The series of video game adaptations of Harry Potter is the clearest example of this approach. Electronic Arts was simultaneously developing four or even six games in anticipation of the release of the next part of the film. Some turned out worse, some better, but they all differed from each other.
The zero years were an extremely busy time for the gaming industry. During this decade, two generations of stationary and portable consoles have changed, and each of them held out to the end. And it was easier for publishers to finance the development of several versions of one game than to downgrade it for each platform.
How, despite tight deadlines and meager budgets, some of the best games under the film license were born.
I spent two years playing through all the Harry Potter game adaptations, which is almost 60 games. Among them are both the main parts of the series, and mobile and amateur projects. I studied the history of development, found little-known facts, and studied the cut content.
Due to the large volume, we decided to divide the material into three concise chapters. In the first, we will analyze all versions of the “Philosopher’s Stone”.
In a pool of memory
In the beginning I will tell you why all this was started. I first read The Philosopher’s Stone at the age of 10—at the age of Harry Potter. I literally grew up with the characters, because the first book came to me the year it was released. Besides, the actors in the movie adaptations were my age. Growing up at the same time as the characters in your favorite novel and the actors in the film adaptations is a unique experience that is unlikely to be felt by those who read these books today or at an older age.
I always looked forward to the release of new novels and films, but at some point everything stalled. Firstly, a neighbor always gave me books, but after a few years she moved, and I did not read further than The Goblet of Fire. Secondly, the last movie I watched was The Order of the Phoenix. I had heard of significant discrepancies between the books and films, so I deliberately skipped all subsequent film adaptations. I wanted to read the original first and then watch the adaptations.
With games, I settled on Azkaban; my pirated copy (yes, it’s bad, and now I condemn it) stably crashed to the desktop while loading one level. I bought another pirated release; everything was useless. This time, upon loading, the game teleported Potter into a cube room with no textures or passages.
In general, for various reasons, “Harry Potter” was shelved for 14 years. I often thought that I needed to close this “gestalt” already—read the books, watch all the movies, and go through the games. I fulfilled the first two points with great pleasure back in 2018, but I was confused by the number of games.
At some point, I got tired of postponing everything. On September 17, 2020, I plucked up the courage and announced a difficult challenge: I have to complete all the games in the Rowling universe before the release of Hogwarts Legacy. He completed the test in a year and a half; he passed them from September 2020 to September 2021, and at the beginning of 2022 he went through separate parts to clarify some facts.
All the “Harry Potter games” I tried to pass on the original platforms I used emulators, but only in the case of rare and very expensive games. Missing discs and cartridges had to be fished out in the secondary market, because none of these games had ever been re-released in digital form.
The Philosopher’s Stone
The history of the Harry Potter gaming universe dates back to 1998. Following the resounding success of GoldenEye 007, Nintendo of America was interested in adapting other Western franchises for their consoles. One of them was the book by Joan Rowling about the boy who survived. In mid-1998, Philosopher’s Stone and Chamber of Secrets were already bestsellers, and The Prisoner of Azkaban was less than a year away from release.
Before the meeting with Rowling, Nintendo of America managed to create two demos and draw some concept art. The company wanted to offer three projects at once: a game based on the “Philosopher’s Stone,” a game based on the “Chamber of Secrets,” and a Quidditch simulator.
But there was one problem: The team could not decide on the visual style. Some artists saw the design of the game in the style of illustrations for British editions of books, while others wanted to do everything in an anime style. At the very least, it is known that Marvel artist Adi Granov worked on the concepts for the canceled Quidditch sim.
It is still not known exactly why Rowling and her managers turned down Nintendo’s offer. Some sources write that Rowling liked the idea but did not like the character design. Other insiders say that Nintendo was not satisfied with the high cost of the license, and the copyright holder was not satisfied with the exclusivity option. Only one thing is known: The negotiations were unsuccessful, and Rowling sold the rights to Warner Bros.
In August 2000, Electronic Arts and WB Pictures signed a long-term contract to develop game adaptations. It is important to note that it was signed rather late, because the filming of The Philosopher’s Stone was already nearing completion. The film was planned to be released in July 2001, but due to prolonged post-production, the premiere was postponed to November. And even so, EA has less than a year left to develop all the playable versions of The Philosopher’s Stone.
This led to insane crunching and eerie dampness in some games.
