MICROÏDS announces its new game installment in the Jules Verne's collection for PC and iPhone
And opens the official Jules Verne website on www.julesverne-game.com
Paris, November 26, 2008 – Microïds, a world’s leading adventure games producer and publisher, unveils today Return to Mysterious Island 2, the sequel to adventure game Return to Mysterious Island released in 2005 and inspired from Jules Verne’s novel The Mysterious Island.
Return to Mysterious Island 2 is being developed since April 2008 by Kheops Studio and will be released on PC and iPhone in March 2009.
The point&click gameplay is enriched by innovative features offering players to share information and synchronize with their iPhone.
Return to Mysterious Island 2 offers the player an experience comparable to that of Robinson Crusoe or one of Verne's characters. But in this new installment, survival is not all. The player will also have to save the island from an environmental disaster. The scenario enhances ecological issues that were already shared by Jules Verne and that no one ever questions today.
Return to Mysterious Island 2 begins with the crash of the helicopter that came to rescue Mina. She survived but is once again trapped on the island. All of a sudden, under her very eyes, an unknown disease afflicts the plants first, then the animal life. Mina explores the island to locate the infection source. She searches Captain Nemo's base in vain, then the ruins of an unknown civilization, and finally understands that it is outside pollution that threatens the island. The only way to save this natural wonder is to turn the shield back on. But if Mina makes this decision, she gives up -as Captain Nemo did before her- the idea of returning to civilization…
Two-character play: in the first installment, the player embodied Mina, a young and carefree navigator taking part in the Jules Verne competition, and used Jep, a cute, little monkey, as a simple tool. In Return to Mysterious Island 2 Jep becomes a character in his own right. The player switches from one character to another and maximizes the use of each other’s talents depending on the circumstances: only Mina can use complex tools, combine objects and, of course, read the documents found in the course of the game; whereas Jep can climb places inaccessible to Mina, communicate with other monkeys and find numerous objects thanks to his sense of smell.
This new adventure will be served by scripted dialogues and by cinematics treated in the form of colorized comic vignettes.
Two major technical innovations: the synchronization with iPhones and the information sharing module.
• This synchronization will allow the PC player to complete a puzzle on his/her iPhone while on the go, then reintegrate it into his/her PC to continue the game. This allows him/her to carry on the game experience in another context, away from the computer.
• The data sharing module will allow one to seek advice and share impressions and tricks from players who are online at the same time.
The Jules Verne website
Accessible on www.julesverne-game.com, the Jules Verne collection website offers to plunge into the universe of three major adventure games inspired from the Jules Verne’s works: Return to Mysterious Island, The Secret of the Nautilus and Echo. The website provides demos and trailers, screenshots and game designs, it allows to download music tracks and wallpapers but also to buy and download the games online. The website will be enriched with Return to Mysterious Island 2 features.
About Return to Mysterious Island
21st century. In an age of satellite images, the Mysterious Island remains an invisible and undetectable place, until the day when a storm takes Mina, a young solitary navigator, by surprise. A wave sweeps her off board and she is cast away on a beach of the island.
Mina finds herself without weapons or tools. To survive, she must sometimes fight against nature and other times she must tame it. She discovers that this land, that appears virgin at first sight, has in fact been inhabited by a group of castaways. Even more importantly, this island was for many years the base of the famous Captain Nemo. He has been dead for a long time, but his submarine, Nautilus, still rests in a cave opened toward the sea. Aboard it hides one of the captain's inventions: a shield generator which isolates the island from the outside world. This machine, still functioning, prevents Mina from calling for help.
Fortunately, Nemo's ghost is sympathetic to Mina. Through dreams and apparitions, it guides her toward Nautilus. Mine neutralizes or controls the robots that guard it. Finally, she deactivates the shield and calls for help. | 
Before Microsoft and Sony do something regarding their future in the video game business, I wanted to write, and I've wanted it for a long time now, but other things kept getting in my way, and fearing that tomorrow might be too late, today will have to do.
Months ago,...
