- ''Listen to the witch's clue and search the city through/ Find the object she describes and drag it to the magic spot/ It will unlock the exit to the next part of your journeyNarrator
Legends & Myths is a rather obscure Point-and-Click Edutainment game, released by Opportune Press/ Fireflies in 1995.
The story centers around the disappearance of three young cyclopses, who are the children of the king and queen of the land of Cyclopia. Not only must the children be found, it must happen before they are captured by an evil witch known as Enoon.
The game centers around a theme of folklore and mythology from around the world. Each stage requires the players to locate an item that relates to a legend or myth that the narrator describes, in order to move on to the next stage. Depending on the difficulty level of the stage, the player may also be required to solve a puzzle relating to the tale. Notably, all of the stories and related artwork used were sent in by children from around the world, through the efforts of the Paintbrush Diplomacy
group.
Contains examples of:
- Adults Are Useless: The king and queen of Cyclopia never actually show up, nor give any indication that they're actually looking for their children.
- Big Fancy Castle: The castle the king and queen of Cyclopia live in is pretty... unique in its bulb-like design. The castle in the Upside-Down City is very fancy as well, if well, upside-down.
- Bizarrchitecture: The Upside-Down City, which sports a castle that is naturally built upside-down. There's also the building you go through in Spiral City, in which everything is designed in spiral patterns.
- Disneyfication: Happens to more than a couple of the tales used as riddles. It's justified though. As the game manual states, the versions of the stories used were the versions sent in by the various children, as the children described them.
- Don't Go in the Woods: Presumably the reason the Forest of Darkness got its name. At the very least, it's the most sinister of the levels. Subverted in that you must go in, if you want to beat the game.
- Eye Poke: The player can click on some of the eye statues in the City of Eyes, getting this effect. In some cases, it provides a possible solution to the puzzle. In other cases, it's just Video Game Cruelty Potential.
- Leaf Boat: One shows up towards the end of the City of Eyes level. If you click on it, it grows swan-like wings and sails away, only for another to replace it. It doesn't serve any purpose, but it's pretty.
- The Lost Woods: The Forest of Darkness. It is really dark, has several trees with faces (one of which gives a really creepy laugh), has a python dangling from the trees at one screen, and has a strange village with unseen occupants towards the end.
- The Quest: The player must embark on one to save the children, with the narrator even telling them, "May your quest be a success!" at the beginning of each level.
- Rule of Three: There are three children, and thus each level must be complete three times to rescue each from each area. If you play through a level in its most difficult setting, you also have to go through three different challenges (the riddle, matching the story to the picture showing it, and unscrambling a sentence from the story).
- Talking Animal: The dragon that shows up several times will occasionally talk, usually when flying one of the children to the boat that will take them home. There's also an owl that recites a rhyme that will remind you how gameplay works, and a gila monster and turtle that provide the game's tutorial.
- Wicked Witch: Enoon, complete with sinister cackling and curses like "Oh, lizard's tongues!"
