Riddle of the Sphinx: An Egyptian Adventure is a 2000 point-and-click adventure game developed by Jeffrey and Karen Tobler under the name Old World Studios and published by DreamCatcher Interactive.
Sir Gil Blythe Geoffreys, one of Egyptology’s most acclaimed and divisive figures, has led an archeological expedition to the Giza Plateau to reopen findings from previous digs that were halted by the Egyptian government, particularly those found in the Great Pyramid and The Sphinx. You play as a young archeologist and longtime friend of Geoffreys who arrives at the site to find the whole expedition missing, including Geoffreys himself. Armed with only a few cryptic clues at the camp and rumors of an ancient curse, you must explore the deep secrets of this ancient wonder to discover what happened to your dear friend and his team.
The game came on a whopping three discs and took five years to develop. The Toblers wanted to create as accurate a recreation of the Giza monuments as possible and almost exclusively used Strata StudioPro to create full 3D renderings of each environment. Gameplay hinges on full 360 panoramic screens and a focus on exploration like most other post-Myst games of the time. Reviews praised the game’s presentation and attention to detail as well as the original soundtrack composed and performed entirely by Jeff Tobler.
A sequel, The Omega Stone, was released in 2003 and a remastered version of the original game appeared on Steam in 2021 with updated graphics, QOL improvements, and even some new puzzles.
Riddle of the Sphinx provides examples of:
- Already Undone for You: Corpses can be found in a few rooms of the pyramid, but the passages to reach them are sealed when you first encounter them.
- Anachronism Stew: The group of civilizations revealed in the endgame vary widely in time period, from ancient Egypt and Maya to the 6-900s CE when Easter Island was settled to post-WWII for the Bermuda Triangle.
- Ancient Astronauts: Referenced in a newspaper clipping found in Gil's tent where he calls the idea that such beings built the pyramids ludicrous.
- Ancient Egypt: Modern archeology tools soon give way to ancient passages and contraptions as you navigate the Great Pyramid.
- Ancient Order of Protectors: While not contextualized until the sequel, your investigation reveals the Egyptians along with several other ancient civilizations knew… something and left behind a series of clues to warn their descendants.
- Ancient Tomb: The most famous one in history.
- Anti-Frustration Features:
- You will be prompted to skip ahead over a long area if you have already walked it once.
- The remaster introduced more:
- The player can now use a camera with unlimited film to capture clues, maps or charts to reference later, saving time and a whole lot of real-world paper.
- The infamous Cheoptronic segment where you have to guide a small robot up an air shaft used to be one of the most tedious parts of the game. Know what you do? Hold a lever up for what feels like forever and occasionally press *another* lever up if it snags on some debris. The remaster greatly accelerated the speed of the device to where this bit now only takes a fraction of the time.
- Artistic License – Geography: The Lost Temple of Ra is within walking distance of the Great Pyramid after traversing an underground river from one of the pyramid’s chambers, but you can’t see the pyramid at all from the highest point of the nearby cliff statues. Nor can the temple, the statues or the lake between them be seen from the helicopter ride between the pyramid and the Sphinx. How far does your character walk to get to these places, and how can they get there in a single afternoon if the landmarks are out of sight of each other?
- Artistic License – Physics: Torches are still burning in airtight areas sealed thousands of years ago. The oxygen to sustain them would have exhausted long before you arrived.
- Bad Boss: Gil alienates the workers conducting the dig by pushing them past their limits for results that don’t seem to be coming. He also sours his relationships with his closest peers through his increasing paranoia that they’re trying to sabotage his work, and a journal from one former colleague claims Gil has a habit of not crediting the whole team with significant discoveries. In his own mind, Gil believes he’s on the verge of an earth-shattering find and that such actions are warranted.
- Buried Alive: Happens to you if you select the wrong answer in the final puzzle.
- Control Room Puzzle: Used to drain the pool in the center of the Anubis maze.
- Curse of the Pharaoh: Referenced by several notes early in the game as well as by Gil in his tapes. Skeletons of (presumably) expedition team members inside the pyramid also lend credence to such rumors.
- Dead Man Writing: The Gil’s Message cassette begins with Gil stating that by the time you hear this he will have succumbed to the ancient curse and died.
- Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Played straight in the remake where the game gives you the choice to respawn right before you died. The original offers the standard load game or quit options.
- Everything Trying to Kill You: Surprisingly averted for a massive pyramid treasure hunt. There are only a handful of instances where you can die, almost all of which can be anticipated, though the cursed tablets may catch players on the first encounter if they fail to find the scrolls warning about them.
- The Faceless: Your character’s face is never seen. Even a gender is not specified, although certain scenes in the sequel suggest you play as a man.
- Faking the Dead: Gil has been alive all this time. He spread the rumor of the curse to scare his colleagues into abandoning the dig while he was transported to Cairo to lay low until you arrived and solved the riddle.
- Guide Dang It!: The cursor does not change to indicate things that can be picked up or interacted with so it can be difficult to distinguish between something of significance and decorative fluff.
- Ignored Expert: The endgame scrolls warn of something terrible and that no one should pursue any further knowledge. Despite this explicit message, Gil enthusiastically says you two are going to do exactly that.
- Insufferable Genius: Gil’s Egyptology chops are some of the best in the world, but he’s a nightmare to work under and it won’t necessarily benefit someone’s career since he (allegedly) hoards all the credit for major finds.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Gil reveals in the endgame that the curse was a completely manufactured rumor…but then what happened to those skeletons in the pyramid clutching the tablets? One of the journals also refers to a bolt of electricity shooting out of one of them as he grazes it, which is how you die if you select the wrong tablet.
- The Maze: A small one at the end of the Queens Corridor and the larger Anubis maze at the bottom of the Lotus Dome Chamber lift.
- No Name Given: Your character is only ever referred to by Gil as “old friend” or “my friend.”
- One of These Doors Is Not Like the Other: All of the doors in the Furniture Chamber are fake except one which leads to the Archery Hall. There's no way to identify it from the outside though, unlike most examples of this trope.
- Riddle of the Sphinx: Averted despite the title. No word problems or text riddles ever appear since the scrolls use images and hieroglyphs to provide clues.
- Scenery Porn: Both the pyramid interior and the desert environments are drop-dead gorgeous by the standards of the time the original was released and the remaster’s graphics are still impressive by 2021 metrics.
- Schmuck Bait: Think it’s a good idea to touch that tablet being held by the skeleton with THE CURSE IS REAL!! scrawled on a note in its other hand? Eh, probably fine.
- Shown Their Work: The scrolls found in-game to offer cryptic hints are designed in a way consistent with 4th Dynasty scribal style according to experts the Toblers consulted during development.
- Snake Charmer: The puzzle to retrieve the Hathor tablet revolves around this.
- Snakes Are Sinister: Deadly cobras appear in two instances and can kill you if you misstep.
- Trick Shot Puzzle: The Archery Hall features one to obtain the Anubis tablet.
- With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility: The cryptic message delivered by The Ark. According to Gil, past civilizations didn't heed this warning and it led to their ruin.
