Heart of China is a 1991

1991 in video gaming

-Notable releases:*Microprose creates Civilization, Sid Meier's most successful game .*Electronic Arts releases James Pond 2 and Road Rash for Sega Genesis/Mega Drive, starting a series of games that were popular in the 1990s....

 adventure computer game

Adventure game

An adventure game is a video game in which the player assumes the role of protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and puzzle-solving instead of physical challenge. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based media such as literature and film,...

 made by Dynamix

Dynamix

Dynamix, Inc. was an American developer of computer games from 1984 to 2001, best known for their flight simulator, Red Baron, the Front Page Sports series, Betrayal at Krondor, and their online multiplayer game, Tribes.-History:...

. The game features the exploits of pilot Jake "Lucky" Masters as he tries to rescue nurse Kate Lomax from a ruthless warlord. The story and characters are similar to Indiana Jones

Indiana Jones

Colonel Henry Walton "Indiana" Jones, Jr., Ph.D. is a fictional character and the protagonist of the Indiana Jones franchise. George Lucas and Steven Spielberg created the character in homage to the action heroes of 1930s film serials...

.

Plot

In 1930s, Hong Kong

Hong Kong

Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...

, struggling former World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 fighter pilot Jake "Lucky" Masters is recruited by rich businessman E.A. Lomax for a dangerous mission. Lomax's daughter Nurse Kate Lomax, has been kidnapped by ruthless warlord Li Deng and imprisoned in Deng's Chengdu

Chengdu

Chengdu , formerly transliterated Chengtu, is the capital of Sichuan province in Southwest China. It holds sub-provincial administrative status...

 fortress. Lucky must rescue nurse Kate but to do so, he must enlist the help of a mysterious ninja

Ninja

A or was a covert agent or mercenary of feudal Japan specializing in unorthodox arts of war. The functions of the ninja included espionage, sabotage, infiltration, and assassination, as well as open combat in certain situations...

 named Zhao Chi. Each day Lucky has not rescued Kate, his reward money decreases by $20,000.

After sneaking into Deng's fortress, Lucky and Chi snatch Kate and escape. Unfortunately, Kate is bitten by a snake during the rescue and the only medicine that can save her is in Kathmandu, Nepal

Nepal

Nepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked sovereign state located in South Asia. It is located in the Himalayas and bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India...

. After further adventures in Nepal and Istanbul

Istanbul

Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...

, the trio makes its way to Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

.

There are 3 different endings. For the best outcome, Jake and Kate must fall in love during the journey.

Production

The game was developed on the proprietary Dynamix Game Development System that was first used in Rise of the Dragon. The artwork used a mixture of digitized photos of live actors and hand painted sets. The game supported VGA resolution in 256 colors. Because of tight production budgets, Dynamix had to recruit the cast of actors from the company's own employees and even their families.

Gameplay

There are several possible endings to the game and many ways to die. Certain choices can delay the team (diminishing the reward given in the epilogue), and portions of the game can be played from Jake's, Chi's, or Kate's perspectives. There are two optional arcade-style action sequences.

Reception

UK magazine ACE gave the game 910 out of 1000 points, calling it "a significant breakthrough in the interactive storytelling genre" and stating that unlike contemporary games such as Rise of the Dragon

Rise of the Dragon

Rise of the Dragon is a graphic adventure game that was released in 1990 for DOS and Macintosh and later remade for the Sega CD as well as the Amiga. It was one of the few adventure game titles developed by Dynamix, a company that was better known as an action and flight sim game developer...

and Space Quest IV

Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers

Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and The Time Rippers was released on floppy disks on March 4, 1991, and released on CD-ROM in December 1992 with full speech support and featuring Laugh-In announcer Gary Owens as the voice of the narrator. It featured 256-color hand painted graphics and a fully...

it does not just have excellent graphics and sound, but also a proper narrative storyline. Incidentally, the reviewer also mentions the story's similarity to that of the Tom Selleck film High Road to China

High Road to China

High Road to China is a 1983 adventure-comedy film, set in the 1920s, starring Tom Selleck as a hard-drinking biplane pilot hired by society heiress Eve 'Evie' Tozer to find her missing father . The supporting cast includes Robert Morley and Brian Blessed. The Golden Harvest film was directed by...

.

The game was reviewed in 1991 in Dragon

Dragon (magazine)

Dragon is one of the two official magazines for source material for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game and associated products, the other being Dungeon. TSR, Inc. originally launched the monthly printed magazine in 1976 to succeed the company's earlier publication, The Strategic Review. The...

#176 by Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser in "The Role of Computers" column. The reviewers gave the game 5 out of 5 stars.