Emerald City Confidential
Description official description
Emerald City Confidential is a mystery adventure based on the universe of the 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. Rather than a direct adaptation, familiar characters such as Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tin Man and Lion are shifted into a 1940s film noir setting with a much grimmer atmosphere.
Players control Petra, a private detective in Emerald City, who investigates mysterious cases for a living. She is contacted by a rich woman Dee Gale who asks her to find her fiancé Anzel who has disappeared. Through her investigation, Petra finds out more about the city, the surroundings and the way it is controlled. The story is told in five chapters and soon Petra's past is interwoven into the main story as the plot thickens.
The game is controlled like a regular point-and-click 2D adventure from a thirdperson perspective with hand-drawn graphics. The mouse is used for all actions and there no different commands or options to choose from. The inventory is shown at the bottom and through the story Petra will eventually get access to magic potions and spells that are stored in the bottom right of the screen.
Compared to earlier Wadjet Eye Games, in terms of gameplay it has a more casual approach. Players can optionally collect buttons in the surroundings in almost every screen, there are achievements (medals) to unlock and there is an in-game hint system where the solution to puzzles is gradually revealed, making it almost impossible to get stuck permanently. Petra can talk to characters using a tree dialogue system and important conversations and clues are stored in a journal. A tutorial introduces the mechanics in the early parts of the game and puzzle are largely inventory and conversation based. New and solved quests are also shown on the screen, as well as a progress bar for the overall completion of the game.
Unlike the previous Wadjet Eye Games, the AGS engine is not used and a much larger team worked on the game. All characters are voiced, along with subtitles where the dialogue is transcribed.
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Credits (Windows version)
80 People (52 developers, 28 thanks) · View all
| Original Game Design | |
| Software Engineering | |
| Character Animation | |
| Background Painting | |
| Inventory/Magic Art | |
| Music | |
| Dialog | |
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| GUI Art |
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| Sound Effects provided by |
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| Voice Over provided by |
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| Voice Over Cast (provided by Wadjet Eye Games) | |
| Additional voiceover cast provided by |
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| Beta Testers | |
| [ full credits ] | |
Reviews
Critics
Average score: 80% (based on 16 ratings)
Players
Average score: 4.1 out of 5 (based on 13 ratings with 1 reviews)
Welcome to the dystopian Land of Oz!
The Good
The game take place at Emerald City forty years after the events of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" by L. Frank Baum. In that time Oz became a much darker place, it went through a war that almost destroyed the city and as a result all magic were forbidden by the city ruler and worst, the people are under constant surveillance from the city guard.
The main characters from the original novel also make an appearance, Dorothy is a bored honorary princess that look for excitement in life, the Lion is a high lawyer who use his legal skill to help rich criminals, the Tin-Man is the incompetent governor of Munchin Land who spend all his time drinking oil and the Scarecrow wander around the city's streets talking crazy.
This classic pint and click game is made in the style of a forties film noir. You play Petra, a detective that got hired by Dorothy to find her missing fiancée, true to the game concept all the characters you meet will act just like if they came out of a film noir. This is the game main strength as the dialogs are excellent and the plot development is interesting.
The game environment is compose of colorful drawing that look excellent and contribute to the game atmosphere.
The Bad
The main downside of this game is the ridiculously easy difficulty level, almost all the advancement made by talking with the other characters and solving the small parts where you need to use objects or spell is extremely easy.
The Bottom Line
A good game with very simply puzzles, if the creators would increase the difficulty level this could be a great adventure game.
Still if you most interested in the story and not the puzzles you should definitely give this game a chance.
Windows · by Ingsoc (1366) · 2011
Trivia
Oz characters
This game has an impressive list of Oz characters. Their names and the books they first appear in are:
- Dee (Dorothy Gale): First appeared in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Her last name of Gale was first mentioned in Ozma of Oz
- Lion (The Cowardly Lion): First appeared in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
- Governor Nick Chopper, the Tin Man (The Tin Woodman): First appeared in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. He was first called Nick Chopper in The Marvelous Land of Oz
- The Scarecrow: First appeared in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
- The Witch of the West (The Wicked Witch of the West): First appeared in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
- Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkel Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs a.k.a. the Wizard a.k.a. Pinhead (The Wizard of Oz): first appeared in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. His full name, which is Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkel Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs, was first mentioned in Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz
- Toto: First appeared in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
- Locasta the Witch of the North (The Good Witch of the North a.k.a. Tattypoo): The character is mentioned in the game but does not appear. She first appeared in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and was first called Tattypoo in The Giant Horse of Oz. She was called Locasta in the 1902 musical The Wizard of Oz
- Glinda, the Witch of the South (Glinda the Good a.k.a. The Good Witch of the South): First appeared in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
- Prof. H. M. Wogglebug, T. E. (Highly Magnified Woggle-Bug, Thoroughly Educated): First appeared in The Marvelous Land of Oz
- The Gump: First appeared in The Marvelous Land of Oz
- Sawhorse (Saw-Horse): First appeared in The Marvelous Land of Oz
- Mombi: First appeared in The Marvelous Land of Oz
- Jack Pumpkinhead: First appeared in The Marvelous Land of Oz
- General Jinjur: First appeared in The Marvelous Land of Oz
- Queen Ozma (Ozma of Oz a.k.a. Princess Ozma): First appeared in The Marvelous Land of Oz
- Tik-Tok: First appeared in Ozma of Oz
- Ruggedo, the former Gnome King (The Nome King a.k.a. Roquat the Red): First appeared, as Roquat the Red, in Ozma of Oz. Was first called Ruggedo in the 1913 stage production The Tik-Tok Man of Oz. He was first called Ruggedo in a book in Tik-Tok of Oz..
- Shaggy (The Shaggy Man): First appeared in The Road to Oz
- Miss Cayke (Cayke the Cookie Cook): First appeared in The Lost Princess of Oz
- Frogman: First appeared in The Lost Princess of Oz
- Scraps the Patchwork Girl: First appeared in The Patchwork Girl of Oz
- Captain Bill (Cap'n Bill Wheedles): First appeared in the non-Oz book The Sea Fairies. The first Oz book he appeared in was The Scarecrow of Oz.
- Trot: First appeared in the non-Oz book The Sea Fairies. The first Oz book she appeared in was The Scarecrow of Oz. Her real name is Mayre Griffiths.
- The Rope Charmer (Kiki Aru): First appeared in The Magic of Oz.
- Betsy Bobbin: First appeared in the 1913 stage production The Tik-Tok Man of Oz. Her first book appearance was in Tik-Tok of Oz.
- Hank the Mule: First appeared in the 1913 stage production The Tik-Tok Man of Oz. His first book appearance was in Tik-Tok of Oz.
- Ugu (Ugu the Shoemaker): First appeared in The Lost Princess of Oz
- Nimee Amee (Nimmie Amee): First mentioned, unnamed, in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. First named in The Tin Woodman of Oz
- Woot the Wanderer: First appeared in The Tin Woodman of Oz
Also, several characters refer to Lurline. She is first mentioned, as Lurline, Queen of the Fairies, in The Tin Woodman of Oz. The Frogman threatens to use the Wand of Evoldo. Evoldo, the former king of the Land of Ev, is discussed in historical terms in Ozma of Oz. Some characters refer to others, as a way of insult, as a 'son of a Woozy'. A creature called a Woozy first appeared in The Patchwork Girl of Oz. The game's antagonists, the Phanfasms, first appeared in The Emerald City of Oz.
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Emerald City Confidential
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Contributors to this Entry
Game added by Sciere.
Additional contributors: LepricahnsGold.
Game added February 26, 2009. Last modified July 17, 2023.