Art 9 Entertainment was a little known computer gaming company from Taiwan that marketed some of the lesser known games on the market. Heaven’s Dawn was one of these games. It is a classic point and click adventure game with an exceptionally easy to use interface, as was common of games of this era. Manaccom, an Australian based company, saw the potential of Heaven’s Dawn and reworked the game, translating it into English for more complete marketing in the more mainstream U.K. and United States markets.
The premise of Heaven’s Dawn bears a reasonably close resemblance to a much more popular game, Altered Destiny, in that the themes revolve around an individual who inexplicably finds himself in a surreal altered reality world. In Heaven’s Dawn, this gentleman is minding his own business when he is sucked into a parallel universe with no apparent means of escape. He is tourist and is viewing the sights in a strange city when a beggar approaches him and begins a cryptic speech. He claims that God has grown angry with the petty and sinful ways of all mankind and has decided, once again, to punish the human race. According to the seemingly psychotic tramp, God has
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chosen five lesser deities and has ordered each of them to set a curse upon humanity. As the tourist is mulling over the words of the beggar, he is instantaneously transported to the altered world, and he has no link to his home world except the necklace that the hobo had been wearing when they were conversing. It will be up to this poor, innocent tourist to determine what has become of the human race, where he is, and how he can stop the wrath of an angry god from destroying life as he once knew it.
Heaven’s Dawn is similar to other Lucas Arts games. The interface is very easy to use and is primarily mouse driven. By mousing over the objects that the tourist finds, the player will glean descriptions of the items, and sometimes hints as to how they can be used. The puzzles are reasonably well-placed and while there are always a few odd trial and error puzzles in every point and click adventure game, Heaven’s Dawn does a good job of avoiding them, for the most part. Most of the puzzles are pretty straightforward and easy to solve, and there will be a lot of emphasis on inventory collection. While this is a lesser title, it is certainly worth a look.
