Torin's Passage is a somewhat obscure Adventure Game released by Sierra On Line in 1995 and created by Al Lowe, who is best known as the creator of the Leisure Suit Larry series of adult games. Lowe wanted to create a more family-friendly game, and thus Torin's Passage was born.The plot centers around Torin, the son of farmers living on the planet of Strata, which is comprised of different nested worlds, each one inside the other. Torin lives on the surface of Strata, but when his parents are kidnapped by the sorceress Lycentia, Torin must journey to the "Lands Below" in order to rescue them.Torin's quest takes him deeper and deeper into Strata, through a series of bizarre worlds, until he uncovers the truth about his family and about his story.
The game provides examples of the following tropes:
Adorkable: Torin is earnest and polite to everyone, but the boy can't wing a speech to save his life.
Anti-Villain: Lycentia, once you find out her story, which is gradually revealed through cutscenes.
All of the Other Reindeer: The princess of the world Escarpa is well-known for her hideous deformities, which attracted a lot of teasing in her youth. On the other hand, by human standards she's incredibly hot.
Cloudcuckoolander: Half of Strata's population, really. But special honors go to the gatekeeper in the Lands Above, who thinks nothing of spending ten years in "heavy traffic" and demands a meal based entirely on puns.
Curb-Stomp Battle: Torin vs. Pecand. Right until the latter stops trying to outfight an athletic guy a third his age, and opts for something trickier.
Damned by Faint Praise: Everyone Torin asks to describe the daughter of King Rupert tells him uneasily that "she's... got a great personality."
Dom Com: Parodied in the Bitternuts, a family of squat grayscale people Torin meets in Escarpa. Canned laughter punctuates their every sentence, but they don't seem to mind.
Easter Egg: In the last area, use the bagpipe instead of the magic book on Lycentia. Instead of having the death message read to you, the director will tell you how amazingly stupid it was of you to do that.
Felony Misdemeanor: Step on a daisy in Tenebrous, and you're looking at five to ten. Justified in that, while Torin is from the lush Lands Above, Tenebrous lies inside a magma-spouting death planet four layers down. So flora are understandably prized.
Torin: (to King Rupert) Your Majesty, I can see that you are a lover of crystals!
Queen Di: (under her breath) Yes, that's the only kind he is . . .
Considering Al Lowe worked on this game, it's not altogether surprising.
Guide Dang It: There's an in-game hint system, but the hints aren't always that useful.
When you have to find that damn wrench, the in-game hint mentions that there's a gleaming object somewhere on the screen. That's it. No suggestion as to where on the screen, naturally. Oh, and the "screen" in question is really an area about three times as wide as a typical room. To make matters worse, the gleam isn't the only moving object in view - splashing lava and popping bubbles can easily draw the player's eye away from the target.
Layered World: The entire planet of Strata is a series of Russian-doll like worlds.
Le Parkour: Dorky as he is, Torin has some pretty amazing acrobatic skills. He can swing, leap and shimmy his way past just about anything. Emphasized on the central tree in the Lands Above.
Lilliputians: The Pergolans, inhabitants of the third layer down of Strata.
Light and Mirrors Puzzle: To open the portal out of Asthenia. The door switch is a perforated stone tablet filled with laser-bending crystal shards, which must be rearranged to light up a magic gem.
Listing The Forms Of Degenerates: The guardsman warns Torin that "the Lands Below are full of nutsos. Malcontents. Psychos! Politicians."
Love at First Sight: Most of the adventure on Pergola is focused on Torin and Leenah falling for each other like bricks.
Manipulative Editing: Third to last puzzle in the game. Luckily, the recording in question is stored on a crystal shard (like everything else in the game), which accidentally gets smashed into fragments. So you don't need to think too hard about what you can make with it.
Magically-Binding Contract: Lycentia cannot return to the Lands Above, lest the magical collar around her neck choke her to death.
Miscarriage of Justice: Lycentia was trying to save Torin from Pecand, and is wrongfully accused of kidnapping him and banished to the Lands Below before the story begins.
Moses in the Bullrushes: Torin is oblivious that the farmers who raised him aren't his real parents.
Non-Human Sidekick: Boogle. We don't really know what he is, except that he can shapeshift and that he's a lot less destructible than Torin.
Pixel Hunt: There is a maze leading to a machine that cannot be activated without a wrench. The wrench is located back in the maze, on a completely different path. It's also invisible, except for a gleam every several seconds that's only a few pixels in size. So you won't even know the general location without a lucky glance.
In a later puzzle, you have to climb a slippery slope by clicking on the safe spots. The grass tells you if you're hovering over the right spot, but it's still very easy to miss the safe areas. The worst part would be the audio clues. Apparently, grass can't play Hot and Cold, so it just pipes out various incredibly irritating forms of "yes" or "no".
Grass: Noooo. No way! Somewhere else... Not here! Negatory. Okay!! Noooo...
Power Crystal / Green Rocks: Almost everything in the various worlds of Strata is powered or activated by crystals. Most notable are the Phenocrysts, colossal gems that serve as magic portals between the layers of Strata.
Rule of Funny: Apparently one of Boogle's abilities.
Torin: Boogle! You mean this whole time, you could've walked right out on that bog?
The Brute: Dreep, Lycentia's pet/minion. He's a big blue furry ogre with nothing on his mind but loyalty and appetite.
The Ugly Guy's Hot Daughter: Leenah looks nothing like her birth parents, which made her a bit of a social pariah growing up. It's implied that the queen had an affair with someone from the Lands Above.
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