Lure of the Temptress (Amiga) - A Playguide and Review - by LemonAmiga.com
81Lure of the Temptress is a point and click adventure, developed by Revolution Software and published by Virgin Games in 1992. The Amiga was awash with adventures at that time, but Lure broke the mould with a unique context-driven interface called Virtual Theatre.
Please Support Me On Patreon!
=========================
https://www.patreon.com/lemontubeamiga
My Sponsors:
1. 🎖️🎖️*Johnny Smoesau* 🎖️🎖️
2. 🥇 Bloxyman22 🥇
3. 🥇 Sepp 🥇
4. 🥇Kim Lemon 🥇
5. 🥈 Predseda 🥈
6. 🥈Paul Henderson (Loki) 🥈
7. 🔥🔥 Ed Heaton 🔥🔥
8. 🔥 Eric Johnson 🔥
9. 🔥 Bernhard Lukas 🔥
10. 🔥 Ramon Schmitt 🔥
11. 🔥 Glenn Main 🔥
Production Notes:
===============
Captured: 28 June 2021
Narrated: 2nd Aug 2022
Edited: 28-30th June 2021, Late Aug-20th Sept 2022
Lure of the Temptress was meant to be the first show of season 6 (that is, series 11) but as the series had a strong space theme; with Warhead, Blastar, Alien Breed 3D 2 etc; I decided to cover 'Innocent Until Caught' instead. The game footage was never recorded, but I regretted not producing the show, as I think I mentioned it was coming in a pre-season Waffle video. This was on my mind during the Summer of 2021, when I recorded the Medieval Banquet games, and I always intended for Lure to come out next, so that the themes carried over. This series does have something of a Fantasy theme to it, with 7 games in that style.
So in June 2021, I captured this game footage first, before any of the Medieval Banquet games, to make sure the game was recorded. I hadn't played this since the 90's, so I can't remember if I read the solution or watched the longplay, but I do remember a youtuber talking about giving the broken glass to Ratpouch near the beginning of the game, so maybe I watched several videos? I researched up to the part where the character makes a spell to transform into Selena. Then I loaded up the game and tried to put what I had learned into practice. There was one false start, where I couldn't find out how to release Ratpouch from the rack, and where I couldn't find the stopper in the barrel to fill up the bottle, so I had to start the game again. I knew some of what to do, but it was still a matter of visiting the blacksmith often to try to get a baring on things. When it came to making the spell, I know I tried to make the spell 5 or 6 times, but I cut out most of those from the recording. As I had saved the game after the guard had made his rounds, it was almost impossible to make up the potion before the guard came back around again. After rescuing the damsel in distress, the next task is to find a small plant somewhere, and I wasn't about to waste time pixel hunting in every back alley looking for it, so I quit the recording at that point. I had to go back and record the intro again with a 000, as the 030 played it too quickly.
Editing was fairly straight forward, with just the matter to fast-forwarding plodding around in the footage to keep the pace up. The edit then lay on the shelf until August 2022 when I narrated it. I thought it would be fun to make up silly voices when we are in the guise of Selena, but I didn't know what would come out of my mouth during the live narration. It wasn't quite enough to cover all of the characters, so I went back to narrate a few extra clips to fill in the gaps, like the second guard (the Scot's Guard) in the Town Hall, and the woman in the pub.
Finally in September of 2022, the show went into post production and I added some images from the game manual, and some photos of the Revolution gang. Some of these were stills taken from an interview I found, while other were snapshots. The end image with the castle I think came from the Broken Sword period; much later than this game; but it was a fun medieval-type image to add. The final file was uploaded 20th Sept, but youtube cut the end off it, so I had to upload it again the next day, with a few seconds of blackness at the end.
Danscore:
Lure of the Temptress has a nice atmosphere, and makes clever use of a basic 16 colour palette; something which was improved in their next game, Beneath a Steel Sky. The puzzles are a mixed bag of very difficult to very easy, and there can be times where the player is just wandering around talking to everyone. Getting Ratpouch to breaking into the wizards house was something I never figured out back in the day, so I never got any further than that without a solution. Compared to Monkey Island, BASS, Universe or Innocent Until Caught, this game doesn't split itself into different areas or whole new locations to give a sense of progress. Everything centres around the village, where the mechanics rely on slowing the player down with puzzles. A speed run can be done in 1hr 20, while getting stuck on puzzles can take days of trial and error. Overall, the game is innovative in style, story and quality, so although game world is too small, and you'll be seeing familiar screens often, I still say it is worth 7 out of 10.