Discworld (videogame)
Discworld is a 1995 point-and-click or graphic adventure game based on the Discworld novels. It was released for DOS and Mac, and later the Sony PlayStation and SEGA Saturn consoles.
The player controls Rincewind, who must save the city of Ankh-Morpork from a dragon in a plot largely based on Guards! Guards!, but with elements drawn from other Discworld novels as well, notably Sourcery and
It was developed by Perfect Entertainment, the company formed by the merger of Teeny Weeny Games (previously Beam Software) and Perfect 10 Productions. It was published by Psygnosis. The CD-ROM version of the game featured audio dialogue for the whole game, still quite a novelty in 1995 (the disk-based version had on-screen text only). While not the first Discworld game, it was the first to be a commercial success, and is still remembered fondly by fans of the point-and-click genre (even if some of its puzzles were, like many from this era, fiendishly hard). Discworld made enough of a splash to spawn a sequel and later another third Discworld game, both from the same developer.
Blurb
“You'll find here wizards, dragons, heroes and household hygiene specialists. There is danger here, but there is also custard around the place. Because Discworld is a fantasy world with a low reality threshold. The real world keeps on breaking through - but Discworld changes it.
So you'll find here things that you sort of recognise.
Discworld has got photography (tiny imps paint the pictures) and movies (tiny imps paint really fast) and it is even getting its second generation of computers now that the old stone circles don't work fast enough.
However, because it is a fantasy world there are some things that it has to have, and one of them is a certain tendency to experience some trouble with dragons.
Unfortunately, a dragon is now ravaging Ankh-Morpork, the world's leading city. Many people would consider this falls under the heading of civic improvement, but what Ankh-Morpork needs now is a hero. All it's got, however, is Rincewind the wizard, whose only talent is that he is not in fact dead yet. He also has the Luggage, the nastiest piece of travelware in the Universe. With that at his side, there is probably no limit to the things he can fail to do...
Oh, did I say he? I meant...you.
Beware of anyone who TALKS LIKE THIS and carries a scythe, and remember that a loaded pun sometimes goes off...
...and have fun.” - Terry Pratchett (himself)
Creative Team
Crew
- Produced by Angela Sutherland
- Written and Directed by Gregg Barnett
- Tinsel Game System by Mark Roll and John Young
- “Game Creation”[1] by Gregg Barnett and David Johnston
- Dialogue by Paul Kidd
- Art Direction by Paul Mitchell
- Background Artwork by Nick Pratt
- Character Design by John Millington and Simon Turner
- Animation by Simon Turner (Lead) with John Cassells, Karl D’Costa, Warren Hawkes, Paul Mitchell, Steve Packer, David Swan and Ben Willsher
- Music by Rob Lord
- Sound by Mark Bandola and Rob Lord
- Voice Sampling by Mark Bandola, Karl D'Costa, Steven Thompson, Rob Van Deven and Richard Wright
- Additional Programming by Owen Cunningham and Dominic Jackson
- Quality Assurance by Guillaume Camus, Karen Cox and Colin Fuidge
- Talent Casting by Angela Sutherland
- Cover Art by Josh Kirby
- Manual Illustrations by Stephen C. Briggs[2] and Damian Rochford
- Package and Manual Design by Richard Turner, Keith Hopwood and Mark Hillman
Colin Smythe is credited as “Agent for Terry Pratchett”, and Pratchett himself as “Original Author and Creator of Discworld”. Of note: the German translation of the dialogue and manual was done by Andreas Brandhorst, who also translated many of the Discworld novels.
Cast
The small cast provide voices for all the characters in the game; only major roles are noted below.
- Eric Idle as Rincewind
- Rob Brydon as the Patrician, Death, Archchancellor Mustrum Ridcully, Carrot Ironfoundersson, Twoflower, the Lecturer in Recent Runes, the Bursar, Pestilence, War and many more[3]
- Jon Pertwee as Windle Poons, the Librarian, Thomas Silverfish (the Alchemist) and many more
- Kate Robbins as Nanny Ogg, Lady Ramkin, Famine, The Lady and many more[4]
- Tony Robinson as Nobby Nobbs, Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler, the Dean, “Dog” and many more
Terry Pratchett makes a visual appearance in a crowd scene, but did not provide his voice.
Podcast episodes
Major appearances
These are episodes primarily devoted to discussing this game.
| Date | Show | Episode | External link |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-06-16 | DOS Game Club | “Discworld” | dosgameclub.com |
Other appearances
Episodes where the game is discussed, but not as the main topic.
| Date | Show | Episode | External link |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-01-02 | Video Game Newsroom Time Machine | “Gregg Barnett - Beam Software, Discworld” | libsyn.com |
External links
- Discworld at Wikipedia
- Discworld at the L-Space wiki
- Discworld at the Internet Movie Database
- Discworld at MobyGames
Footnotes
- ↑ The roles in game production were not standardised in 1995, so it’s not 100% clear what some of these titles mean.
- ↑ We assume this is Stephen Briggs, but we can’t be sure.
- ↑ Rob Brydon, a noted impressionist, also supplied some additional lines of dialogue for Rincewind. Our guess is these were extra lines required after Eric Idle had completed his recording sessions and was no longer available.
- ↑ Kate is also the voice of the Dragon in the PlayStation version.