INTRO:
There was a time when grim and dark takes on classic Western stories were trending. Grimm stories were being used in gritty graphic novels, for example. Playfirst – makers of the Diner Dash games – decided that it would make a game that is based on the Wizard of Oz. The result is a noir story with vastly different portrayals of the characters in Frank Baum’s works and more than a little artistic liberty, especially at how its story diverges from its prologue.
Perhaps the most notable thing about this game is that it is an adventure game – something that Playfirst rarely if not never produces. Another notable fact is that then-budding video game-maker Wadjet Eye Games developed it.
PREMISE:
The game’s setting takes place forty years after the events of the Wizard of Oz, specifically after the nastier Witches in Oz have been brought low. There are actually a few more stories by Baum after those events, but Dave Gilbert of Wadjet Eye has decided that this would be the starting point of Playfirst’s alternative take on Baum’s stories.
Even though it has been forty years, the (mortal) characters that were in Baum’s stories did not age by much. Indeed, it would appear that in this fantasy world, (mortal) people age far slower than humans do in real life. In particular, Dorothy appears as a young woman, and the Wizard of Oz is still very much around.
Anyway, the protagonist is none of the characters that Baum has established. This is perhaps not a surprise, because a fresh character would have been more versatile for writing coherence and would be less likely to draw any litigation. (This is especially important, considering that “Emerald City” is a trademarked series now.)
Petra is a private investigator in the city of Oz. As to be expected of freelance gumshoes in works of fiction about them, her work is not appreciated much and she is just scraping by. However, Oz is a city of intrigues, especially after sweeping changes that occurred in the wake of an unpleasant war with the Phanfasms.
ADDITIONAL GEOPOLITICS:
Speaking of whom, the Phanfasms are something that Wadjet Eye’s writers made up, as best as they could in keeping with the theme and style of Baum’s works. These tribal-like anthropomorphic animals came from elsewhere, and they have their eyes set on the conquest of Oz.
The war did not turn out in their favour, but Oz is changed after a lot of its people – including Petra and most of the established characters – suffered the consequences of a war that they are not prepared for. This is the excuse that is used to introduce the gritty noir setting of the story.
Magic has also been banned, due to reasons that will be revealed sometime later in the story. However, it still has a place in the story, especially in the latter half of the game.
PLAYING WITH EXPECTATIONS:
Despite what the early parts of the game would suggest, the player should not expect all of the main characters of Frank Baum’s works to have front-and-center roles in the story alongside Petra. Indeed, a few of them will not even turn up in the later parts of the story. In particular – and at the risk of including spoilers in this article – Dorothy Gale is relegated to a side character that is intended to be unlikable.
NOIR TAKES:
As mentioned already, since the game’s setting is Oz many years after the events of the Wizard of Oz, some of the characters in this game are characters in Frank Baum’s works.
Lion is the first of these to be introduced, followed by Dorothy. Both of them are far removed from their portrayal in the original works: Lion may not be a meek scaredy-cat anymore, but he is a corrupt lawyer; Dorothy is a femme fatale sorceress, far more adult than the little feisty girl that she was.
At the time of this game, there was some demand for such gritty and dark portrayals of characters that are originally intended to be parent- and child-friendly. In the present day, this kind of story-telling would have soured no thanks to shallow writing that relies on how far off these characters are from their original versions.
For better or worse, some characters would be like these. To cite some examples – and at the risk of implying spoilers – how Lion and Dorothy turned into the way that they are in this game is never explained.
Fortunately, some of the other Baum originals have their characters in this game further developed in order to justify how different they are from their original portrayals. To describe an example of the ones that are better fleshed-out, there is the Wizard of Oz. He has turned into a bitter old man, but an old man with actual magical prowess and an expanded relationship with one of the witches of Oz.
Another example is Scarecrow, whose penchant for covert work is both explained and implied as the story progresses (and if the player bothers to have Petra ask questions). Incidentally, he turns out to be a major secondary character.
EVER-PRESENT USER INTERFACE & PROGRESS TRACKERS:
Quite a number of adventure games, including those in the days of Sierra and LucasArts, hide their user interface (UI) so as to promote immersion. This is not the case with Playfirst’s title; this difference is made all the more noticeable because the game is developed by Wadjet Eye, whose games feature unobtrusive UI.
Being a Playfirst title, the player is shown the progress that has been made through the content of the game. This progress is represented by slots that are filled with pretty colored stones as the player completes “quests” that advance the story.
NOTEBOOK & HINTS:
Early in the game, Petra gets a new notebook that is implied to be capable of automatically taking notes (not all magical things are banned). The notebook tracks the things that Petra needs to do in order to advance the story. Each entry also has a set of hints that are hidden at first; the player can reveal this if the player gets stuck.
Most of the time, an experienced follower of adventure games would not need the hints. However, there are a few moments in the game when the hints might be needed if the player does not want to randomly try things on other things. Incidentally, these moments are associated with the old and perhaps unwelcome trope of things lying around waiting to be picked up.
THINGS JUST LYING AROUND:
For better or worse, when developers of adventure games could not figure out how to give items to the player through more circumstantial means, they leave them lying around in plain sight. This happens a few times in this game. It is fortunate that Dave Gilbert would become much more skilled at coming up with the circumstances to provide the player character with items in the games that he would produce later.