EA wanted to release The Philosopher’s Stone Games not just on one platform but on all relevant platforms at the time. More platforms means more players, which means more profits. Development was assigned to three third-party studios: Argonaut Games, KnowWonder, and Griptonite Games. The budget was the same for all studios, and the PS1 version was the priority.
All game adaptations of The Philosopher’s Stone came out a week after the film’s premiere and were able to set the general game design standards for games in the Harry Potter universe for years to come.
All projects can be divided into three genres:
- JRPG-inspired turn-based role-playing gamesisometric.
- 2D adventure games with an emphasis on solving puzzles.
- 3D platformers in a conditionally open world.
Even at the time of their release, their game design could hardly be called original. The projects in the first genre are inspired by the classic Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest series. With platformers, everything is doubly simpler—the developers borrowed most of the ideas from the three-dimensional dilogy The Legend of Zelda (Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask) for the Nintendo 64.
When it comes to game adaptations of Harry Potter, the question often arises: How close is the plot of the games to the original source? In short, superficial These projects were created with the expectation that people would have already read the books or at least watched the films. Yes, in some games, the plot is conveyed with dignity, but these are rare exceptions.
The developers often resorted to forced gags and supplemented the familiar story with new events. Somewhere, the plot was completely pushed into the background. Most games often consist of a series of challenge levels (or dungeons) in which the player must learn a new spell or progress through the story. This approach led to a rather funny fact: there is more magic and learning in the Potter game universe than in films and books.
Sometimes this leads to human-narrative dissonance—game events exist, as it were, separately from history. For example, in five hours in a row, Harry Potter exterminated crowds of fantastic creatures, skillfully flew through the abyss, learned a pack of spells, and became like an experienced wizard, but still loses in the cutscene because it was written in the book.
Is this a significant problem? Not at all. Let’s not forget that these games were created for children and teenagers who are unlikely to think about any inconsistencies between the story and the gameplay.
So basically I will be criticizing two things: the overall quality of the game design and the presentation. I evaluate game design not from the position of a modern player but from the position of the gaming market of those years. It will be more honest than endlessly boring, comparing everything with modern games and finding fault with every controversial aspect of a game 15 or even 20 years ago. The internet loves to do that, and I’ve never understood why.
In general, these are all the key points that I wanted to focus on before parsing. I’ll start with the Philosopher’s Stone game for PC, because today it is not only one of the most popular games in the franchise but also has the most studied history of development.
PC version
KnowWonder is one of ten candidates that Electronic Arts considered as the developer of the PC version. In 2001, the studio had rich experience in the children’s games segment, and behind it were such projects under well-known licenses as Power Rangers and Magic School Bus. KnowWonder was madly eager to take on the development of The Philosopher’s Stone game, so before the arrival of EA managers, the team donned robes and decorated the meeting room in the style of Hogwarts. After such a reception, EA could not refuse.
KnowWonder was given only a year to develop. At that time, no one in the studio had any idea how monstrous and exhausting it would turn out to be. At first, they planned to add an open world to the game, in which you could explore Hogwarts on your own and complete side tasks. This idea was not liked by EA or some of the team members.
The publisher felt that such game design would be too complex for the target audience. KnowWonder developer Christoph Vucetich compared this version of The Philosopher’s Stone to today’s boring walking simulators.
Since the game was created based on the film, KnowWonder had to focus on the scenery, script and appearance of the actors. They made several requests to Warner Bros, but instead of good references, they received chaotic drawings of Hogwarts and soapy photographs of the scenery, which, on top of that, were printed on an inkjet printer.
A few months later, a designer was sent to the set, but he was strictly forbidden to take any photographs, only sketches and notes in a notebook. I had to improvise; most of the scenery of the game Hogwarts was copied from famous English cathedrals.
From Rowling, the developers received a list of famous wizards to design trading cards and a list of spells that students could use in their first year at Hogwarts. They planned to add all the spells from Rowling’s manual to the game, but in the end they decided to abandon Reparo, Avifors, and Verdimillios.
The spells Flintiforce and Ectomatic were designed specifically for the PC version, but were cut midway through development. But there was already a cult named Flippendo, which first appeared in games and took root in works based on the HP universe so much that it became an almost canonical spell.
