Sanctuary Woods

Not to be confused with Sanctuary Wood.

Sanctuary Woods Multimedia, Inc. was a Canadian-American multimedia developer and third-party game publisher. It was one of the early multimedia companies developing products for CD-ROM distribution. The founders, Brian Beninger and Toni Beninger, were both experienced technologists who saw the potential for developing family-oriented and educational multimedia projects when Apple Inc. released Hypercard.

It published two games developed together with actress Shelley Duvall — It's a Bird's Life and It's a Dog's Life. It also published some well-known titles developed by Presto Studios.

In 1994 Sanctuary Woods purchased from MicroProse the MicroProse Adventure Development System game engine used to develop Rex Nebular and Return of the Phantom.[1] Following disappointing sales through 1995, the company underwent mass layoffs and a corporate restructuring.[2] Sanctuary Woods went out of business in 2001.[3]

Games published

3DO

  • Dennis Miller: It's Geek to Me
  • Dennis Miller: That's News to Me
  • It's a Bird's Life

Macintosh

PC

Games developed

Victor Vector & Yondo

Victor Vector & Yondo is a series of games published by Sanctuary Woods starring a superhero-like main character called Victor Vector, with a side-kick St. Bernard dog called Yondo. The games were published in the 1990s and had an educational spin to them. They were among the first CD-ROM games to be targeted at children.

  • Victor Vector & Yondo: The Cyberplasm Formula
  • Victor Vector & Yondo: The Hypnotic Harp
  • Victor Vector & Yondo: The Vampire's Coffin
  • Victor Vector & Yondo: The Last Dinosaur Egg

PC

Reception

Computer Gaming World in 1993 described Victor Vector & Yondo as "Heavy on the flash and light on the substance, this product is more of a talking comic book than a graphic adventure" and criticized the quality of the digitized speech.[5]

Entertainment Weekly rated Shelley Duvall's It's a Bird's Life a C− stating "While there are plenty of activities-an on-screen storybook, sing-alongs, connect-the-dots puzzles-the animation is primitive, the button-pushing can get awkward, and there are enough disc-access delays (blank screens to you and me) to shatter the attention span of even the most devoted bird fancier" [6] The game failed commercially.[7]

References

  1. ^ "MicroProse Adventure Development System Purchased". Read.Me. Computer Gaming World. April 1994. p. 12.
  2. ^ "News Bits". GamePro. No. 92. IDG. May 1996. p. 21.
  3. ^ "Company Overview of Sanctuary Woods Multimedia Corporation". Bloomberg. September 2015. p. 1. Retrieved 24 September 2015.
  4. ^ a b Colker, David (17 June 1994). "THE GOODS : Everything a Girl Wants in a Game--and Less". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 21 May 2019.
  5. ^ "Forging Ahead or Fit to be Smashed?". Computer Gaming World. April 1993. p. 24. Retrieved 6 July 2014.
  6. ^ EW Staff (January 14, 1994). "Shelley Duvall's It's a Bird's Life". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved December 27, 2021.
  7. ^ Carlton, Jim (June 25, 1995). "Competition stiff in video game arena". The News Tribune. p. 39. Retrieved December 27, 2021 – via Newspapers.com.