SOME THOUGHT FOR THE COLOUR-BLIND:
Consideration for the colour-blind is not exactly common among game developers. The developers of Emerald City Confidential almost made this oversight.
Early in the game, there is a puzzle that involves getting flowers of specific colours. The clue to that puzzle is a map of Oz, which colour-codes regions according to the naturally dominant colours in those regions. This visual clue would not have been enough. Fortunately, Petra’s monologues about those regions do mention their dominant colours, so that poses a much more reliable clue than the visual coloring of the map.
MAGIC SPELLS ARE JUST ITEMS FOR SOLUTIONS:
Throughout the game, Petra learns about spells that she can readily use; apparently, as an Ozian, she does have affinity for magic. These let her do things that she otherwise could not with the items on her person.
Yet, gameplay-wise, they are functionally no different from the items that would be used for overcoming obstacles. If the player attempts to use the spells on anything other than the targets as intended by the developer, Petra would just come up with a monologue about not following through with that.
In most cases, the excuses are acceptable, but in the others, they are not. For example, the spell to levitate wood would not work on something that is too heavy, but attempting to use it on a small open-topped wooden crate does not work.
VOICE ACTING:
By the time of this game, Dave Gilbert has established contact with several skilled voice-actors. He ropes them into this game, giving originally child-friendly characters brusque and/or menacing voices. The results also seem comical, which is just as well because this is an obviously whimsical take on Frank Baum’s works. The voice-overs are otherwise mostly satisfactory, but there are some noticeable problems, which are as follows:
SAME VOICE-ACTOR FOR MULTIPLE CHARACTERS:
Sometimes, an adventure game gets too big for its own budget. One of the signs of this happening is that multiple characters have the same voice-actor or –actress. This occurs in this game.
For example, Abe Goldfarb and Daryl Lathon – who would become long-time friends of Dave Gilbert – voice multiple secondary characters; Daryl Lathon voiced a rope and a wooden horse, for one. Of course, there is also Dave Gilbert himself, who voices a lot of tertiary characters.
SUDDEN MUSIC CHANGES DURING CONVERSATIONS:
When talking to others; the game might abruptly switch to another track. This usually happens when there are significant advancements in the story through these conversations. The sudden changes can be jarring, especially if the player had not bothered to reduce the default volume of music in the game. Speaking of which, the volume of the music tends to overpower the voice-overs if the player does not do something about the volume levels.
Perhaps this is due to limitations with the now-discontinued Playground engine, or perhaps this is due to Dave Gilbert’s limited experience with the engine. Either way, this problem remains unsolved to this day.
SOUND EFFECTS:
Wadjet Eye’s contract with Playfirst meant access to the audio assets that Playfirst uses for its games – which means that the game can sound like a casual game at times. Even the sound effects for magical occurrences sound like they have been taken from stock archives.
The most notable of these sound effects are those that play whenever a “quest” is obtained, updated or completed; people who peruse PlayFirst’s other offerings may find these audio clips to be all too familiar.
MUSIC:
Fortunately, the design of the music is left to Wadjet Eye to decide – which means that it would be composed by Thomas Regin, who was then Dave Gilbert’s go-to (and perhaps still is until today) in matters of music.
Interestingly, there is not a lot of jazz in the music, even though the noir themes of the setting would have allowed for that. Instead, much of the music is orchestral, specifically the kind that can be typically heard in fantastical media. Still, other than the problem of music tracks being switched abruptly, the music is serviceable for almost all scenes.
VISUAL DESIGNS:
The bulk of the visual designs are provided by individuals on PlayFirst’s roster of contacts, instead of Wadjet Eye’s. Indeed, not many of these people would work on Wadjet Eye’s later titles, especially if they have become employees of Electronic Art’s primary or secondary subsidiaries (of which PlayFirst is one of them at this time of writing).
That said, players who have experienced PlayFirst’s titles may find the visual designs to be familiar. The way that the character sprites move across the landscape is not dissimilar to those of the characters in the Diner Dash games, which happen to use the same Playground engine.
This being an adventure game, the player would be seeing a lot more custom-made animations for characters than can be seen in other Playfirst titles. Petra, being the player character, understandably gets the most of them.
On the other hand, observant players might notice that a lot of animation sequences get repeated. Things being handed by other characters to Petra are notable examples; Petra’s back is almost always to the player in these scenes, thus obscuring what she is receiving.
The most notable visual designs are – of course – the “gritty” takes on Frank Baum’s characters. They look very different from their classical looks, though whether this is a satisfactory difference or not is subject to the player’s expectations. It should be mentioned here that the most prominent characters in Baum’s works have the least animations and sprite variations that could be seen in the game.
SUMMARY:
Emerald City Confidential may have been the game that gave Dave Gilbert the break that he needed. Although it was not exactly something that PlayFirst would usually publish, it was different enough from the other PlayFirst titles to engender interest in the game.
That said, as an adventure game, Emerald City Confidential is mostly serviceable; it otherwise offers nothing new that followers of adventure games have not seen before. Magic is used to resolve a lot of situations in the story, but their use requires logic of the cunning kind.
The main draw is of course the noir take on the Emerald City of Oz, though the player should not expect the game to focus on the differences between the classical stories and this game’s story. Indeed, most of them take a backseat to the story that Wadjet Eye intends to tell.
Overall, the game is not a waste of time and may well be entertaining as long as the player focuses attention on Petra’s travails instead of how different the characters are from their classic renditions.