''Inner Worlds'' is a

1996 1996 was designated as: * International Year for the Eradication of Poverty Events January * January 8 – A Zairean cargo plane crashes into a crowded market in the center of the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo ...

fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction that involves supernatural or Magic (supernatural), magical elements, often including Fictional universe, imaginary places and Legendary creature, creatures. The genre's roots lie in oral traditions, ...

platform game A platformer (also called a platform game, and sometimes a jump 'n' run game) is a subgenre of action game in which the core objective is to move the player character between points in an environment. Platform games are characterized by levels wi ...

by Sleepless Software Inc. incorporating some

RPG RPG may refer to: Military * Rocket-propelled grenade, a shoulder-launched anti-tank weapon **''Ruchnoi Protivotankoviy Granatomyot'' (Russian: ''Ручной Противотанковый Гранатомёт''), hand-held anti-tank grenade laun ...

elements. The game is concentrated on a

werewolf In folklore, a werewolf (), or occasionally lycanthrope (from Ancient Greek ), is an individual who can shapeshifting, shapeshift into a wolf, or especially in modern film, a Shapeshifting, therianthropic Hybrid beasts in folklore, hybrid wol ...

character called Nikita who travels through a magical world fighting monsters and learning spells.

Gameplay

Although the game appears to be a typical

with levels grouped into three episodes, there are many

elements, which make the game much more complex. Although episodes must be played in proper order, the level structure of the game is not strictly linear as it is possible to skip some levels and return to them later in the episode. In addition to jumping, running and fighting monsters, Nikita is able to

shapeshift In mythology, folklore and speculative fiction, shapeshifting is the ability to physically transform oneself through unnatural means. The idea of shapeshifting is found in the oldest forms of totemism and shamanism, as well as the oldest exist ...

into a wolf at any time, if she has enough

mana Mana may refer to: Religion and mythology * Mana (Oceanian cultures), the spiritual life force energy or healing power that permeates the universe in Melanesian and Polynesian mythology * Mana (food), archaic name for manna, an edible substance m ...

, which gives her access to otherwise inaccessible locations. She also can collect many kinds of weapons and other special items such as keys, scrolls and potions. Some of them can give her some special abilities. It is even possible to enchant the weapon chosen by the player to dramatically change its power and behavior.

Character development system

Unlike other games at the time, in ''Inner Worlds'' the main character gets stronger through the course of the game in addition to collecting new items and weapons, as would be expected in a role playing game. On almost every level the player is able to find an amulet which increases maximum mana or health. Killing unusual monsters allows the player to learn some spells to create magical arrows or fireballs.

Story

The story is revealed to the player by long text introductions before each level. In the first episode ''Wizard's World'', Nikita travels into the Castle Drofanayrb (whose name is the name of programmer Bryan A. Ford spelled backwards) to defeat the powerful monster called Gralob, which was created by a powerful mage and now is the scourge of the land. In the second episode ''World of Change,'' she returns to her homeland to discover further horrors – and to fight them. In the third episode ''Heart of the World,'' she descends into the large volcano in order to engage in a final confrontation with evil forces.

Music

The music tracks played during the game were written by different people who won a contest held for that purpose on the Internet. The game's creators offered $100 for all the songs they choose to put in the game, and $1,000 as the first prize for the contest winner. The winner was Daniel Hansson from

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

for the track called ''Unplugged.'' The authors of other songs used in the game were from locations as disparate as

Croatia Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a country in Central Europe, Central and Southeast Europe, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. It borders Slovenia to the northwest, Hungary to the northeast, Serbia to the east, Bosnia and Herze ...

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

Slovakia Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the west, and the Czech Republic to the northwest. Slovakia's m ...

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, US and

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

Development, release and reception

The Sleepless Software team originally consisted of 3 people from

Salt Lake City Salt Lake City, often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC, is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. It is the county seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in the state. The city is the core of the Salt Lake Ci ...

, with ''Inner Worlds'' being their first project. The team became much larger using the internet, and in the end consisted of 27 people from 9 countries. Creating the game took 3 years instead of 1 year originally planned. In 1996 ''Inner Worlds'' was released on

DOS DOS (, ) is a family of disk-based operating systems for IBM PC compatible computers. The DOS family primarily consists of IBM PC DOS and a rebranded version, Microsoft's MS-DOS, both of which were introduced in 1981. Later compatible syste ...

and

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

– its first episode ''Wizard's World'' was distributed as a

shareware Shareware is a type of proprietary software that is initially shared by the owner for trial use at little or no cost. Often the software has limited functionality or incomplete documentation until the user sends payment to the software developer. ...

. Despite all this, the game was not well purchased, though decently received. Around 2001 the developers released the game as freely redistributable

freeware Freeware is software, often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for the free ...

on their website.

References

External links

Official website
*{{moby game, id=/Inner-Worlds, name=''Inner Worlds''
Linux version at Internet ArchiveDOS version at Internet Archive
1996 video games DOS games Freeware games Linux games Single-player video games Video games developed in the United States Video games featuring female protagonists Werewolf video games