Development progressed relatively well until The Philosopher’s Stone was unveiled at E3 2001. The publisher didn’t like the unruly camera, slow walking, and boring game design. EA ordered most of the game to be redone just six months before release. KnowWonder was ordered to simplify the gameplay and even the graphics of the PC version of The Philosopher’s Stone so that the game could be run on weaker hardware. It was then that the team adopted the motto “Our games should work perfectly on my grandmother’s computer.”
All the chips that the studio contributed to the Unreal Engine went under the knife. This is noticeable in the release version, where 80% of the graphics settings are not in the menu and are included only after editing the ini files. For example, with the help of shamanism and the.ini file in the game, you can improve the lighting and texture quality, raise the screen resolution to 1600×1200, enable clear shadows, and enable anisotropic filtering.
Everything that did not have time to finish on time went under the knife. As a result, a good third of the game did not live up to the hype. They cut out Diagon Alley and the prologue in the Dursleys’ house, where the player got acquainted with the administration and pieced together a torn letter from Hogwarts. The deadlines were so tight that KnowWonder had to cut out the almost finished levels in the Forbidden Forest in pursuit. Sorry, very sorry.
Fans were able to return some of the cut content in the E3 Project mod. Based on the preserved sources, they managed to restore some levels and gameplay mechanics.
These were difficult months of development. 20 people worked 100 hours a week to bring the game to a digestible state. One of the EA managers constantly hung around the studio, liked to come up with ideas on the fly, and then stood behind him and waited for their implementation. Everyone at KnowWonder hated him.
The publisher asked to send a copy of the fresh code weekly and monitored every new word in the dialogues. In addition, EA paid so little for processing that the founders of KnowWonder had to mortgage their own houses. All in order to avoid reducing the team’s salary.
All the hard work paid off when the game sold a million copies by Christmas 2001. At the time, EA didn’t realize just how promising the Harry Potter franchise was. KnowWonder was on a modest budget at the outset, and EA expected to sell at least 100,000 copies by Christmas. No one believed the PC version would be a success. But in the end, KnowWonder made a lot of money and agreed to work on a sequel.
In six months, the team had an uncomplicated platformer with harmless enemies, elementary puzzles, and a short duration. The player in the role of Harry Potter runs through the dungeons, shooting with a wand at pre-placed signs and fantastic creatures (mainly snails, insects, pixies, and turtles). House points for successful completion of lessons do not affect anything, because at the end of the game, Gryffindor will win anyway. Only in very few games did they even slightly affect the ending.
From time to time, this routine is diluted with a snitch-catching simulator and simple mini-games in which the player draws spells with the mouse. Oh yeah, and how to forget Filch and Mrs. Norris’ wild hide-and-seek in the library? I still have “Vietnamese flashbacks” from the local crooked “stealth.” During the re-passing, this segment was given to me very easily, but as a child I was dumb on it for a long time, got angry, and constantly lost.
The study of Hogwarts broadens the secrets and collecting cards that are almost always visible. Unfortunately, there are no moving stairs and live portraits (retouched photos of the developers are here instead), only cramped identical corridors with students wandering aimlessly from corner to corner.
If you close your eyes to the monotony and cut content, then the PC version is saved by the atmosphere and perfectly adjusted game loop. You go through levels and learn new spells, and with the help of these spells, you open access to new secrets in the levels. This process is very addictive and is similar to the familiar game loop from Metroidvania.
The plot in this version is a set of scattered passages from the book, but the game adapts those moments that were not included in the film. For example, the entire storyline with the dragon Norbert is cut off in the film adaptation,butd in the game sheiss given a whole level with the final cutscene, where the dragon is given to Charles Weasley.
Well, how can you not remember the malicious Peeves? The naughty ghost was planned to be added to the film; his role was written in the script, but some scenes with him were cut out, while others were never filmed. In the games, Peeves settled in immediately and for a long time. He often appears in cutscenes and appears as a boss or an annoying enemy in levels.
An interesting fact: in different regions, story slides are voiced by different speakers. In the American editions of the first four games, the voice-over is read by actor Jim Dale (he recorded all the Harry Potters as audiobooks, for which he received two Grammy awards as a narrator), and in the British editions by actor Stephen Fry.
