of concept and orientation. It is the result of ideas from the brains of Bernhard Altaner, Stefan Pflüger and Jonas Jelli. Sadly Bernhard and Stefan left our team early as well as Alan Smithee who contributed most of the background music.

On the basis of the storyline, some of the puzzles found their way into the game after a bit of brainstorming. Many were created and enhanced during the introduction of the resources into the game and the following audition of the game.

Details like monologues, dialogues, description of the objects in the game and additional interactions with the world of the game as well as the reaction to it, are developed spontaneously. After a few auditions they are refined and coordinated to provide a logical background story.

In the story page of our homepage, you will find a short marking out of the epic background story of 'Patrimonium' and an introduction of the most important characters in the story.

To program the game we use the so called 'Adventure Game Authoring Sytem' (AGAST). AGAST is a flexible, powerful and elegant tool, which is specialised in the development of graphic adventures. If it is used for non-commercial use it is freeware. It was developed by Todd Zankich and Russell Bailey. Unfortunately, an updated version is not available anymore. Anyway, the 'Adventure Game Authoring System' meets perfectly our requirements. Further information you can find on the AGAST-Homepage.

Some special features and quality characteristics are listed as follows...

	classical point and click graphic adventure epical unique background story innovative puzzle design with 'Puja-Tips' [1] a good dozen of lovingly animated characters more than 40 backgrounds in comic look more than 70 inventory items harmonious background music and sound effects different ending sequences shoals of innuendoes, partly hidden Chuck the plant

[1] At this point we would like to explain the concept of the so called 'Puja-Tips' more detailed. From time to time it happens that adventure players stuck at one or more places in the game. The solution of the puzzle they are confronted with doesn't open up that easily. Some players take resort in walkthroughs and others start to combine chaoticly.

Concept art

Occationally the puzzles in 'Patrimonium' can be very difficult. For that reason we try to adjust the standards of tricky situations in the game to the power of deduction of the player. The game recognizes how often a player tries to approach a certain puzzle and reduces the level of difficulty automatically. Therefore the protagonist releases clearer ('Puja'-) tips more often, which should help the player to go back on track. Or, after each failing, in puzzles, which need a timed coordination more and more time is provided to the player. Further, once and a while we make an effort to build in alternative solutions possibilities. Usually the impact of the Puja tips within the flexible story line remain hidden to the player.

In general 'Patrimonium' should be playable on all modern PC systems. However, if you have an older computer and you are not sure if the game will run on it please see the following minimal system requirements. 400 MHZ CPU 128 MB RAM graphic card with 3D acceleration, 16 MB memory DirectX 9.0, Windows approximately 180 MB harddisk memory

For the background music and the sound effects a Soundblaster compatible sound card should be installed on your computer

Reportedly 'Patrimonium' runs on Linux as well (no guarantee). To do so install Wine and Cedega and add subsequently to the configuration file (/home/username/.cvscedega/config or /home/username/.wine/config)) the following lines at any place:

[d3dgl]
"ClipSpaceFix" = "N"