''Ečstatica'' is a

survival horror game Survival horror is a Video game genre, subgenre of Survival game, survival of the players as the game tries to frighten them with either horror graphics or scary ambience. Although combat can be part of the gameplay, the player is made to feel l ...

for MS-DOS developed by British team Andrew Spencer Studios and released by Psygnosis in

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which Sinking of the MS Estonia, sank in ...

. It was followed by a sequel, Ecstatica II, in 1997.

Gameplay

The gameplay is from a third-person perspective with viewing angles changing automatically. The player has the option of choosing either a male or female character. The player has the ability to sneak, walk or run in different directions. The character may carry two items—one item with each hand. Throughout the game, the character is under constant threat from demons. They must fight with the demons using various moves — this adds some elements of a

fighting game A fighting game, also known as a versus fighting game, is a video game genre, genre of video game that involves combat between two or more players. Fighting game combat often features mechanics such as Blocking (martial arts), blocking, grappli ...

. In addition to action and adventure elements, the game also contains moments of black and crude humor.

Plot

The setting is in

Northern Europe The northern region of Europe has several definitions. A restrictive definition may describe Northern Europe as being roughly north of the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, which is about 54th parallel north, 54°N, or may be based on other g ...

in 928 AD. A traveler (the player) comes upon a town named Tirich hoping to find food and shelter. However, the town appears to be invaded by demons. The traveler must help the townspeople and lift the curse from the town by freeing the young sorceress Ečstatica from her possession.

Development

Initially developer Andrew Spencer Studios consisted of just Andrew Spencer himself, who spent years single-handedly creating the

game engine A game engine is a software framework primarily designed for the development of video games and generally includes relevant libraries and support programs. The "engine" terminology is similar to the term "software engine" used in the software i ...

used by ''Ecstatica''. The team expanded to two people for the remainder of development: Spencer and film animation expert Alain Maindron. The game uses a unique type of

ellipsoid An ellipsoid is a surface that may be obtained from a sphere by deforming it by means of directional scalings, or more generally, of an affine transformation. An ellipsoid is a quadric surface; that is, a surface that may be defined as the ...

graphics to display characters. Each character is made of ellipsoids approximating different parts of the body. The environments, such as the trees and the shrubs, are also constructed in ellipsoids. This gave the game a unique aesthetic, as it looked much less angular than other more conventional polygon-based games at the time. Andrew Spencer explained, "The main advantage is the organic-looking characters. Triangles tend to make hard, robotic-looking figures, whereas ellipsoids can be used to create more rounded, human alternatives. Ellipsoids can also be more efficient because you can make a much better looking character out of fewer shapes."

Reception

''Computer Gaming World'' nominated ''Ecstatica'' as its 1994 "Adventure of the Year", although it lost to '' Relentless: Twinsen's Adventure''. The editors wrote of ''Ecstatica'', "The offbeat characters and unusual storyline mesh with the racy humor to form an adventure of a different feather." In 1996,

GamesMaster ''GamesMaster'' is a British television programme which originally aired on Channel 4 from 1992 to 1998. In 2021, it returned for a new series on YouTube and E4. It was the first UK television programme dedicated to video games. Dominik Diam ...

ranked the game 69th on their "Top 100 Games of All Time."

Reviews

*''

White Wolf Inphobia ''White Wolf'' is a game magazine that was published by White Wolf Publishing from 1986 to 1995. History While still in high school, Stewart Wieck and Steve Wieck decided to self-publish their own magazine, and Steve chose the name "White Wolf" ...

'' #55 (May, 1995)

References

External links

*{{moby game, id=/estatica 1994 video games Action-adventure games DOS games DOS-only games 1990s horror video games Psygnosis games Sony Interactive Entertainment franchises Single-player video games Video games featuring protagonists of selectable gender Video games with pre-rendered 3D graphics Video games about witchcraft Video games developed in the United Kingdom