Soulfulness is the main advantage of the PC version of The Philosopher’s Stone. from the comical appearances of the Weasley brothers to the sparkling dialogues and interiors of the castle. On PC, there is also the most complete soundtrack from Jeremy Soule among all game versions of this part. The music is original and magical, and you want to listen to it separately from the game. I’m even ashamed to admit it, but I remember Soul’s music by heart, but I remember the soundtrack from the film in pieces.
Jeremy Soule’s individual compositions can be easily inserted into Morrowind or Oblivion – they are so similar to his music for The Elder Scrolls series. At one time, a rumor roamed the net that Soul transferred some of the unfinished tracks and samples from Morrowind to the The Philosopher’s Stone soundtrack. I think that this is a beautiful bike, since I did not find confirmation of this rumor.
All in all, the PC version of The Philosopher’s Stone has mixed feelings. It’s acceptable as a pen test and the studio’s first project in the franchise. I was madly in love with this game as a child, but after many years, I see an average platformer that was miraculously assembled in the shortest possible time from what they managed to complete. The game can be criticized, but I have no desire to play. warm memories from childhood and sincere sympathy for the developers who have gone through terrible processing and stress.
PlayStation version
In 2001, the PS2 had already appeared, but the PS1 was still the most popular console in the world. The PS1 version was commissioned by EA from Argonaut Games, a now-forgotten British studio that has made a significant contribution to the history of the gaming industry. She developed the Super FX chip for the Super Nintendo (he was responsible for three-dimensional graphics), launched the Star Fox series with Shigeru Miyamoto, and in her projects she knew how to squeeze all the juice out of different consoles.
Their “Philosopher’s Stone” was developed on their own Blender engine, on which Argonaut has already released Disney’s Aladdin in Nasira’s Revenge, the Croc Series, and Alien Resurrection, a shooter that is one of the most graphically impressive games on the PS1.
You can’t exactly say anything about their “The Philosopher’s Stone,” which these days they like to make fun of for its strange faces and floating textures. The roots of this problem grow from the peculiarities of the PS1 graphics chip, or rather from texture warping – twitching vertices and incorrect work with perspective. There is an effect of trembling, as if floating textures. This is subtle in games with cartoon characters but noticeable on realistic or pseudo-realistic models.
If we ignore all the visual flaws, then Argonaut Games turned out to be a decent platformer. The studio focused more on the book than on the film adaptation, which was clearly reflected in the storytelling.
But not everything is so clear. For some reason, a ton of sparkling dialogue with purely English humor was added to the script, and the story often goes off the beaten path. A good example: the game does not end with a battle with Voldemort but with the final Quidditch match, in which the player needs to finally smash Slytherin. There are so many fillers here that the question arises: “Am I really playing the adaptation of The Philosopher’s Stone?”
At first glance, the PS1 version is a lot like the KnowWonder game: challenge lessons, pseudo-open Hogwarts, and Quidditch, where you again have to chase the Snitch through magic rings. However, over time (including due to fillers), you realize one thing: The PS1 version turned out to be more ambitious and diverse.
The local Hogwarts has a lot of secret locations and optional routes; it gives the impression of a real old castle and not a labyrinth of hanging platforms and copy-paste corridors. Outside of Hogwarts, you’ll visit Diagon Alley, visit its shops, and ride the trolleys in Gringotts.
It is on the mini-games that the entire gameplay variety of this version rests. From intense Malfoy battles and broomstick races to timed obstacle runs and potion brewing, the PS1 version is jam-packed with content to keep you entertained. A bunch of mechanics were specially stuffed into it, which work within the samelevele,butn will not be useful at all. Yes, and you can’t callit easy—thee dizzying stages inGringotts’ssdelivery ofd pain both in childhood and no I alsoconfessed thattt asa childdd I went through it withcheats, because some levels then seemedtoo harde to me.
It was not without its shortcomings. No matter how hard I try to close my eyes to the graphics, the models of Hermione, the Weasley brothers, and Neville are the fear of the Lord. Why does Hermione look like a stereotypical cashier from a country store, Neville looks like a maniac, and a good half of Hogwarts students seem to suffer from Down syndrome? There is nothing to say about Hagrid; he has long become a meme. Why would anyone think that faces like this are a good idea? Here the problem is no longer the backward hardware of the console, but the “unique” vision of the art director.
