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COMPUTER SOFTWARE, GAMES AND TOYS

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Compiled by David Mattison; © 1996-2008. Text submissions copyrighted by their respective authors.

This site and its pages may be freely linked to but not duplicated in any fashion without my consent.

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COMPUTER SOFTWARE, GAMES AND TOYS

This category covers computer software games, traditional board or card games, and toys that utilize archives, manuscripts, art galleries or museums.

Search and purchase these games, toys or software through In Association with Amazon.ca or an Amazon.com Associate. A portion of the proceeds from these click-through online stores is donated towards the recovery of Tulane University in New Orleans.

  1. Alice: An Interactive Museum. Synergy Interactive Corp., 1994. This computer game, set in a house or museum, features images from Alice in Wonderland. Date updated: 2002-05-05.
  2. AmerZone. Dreamcatcher Games, 2001. You take on the role of a journalist visiting a reclusive anthropologist.  In the 1930s he removed a sacred bird egg from a tribe of Indians in the Central American country Amerzone. They guarded it and kept the secret of the mysterious White Birds. The initial clues in this immersive 3D puzzle adventure include letters and the anthropologist's expedition journal found in the remote lighthouse where the he lives. Date added: 2002-05-05.
  3. Artifact: The Hunt for Stolen Treasures. Victoria, BC: Outset Media, 2004. Summary: "In the hunt for stolen treasures, players trade cards, take challenges, and assemble teams to retrive 24 historical works of art in this interactive new game."
  4. ArtVenture: A Collector's Challenge. Ottawa, ON: Library and Archives Canada, 2004. An online game developed for students as part of an educational resource for the Peter Winkworth Collection in which they play an art collector picked by the Library and Archives Canada to visit London and "Basil's Art and Antique Shop" where they must collect pieces of art in order to finish the game. Date accessed: 2004-09-25. Date added: 2004-09-25.
  5. BookWorm. PopCap Games Inc. Online, single player Java game which Daisy Pommer, Archivist, Thirteen/WNET Pubic Television (New York), described in an e-mail as "a word game ..., and the different levels include 'Assistant Librarian', 'Librarian', 'Archivist' and 'Grand Archivist', and include rather humorous renderings of what an Archivist (sort of a Roman Emperor type) and Grand Archivist (nebbishy neurotic) might look like. Also, when a 'burning tile' reaches the bottom of the screen, your 'library' burns to the ground and you lose the game." Date added: 2003-08-13.
  6. Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon. Dreamcatcher, the Adventure Company, 2003. Adventurers George Stobbart and Nico Collard must "unravel the mystery involving the 'Voynich Manuscript' which holds the secrets of the ultimate evil power, the Sleeping Dragon, and save mankind." Read more about the actual Voynich Manuscript at these sites: The Most Mysterious Manuscript in the World: The Voynich MS; Museum of Hoaxes: The Voynich Manuscript; and WorldMysteries.com: Voynich Manuscript.
  7. The Cameron Files: Secret at Loch Ness. Dreamcatcher Games. The 1930s Chicago gumshoe (private investigator or PI) Alan P. Cameron is hired by the physicist Allister Mac Farley to investigate paranormal events at his Loch Ness, Scotland, home Devil's Ridge Manor. The computer game package emulates a file folder. Date added: 2002-05-05.
  8. The Cameron Files 2: Pharaoh's Curse. Date added: 2004-02-28.
  9. Code of Honor 2: Conspiracy Island. Warsaw, Poland: City-Interactive, 2007. Set in the former French colony of French Guiana on Ile Royale (Royal Island) off its coast, the French Foreign Legion are sent in stop terrorists from removing nuclear materials from an experimental reactor. A secondary objective at the start of their mission is to secure the "archives." This part of the game is handled by a second team that does not involve the main character and his part in the game. Official Web site: Code of Honor 2. Date added: 2008-09-15.
  10. Conflict: Denied Ops. Redwood City, CA: Eidos, 2008. During one of the chapters of this first-person shooter involving two CIA paramilitary operatives, they are required to destroy the surveillance archives in a South African gold mine. They do so by shooting out the video consoles but do not actually destroy the archival record of their activities. Date added: 2008-03-23.
  11. Crimson Skies. Seattle, WA: Microsoft, 2000. Set in 1937 an alternate America, the software includes an instruction manual is in the form of a fictitious magazine, Air Action Weekly Magazine (December 10, 1937), and the game prelude begins with a fake newsreel. A personal scrapbook within the game can be used to collect souvenirs of your life as the notorious air pirate Nathan Zachary. Date added: 2002-05-10.
  12. Evidence. Dreamcatcher Interactive, 2006. This game comes packaged in a plastic evidence bag like the kind used by police forces. Date added: 2007-01-10.
  13. Mass Effect. Redwood City, CA: Electronic Arts, 2008. Set in 2183 AD and themed around the commander of a starship charged with stopping a threat to all galactic civilizations, in the first act of Mass Effect inside a space station called the Citadel, you may enter and examine the Diplomatic Archives, or at least two of the electronic workstations and talk to a person at one of the workstations. Once you examine the workstation's the game's Codex or your Journal is updated with information about this location. Date added: 2008-06-21.
  14. The Matrix Online. Monolith Productions, Inc. and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., January 2005. According to a review of a portion to this unreleased (as of November 2004) computer game based on the movie trilogy, a new section of this online game will be released that is titled The Archive: "As was hinted at already, the Archive is much more than a PvP arena; it is a remnant from a much older version of the Matrix. It contains valuable secrets for those strong enough to seize them. In this particular situation, strength is measured by the ability to survive massive conflict, not only with rival Organizations, but with the Archivists themselves, who will fiercely guard their order's secrets." ("The Matrix Online: Player vs. Player combat revealed," Game Announcements,  Gameinfowire.com, November 10, 2004, http://www.gameinfowire.com/news.asp?nid=5383). Date added: 2004-11-10.
  15. The Messenger. Dreamcatcher, the Adventure Company. As Secret Service Agent Morgan Sinclair, your mission is to break into the Louvre Museum in Paris, France, and locate and destroy four dangerous objects called Satan's Keys that when united can destroy the world.
  16. Riddle of the Sphinx: An Egyptian Adventure. Dreamcatcher, the Adventure Company. Another mystery puzzle computer game set in ancient Egypt, this one was designed by Jeff and Karen Tobler. A mysterious papyrus scroll bearing a deadly curse and discovered by the "noted archaeologist Sir Gil Blythe Geoffreys" bears a secret more chilling than the cold hand of death that choked Sir Gil. Date added: 2004-02-28.
  17. Riddle of the Sphinx 2: The Omega Stone. Dreamcatcher Interactive. Sequel that involves yet another papyrus scroll uncovered by archaeologist Sir Gil Blythe Geoffreys bearing yet another secret earth-shaking secret. Date added: 2004-02-28.
  18. Tehutti, the Archivist. A character (no. 8609) from the Bionicle toy series issued by LEGO, his role as an archivist is laid out in the Bioncle Sector 01 Web site and amplified through this LEGO search for his name. Date added: 2005-03-14.
  19. The Secret Files: Tunguska. Dreamcatcher Interactive, 2006. Date added: 2007-01-10.

This site and its pages may be freely linked to but not duplicated in any fashion without my consent.

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