Die Höhlenwelt Saga: Der Leuchtende Kristall

After a series of German interactive fiction games (Das Stundenglas, Die Kathedrale, Hexuma), Harald Evers and his Weltenschmiede move on to point-and-click graphic adventures. Die Höhlenwelt Saga embeds a fantasy underworld in a science fiction frame.

Starship pilot Eric "Speedy" MacDoughan traces his lost love, mysterious Maomi, to the barren planet 2S-126 in the Taurus 5 system, to discover that a network of caves leads to a gigantic cave world far beneath the crust - the Höhlenwelt ("cave world"). Down there, flying dragons and humanoid peoples live on a magical-medieval level under the despotic rule of an alien reptile race called Drakken. Eric meets the artificial being Cal (a deja vu for Hexuma players), who sends him to the cave world to retrieve a powerful energy crystal (the Leuchtende Kristall ("glowing crystal") from the game's title). And find Maomi, of course.

Die Höhlenwelt Saga is a pretty straight-forward, inventory-driven point-and-click adventure game. Once Eric befriends a flying dragon named Susi (yes, Susi), he's free to explore the key places on the cave world continent of Veldoor at leisure, though the game's puzzles are strictly linear nevertheless.

The game is entirely in German and was published in Germany only. The CD version of Die Höhlenwelt Saga features voice-overs for the intro and narrator sequences, but character dialogues stay text messages.