Most deaths are not due to your inattention but to a monstrously naughty camera. Afterwards, it was frustrating that Soul’s soundtrack is mainly played in cutscenes and battles. You will explore the locations in complete silence or with the rare sounds of the environment. A big oversight, in my opinion. Most deaths are not due to your inattention but rather to a monstrously naughty camera. Afterwards, it was frustrating that Soul’s soundtrack is mainly played in cutscenes and battles. You will explore the locations in complete silence or with the rare sounds of the environment. A big oversight, in my opinion.
However, for some, this will turn out to be a plus. The Philosopher’s Stone on PS1 has a very grotesque and melancholic vibe. as if Tim Burton had a hand in the visual and sound design. This is not to say that the game turned out to be really gloomy or frightening. No, just during the passage, I did not have restless feelings. And the lack of music and uncomfortable ambient sounds only contributed to this.
Therefore, the atmosphere of the PS1 version is contrary to the book, movie, and PC version. Argonaut turned out to be not the “Philosopher’s Stone” that many are accustomed to, but we must pay tribute – it has its own unique charm. The game adaptation of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring had the same charm, which came out shortly before the film, but focused on the book and had a completely different atmosphere.
Portable versions (Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance)
If I could describe the Game Boy Advance version in any succinct way, one word would fit: despondency. This is the first game in the Harry Potter gaming universe that I have missed. In addition, he was also regularly annoyed by the crooked platforming and the lack of normal checkpoints. Died? Start the whole long level from the very beginning.
The Griptonite Games studio turned out tomakee a boring adventure game, almost entirely consisting of tedious wanderings in labyrinths with monotonous riddles. The budget of the GBA version was so small that some of the pre-rendered backs and sprites are based on the assets of the PC version.Already,y because of this, the gamecarries as secondary andcheap feels. In 2001, she would have fit as a “time killer” on the road, but now you ca not touch her.
The most surprising thing here is that Griptonite also created a version for the Game Boy Color, which turned out to be a completely different project. “The Philosopher’s Stone” on GBC is an interesting Western twist on classic 2D JRPGs. The developers have kept all the features of the game design of the genre, including the standard mechanics and the typical grind of monotonous mobs.
The game adapts the book flawlessly, sometimes repeating entire chapters and dialogue between characters verbatim. Just take the prologue with Diagon Alley and the train. The Philosopher’s Stone for GBC follows the plot of the novel in such detail that you will reach Hogwarts an hour afterlaunch. In other versions of The Stone, you are taken to Hogwarts almost immediately.
Alas, the unusual genre and the competent presentation of the story did not save the GBC version from global problems.For about 70 percent of my playthrough, I was collecting ingredients for potions and constantly grinding on rats andspiders.sItt was insanely tiring. You will fight mobs in Diagon Alley, on the train, and for some reason in the boat on the way to thecastle. No, I understand that the game had to be somehow stretched, and the genre obliges, but why in these places?
All of this would be tolerable if Griptonite hadn’t sold a fundamentally flawed JRPG with no party at all. Can you imagine, say, Final Fantasy VII, where Cloud fights alone on the fight screen and the rest of the characters exist as NPCs? I can’t, but Griptonite Games did. In the battle with monsters and bosses, only Harry fights, while Ron and Hermione play the role of extras. It is obvious that the gameplay did not have time to finish.
The presentation also raises questions. Music is a mournful hurdy-gurdy on both the GBC and the GBA. The sprites’ animation is smooth and has a lot of frames, but the portraits of the characters look like they were messed up by a child.The same thing happened at Hogwarts. Apparently, the designers had difficulty imagining what the magic castle should look like. For some reason, they added Egyptian tombs, ugly statues, and other shiza far from this universe. I wonder if the designers have read the book?
To sum up, the GBA came out with a boring and primitive game, and the GBC version had huge potential, but the game did not have time to finish. All due to lack of time, people, and budget, Griptonite developed both versions in just six months. All this time, a small team was torn between two games with different game designs and for different hardware. This is pure madness. I’m surprised they even released them at all.
Another couple of months, and perhaps we would have received a decent portable version of the “The Philosopher’s Stone.” In the future, this will be confirmed by other “Potters” from Griptonite Games, which were not created in emergency conditions but are still considered almost the best games in the franchise.
