Laura Bow in the Dagger of Amon Ra

It is 1926. Laura Bow, who as a journalism student became famous for solving the mysterious murders at Henry Dijon's estate, has already completed her education with a diploma. A new chapter in life opens up for a young woman. Laura goes to New York, where she is awaiting a job as a reporter in a local newspaper. Immediately after arriving in a big city, Laura goes to the editorial office. Her new boss, Sam Augistini, assigns her first task on the spot. The reporter will be a guest at a charity event at the Leyendecker Museum, from which an extremely valuable dagger has recently been stolen. The reception is an excellent opportunity to carry out a journalistic investigation into the case. Unfortunately, the first murder takes place during it....

The Dagger of Amon Ra is an adventure game by Sierra On-Line, which was realized in a similar convention to The Colonel's Bequest released in 1989. Here, too, we are dealing with a programme where evidence gathering, interviews with suspects and fact-finding are of great importance. The authors place less emphasis here on exploring the rooms, which is not surprising given the fact that in The Dagger of Amon Ra we move around a very limited space (museum), having access to only a dozen or so locations.

The first installment of the cycle worked under the control of the AGI engine, which forced the user to tediously enter commands using the keyboard. Developed in 1992, The Dagger of Amon Ra has already been able to take advantage of an innovative, entirely mouse-controlled interface. All commands have been divided into several icons, called after moving the cursor up the screen. In addition to the traditional commands like "go", "see", "pick up/use" and "talk", there is also the command "ask", which plays a very important role in the game. Using it, Laura calls up a notebook with a list of topics (completed during the game) that can be taken up with the NPCs she meets. During the conversation, previously unknown facts come to light, helping to determine who the mysterious murderer is.

While in the original the passage of time was dependent on the user's actions, the game in The Dagger of Amon Ra takes place in real time. At the beginning of each of the six acts it is worth writing down the state of the game, because there is a real chance that we will miss an important event and the investigation will be stuck in a deadlock. Preserving our achievements is also important for other reasons. The Dagger of Amon Ra is a product of Sierra On-Line, and those who like to kill the main character every step of the way.

The program offers very nice graphics in low resolution (VGA, 256 colors) and decent sound. All dialogues in the CD edition are recited by the actors, which further enhances the value of the game. The floppy disk version lacks this convenience.

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Last updated on August 14, 2015