Laura Bow
Go back to Sierra On-Line, Inc.
In the roaring 20's, seemingly mousey Laura Bow is a detective in
the very best Jessica Fletcher sense of the term. That is,
whenever she drops in on the party, people drop like flies. The
first game is pretty tight, and rather logically reasoned, but the
second is poorly executed and involves more guesswork than it
does actual deductive skills. No further Laura Bow games are being
planned, apparently, as Amon Ra was released 6 years ago (1998).
 The Colonel's Bequest
Type: Moving character graphics/Text input/Music
Written 1989 by Roberta Williams.
Runs on:
Notes: The package includes a 15-page playbook, a Misty Acres
Plantation featuring 23 fingerprints of the suspects (the copy
protection), cardboard magnifying glass with red filter (to
decipher the encoded fingerprints), monographed notebook from
Tulane University, pencil from Tulane University.
The PC version comes on ten 5 1/4" disks and four 3 1/2"
disks.
Comments: The Colonel's Bequest, an old send-back to "Ten Little
Indians" and the Agatha Christie novels of the 1920's, was the
first Sierra game to be laid out in play format through eight
acts or chapters (a tactic they now employ often). Laura's
friend Lillian invites her to her secretive uncle's estate,
but little does she know one by one someone will start killing
off the Dijon clan to get at his fortune. Game includes a fair
share of both deductive puzzles, and typical adventure ones.
Features two different endings, a right one and a wrong one,
based on your final action. The game closes with a detective
rating, dependant on how much of the mystery you actually
solved.
Package blurb: Why has the reclusive Colonel Dijon called his rivalrous
relations together? It's a mysterious re-union at his
secluded mansion, deep in the bayous of Southern Louisiana!
It is the year 1925, and the roaring '20's are well underway.
As Laura Bow, young college student, you've been invited to
visit the Colonel's isolated estate. Watch as the Colonel
announces his intention to bequeath his millions to all
present!
Immediately, you sense greed and suspicion among the
Colonel's relatives and associates. The air becomes thick
with anger betrayal. As the drama unfolds you must evade the
dangers that await you everywhere, and expose the killer
before he or she strikes again!
 Laura Bow II: Dagger of Amon Ra
Type: Moving character graphics/Point-n-Click/Music
Written 1991 by Roberta Williams and Bruce Balfour.
Runs on:
- PC [VGA, 256-colour graphics.]
Notes: The package includes a 60-page Leyendecker Museum manual
featuring the bios of 12 Egyptian Gods and Goddesses (the copy
protection), a Leyendecker Egyptian Exhibit brochure, a
30-page Sierra Game Manual and an additional instructions card.
It was released both on disk and later, on CD. The PC version
comes on six 5 1/4" disks and one CD-rom. The CD version adds
speech (unless that's in the diskette version as well?).
Comments: Laura Bow moves to the Big Apple for her promising new career
as a reporter and is quickly assigned the scoop of learning
about the newly excavated artifact, the Dagger of Amon Ra, at
the Leyendecker Museum. Of course, you know she can't go
anywhere without people getting bumped off around her, so
luckily by the end of the game, she'll have a much bigger
scoop to worry about. Game is played in six acts, although the
mystery itself doesn't start until the conclusion of the
second act and is basically over after the fourth act (the
fifth is a chase scene from the murderer and the sixth is your
providing the coroner with the criminals and their motives) so
it's disjointed, to say the least. A pointless romance for our
heroine is thrown in and it does succeed in stopping the
action cold. A high point is the many different endings, most
of which are comical. Based on how well you solve all the
mysteries, Laura could get promoted, demoted, murdered, or
drive her father to an insane asylum and other suspects to
suicide.
Package blurb: Laura Bow, intrepid heoine of The Colonel's Bequest, is back!
This time she's trapped in a huge, imposing museum in the
dead of night, surrounded by socialites, miscreants,
thieves... and a cold, relentless murderer.
What is the ancient secret of The Dagger of Amon Ra, and who
is willing to kill for it? What's the motive for murder?
Greed? Religious outrage? Patriotism? Rivalry? Laura Bow, cub
reporter for a major New York newspaper, better find out
fast!
Are you ready to meet the challenge? Can you discover the
truth about the pricless Dagger of Amon Ra before the killer
discovers... you?
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