Version for PlayStation 2, Xbox and Nintendo Gamecube
The version of The Philosopher’s Stone for the older generation of consoles was released as early as December 9, 2003, two years after the release of the previous games and six months before the release of The Prisoner of Azkaban. Today it is considered the rarest, most expensive (from $150 on eBay), and forgotten game in the franchise. Why did this happen?
The fact is that this version of the “Stone” can hardly be called a new game. If it came out in our time, then it would immediately be recorded in DLC oradd-onss. EA did a simple thing: they took the already released “The Chamber of Secrets” for PS2 and gave it to the Warthog Games studio forrework.kTheree you have a new release in just eight months of development.
All locations, mechanics, textures, and models are directly transferred from the “Room”. Even the secrets are mostly in the same places, and here you can also visit the locations that first appeared in the second book. Have you ever imagined going to the toilet to crybaby Myrtle and jumping at the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets during your first year of training? Please let this game be possible.
That is, EA wanted to close the release hole, to release another version of the “Philosopher’s Stone” between the “Chamber of Secrets” and “The Prisoner of Azkaban.” The press immediately noticed the catch and criticized the game for being secondary. As a plus, foreign critics wrote down the corrected game design errors and improved graphics (for example, a good facial animation appeared), but whatever one may say, “Stone” on PS2, Xbox, and GameCube is more of an add-on to “Chamber of Secrets” than a new project.
This is probably why the publisher did not invest much in advertising and released so few physical copies. Mann simply did not hear about this version. For example, before working on the text, I did not know about the existence of this game at all.
I won’t talk about the gameplay in detail; I already did it in the “Chamber of Secrets” analysis below. But if we forget about secondary and imagine that this is an independent game, then we have almost the only version of the “Philosopher’s Stone that perfectly conveys the educational routine and scale of Hogwarts.
The open world, although empty of activity (by modern standards), is full of secrets for the eyeballs. From the very beginning, you can explore the entire, majestic Hogwarts, from classrooms to faculty rooms. This impressed me even now, but at the beginning of the 2000s it would definitely have blown off the roof.
The passage is divided into non-obvious chapters. After completing a certain number of story tasks, you will be offered to rewind time to the next school day. That is, the game has a manual change of the time of day, where the decision to end the day is made by the player himself. It was in “Chamber of Secrets,” but for the first time I encountered this mechanic here.
My ideal daily routine is to complete one lesson, digress for secrets, complete a couple of side tasks (mostly from the “find-bring” category), and only after all of the above, click on the end of the day in the menu. There is no need to rushanywhere,e and you can enjoy exploring the open world. All of this makes Rock for high-end consoles one of the most relaxing games in the franchise. She will please someone, and she will drive someone into boredom.
But with thestory,y they were too clever. On the whole, it follows the fil;, in places it departs strongly from i, but does not forget to draw ideas from the book. It turnedout to bet some kind of vinaigrette from everything, which only vaguely resembles the original source.
Two illustrative examples: the cave troll was defeated by Harry (instead of Ron), and the game begins in a wand shop in Diagon Alley. Potter had not yet arrived at Hogwarts and had not attended at least one lesson, and Ollivander had already trained him in his dungeons. It sounds like complete nonsense, but it is completely justified from the standpoint of game desig:- the player is taught mechanics even before arriving at Hogwarts.
Other shortcomings include a naughty camera, questionable boss hitboxes, no Jeremy Soule music in many locations, and one Quidditch match in the entire game. If you abandon the plot and concentrate on finding secrets, then at some point the game can turn into a magic card search simulator. It’s not bad, but I prefer the game design of the PC version, where secrets were unlocked as you progressed through the levels.
Versions for the PS2, Xbox, and GameCube differ only in visual details and performance. The Xbox has fair 480p and high resolution textures. On the PS2, it takes a little longer to load, has noticeably worse draw distance and performance, and on the GameCube, some graphical effects are missing and textures are slightly shrunk.
Grand total
If today we take on the passage of all the games on the “Philosopher’s Stone”, then first of all I recommend trying the versions for PC, PS1 and PS2 (or Xbox Original and GameCube, if you have them). On PS1, the game attracts with variety and bold ideas. The PS2 version, although it seems somewhat overloaded and boring, Hogwarts in it is the most lively and believable of all the Stone games. The PC version could not be brought to mind, and this is more of a test of the pen, albeit a soulful one. You can safely skip the versions for GBA and GBC – you won’t lose anything.
End of the first part. To be continued…