Aside from Infocom game

interpreters, the Pocket PC platform hasn’t had much

action on the adventure gaming front. However, an

exceptionally large, long, and exciting adventure

game has been created by The Fade Team. When I first

heard about the game, I was immediately intrigued

because Fade was the first game of its kind to be

released for the Pocket PC. It wasn’t until I heard

about Fade that I realized what a perfect platform

the Pocket PC is for adventure gaming, largely because

all the input is with a mouse, or in this case, a

stylus. As the Pocket PC has been around for a considerable

amount of time already, I began to wonder why there

weren’t more adventure games for it. After talking

with Alex (AKA McloaD), one of the developers, and

hearing about all the work they put into Fade, I quickly

figured that out. I received Fade and got to work

immediately, and after just a little bit of playing,

   The installer is distributed

in the form of a single executable.

      When the installer is run, a

window will open displaying Fade’s README file. It

will explain to you how to play the game. When finished,

click Next to proceed with the installation or click

Exit to abort the installation.

After clicking Next you are brought to another screen

where the license agreement is displayed. When you

finish reading through the license agreement you can

then click Yes to continue with the installation or

click No causing the installer to quit.

Once the license agreement is accepted, Fade is installed

    When Fade is started,

a loading screen is displayed while the game puts

everything it needs into memory.

    On my Jornada 548, this takes about

15-20 seconds. However, it is well worth the wait.

I am then presented with the title screen.

    Here, you can make a new game,

load a game, save a game, read the credits, or quit.

While loading/saving you can choose from 3 different

slots. When you save, it stores your current game

position, a screenshot of where you are (displayed

at the load/save screen), and how long you’ve been

playing.

first, being the compulsive saver that I am, I didn’t

like the fact that it had only 3 save slots, but I

got used to it quickly. I had been playing for quite

a while when I realized that there was no reason to

save other than to keep your place so you can resume

the game at another time. There is no reason for you

to have to go back in the game, nor is there any time

where you can die, causing you to start from the beginning.

After taking a minute to become accustomed to the

menus, I began the game and took a couple minutes

to become accustomed to the UI (User Interface).

    There are four buttons in the UI,

each of which I have outlined in a different color.

The first button is indicated by a red circle. When

clicked, this button brings you back to the menu.

The second button, is indicated by a green circle.

When this button is clicked, it displays your logbook.

    When something important happens,

you automatically write what happened and your thoughts

on it down in the log book. This is a good place to

check for what you need to do next, or for more information

on your current task. The third button on the UI is

indicated by a blue circle. This button, when clicked,

is where you can access the items you’ve collected

so far. You collect a wide variety of interesting

items throughout the game, and using this menu, you

can use an item with other things in the landscape,

or combine an item with another item in your inventory.

Finally, the fourth button in the UI which I have

outlined with a yellow circle, when clicked, will

display a list of exits in your current area. You

can then choose where you want to go when you’re done

with your current location. After my quick review

of the UI, I moved on to the game.

    While playing Fade, you can click

on virtually anything in the room and be presented

with several options on what you would like to do

things can be inspected. When they are, a zoomed view

of the object is displayed allowing for a more in-depth

meet a great many people throughout the game, and

have a great many conversations with them. I found

this was done quite easily with Fade’s dialog system.

the person you are having a conversation with speaks,

their text will be highlighted in yellow. Most of

the time, you will then be presented with a couple

of options of what you would like to say.

    Fade is quite a large game, and

of these have been modeled by the fantastic artists

of The Fade Team with the help of Blender.

Thanks to Alex, I was able to get a screenshot of

    However, the thing you’ll most

likely find yourself doing is solving puzzles and

the like. In Fade, there are many times where you

gather evidence, maybe to bring to the police station?

are only two things that I see a problem with in Fade,

and both have to do with the English version. The

first thing is that a lot of French is still in there

from the translation, and that needs to be gotten

rid of. The second, is that the translation can be

difficult to understand at some points in the game

and that might want to be edited as well. Other than

game can be purchased from GameLoft

Pocket for $29.95. If you don’t have this game

yet, get it! It’s amazing! It took me 9 hours and

28 minutes to completely finish and that was with

a walkthrough from the developers, which helped a

lot, I can assure you. This should last you for hours

and hours, and if you don’t buy it for the game, at

least buy it for the story. I played the game all

the way through, and the plot was extremely interesting

and unpredictable right up to the end. However, if

you don’t want to take my word for it, and you want

to try it out first for yourself, you can download

a demo from The