A Wikipedia Look at

the

Games
 This book is a small continuation of the “A Wiki-
pedia Look at Point-and-click Adventure Games”,
covering a small library of point-and-click-book.
The book was made cause` my friend Aaapa was
crying and making a fuss for the reason that the Tex
Murphy games was not included in the aforemen-
tioned book. So, this is for him to stuff it in his chin.
Most of the information in this book is just pure tran-
scripts and pictures from wikipedia. But one could,
and i hope someone does, to use this book as a tool
to find alittle out of the series, though they could just
open wikipedia and read it there.
Information about games in the book does contain
spoilers. Please see this as a warning when reading.
I am not a professional designer and i suck in eng-
lish grammar. That beeing said. I did my very best
to make this book well presented and easy to look
through. As the book is pure transcript on much of
the content in the book, you may share the pdf freely
if you want.
If you are annoyed, (or feel i took content from you
without consent) send an email to me: sennep@hot-
mail.com and i will make changes to your wishes.

NoCopyright © 2014 by DaddaRuleKonge

All rights are NOT reserved. EVERY part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, in-
cluding photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher. I do not own
anything in this book. You use part of this publication on your OWN RISK though. As places in this book may have a copyright by the original
owner.
 CONTENT

1. Content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Tex Murphy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Indie Built . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3. Chris Jones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
6. The Games
6.1. Mean Streets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
6.2. Martian Memorandum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
6.3. Under a Killing Moon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
6.4. The Pandora Directive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
6.5. Tex Murphy: Overseer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
6.6. Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

3. Novelization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3. Radio Theather . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

2
 Tex Murphy
Tex Murphy is a series of adventure games designed Tex is honest and generally a good-natured fellow
by Chris Jones. The eponymous main character is who suffers from a bad back, a little too much alco-
portrayed in live-action by Chris Jones himself. He hol and a few too many blows to the head. He runs his
is characterized as a down-on-his-luck private in- private investigation business out of his apartment at
vestigator in a post-nuclear future San Francisco, the Ritz Hotel on Chandler Avenue in Old San Fran-
borrowing tropes from both the film noir and cyber- cisco “among the mutants and the destitute” where
punk genres. several businesses and friends reside, including his
love interest, the mysteriously mutated newspaper
The games in the Tex Murphy series take place in
stand owner Chelsee Bando. Aside from wishing for
a post-apocalyptic 21st century. All of the games
a respectable, not to mention high-paying, client all
take place mostly in a post-WWIII San Francisco.
he’d like to do is earn her love and respect if he can
The skies glow red with radiation, and people who
just refrain from placing his admittedly not too bad
don’t live in a better-sheltered city or lack genetic
smelling foot in his mouth.
immunity to the radiation are disfigured and usually
repulsive. Several San Francisco landmarks are still In 2011, NowGamer ranked him as the eighth-best
present, such as the Golden Gate Bridge, Coit Tower game detective, calling him “the epitome of the hard
and Alcatraz, but most of them are completely aban- boiled flatfoot detective”, but wondering why he
doned; most damaged beyond repair from bombs in “dresses like a cross between an alcoholic Indiana
WWIII. The futuristic aspect borrows heavily from Jones and Deckard from Blade Runner.”
sci-fi books and films, most notably Blade Runner
for its flying cars and impossibly dense tenements.
The character, Tex Murphy, is a hard-boiled PI. Tex
is a member of the portion of the population born
without any genetic defects making him a normal hu-
man (referred by in-game characters as a “Norm”).
He is an avid fan of the classic film noir films of
Humphrey Bogart. As such, he does his work in the
style of archetypal film noir detectives such as Sam
Spade and Philip Marlowe. He has remarkable skills
of observation (always punctuated with humorous
internal monologues); when examining objects or
features, he hardly ever misses an important or unu-
sual detail. However, he is also occasionally a bit
clumsy and naive which gets him into trouble from
time to time, as does his sarcastic wit.

3

Indie Built, Inc. was a Salt Lake City, Utah based
video game developer founded in 1982 by Bruce
Carver as Access Software.
After buying a Commodore 64 in 1982, Bruce Carv-
er wrote a sprite editor called “Spritemaster” which
became commercially successful. He next wrote
an arcade game, Neutral Zone, and formed Access
Software. The company developed the RealSound
audio technology, the Links computer golf series,
and the Tex Murphy detective games.
In 1987, Access announced The Robotic Workshop,
a toy kit that allowed users to build and program ro-
bots using a home computer. The kit was a precur-
sor to the much more popular Lego Mindstorms kits
released in the late 1990s. The kit included over 50
Capsela parts, including two motors, gears, wheels,
and sensors. It also included an electronic control
unit that plugged into the user port of a Commodore
64, an instruction manual with 50 tutorial projects,
and special programming software on a floppy disk.
It was later released for Apple, Atari, and IBM com-
puters.
4
Indie Built
Parent Microsoft Game Studios (99-2004)
Take-Two Interactive (04-2006)
Founded 1982
Defunct 2006 (Closed by parent)
Headquarter Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
Key people Bruce Carver
Chris Jones
Access Software was acquired by Microsoft in 1999,
became part of Microsoft Game Studios and was re-
named to “Salt Lake Games Studio”. In 2003 it was
renamed again to “Indie Games”.
In October 2004, Microsoft sold the development
studio to Take-Two Interactive and it took on the
name Indie Built. They became part of T2’s 2K
Games/2K Sports brand. Indie shipped Amped 3 for
the launch of Xbox 360 and worked on Top Spin 2
for Xbox 360 developed by Power and Magic. Take
2 suddenly closed Indie Built on April 28, 2006
without publicly stating any reasons for the closure.
In 2007, Chris Jones and Aaron Conners founded
Big Finish Games, which is staffed primarily by
veterans of Access/Indie Built. In 2012, they com-
menced development on a new Tex Murphy game.
A persistent rumour has it that Access’ buy-out by
Microsoft had less to do with MS interest in their
technology and employees and more to do with
bringing under the same roof a source of confusion
with the “Microsoft Access” relational database ap-
plication -- in short, buying out the company for the
sole purpose of being granted exclusive use to its
name in a software context.
 Chris Jones
Christopher Jones, is a
videogame designer and
finance professional. He
was born on March 4th.
1954, and lives in Boun-
tiful, Utah. He is mar-
ried to Audree Jones and
has three children.
Chris’ late brother,
Kevin L. Jones, played
Mac Malden in the Tex
Murphy games.
Jones was a founding member of Access Software,
along with Bruce Carver and his brother Roger
Carver, and remained its CFO until it was sold to
Microsoft in 1999.
At Access, Jones served as a finance executive, but,
as the company’s output turned toward more story-
driven titles, Jones became more involved in writing,
design, and production. He designed and wrote the
point and click adventure games Amazon: Guardians
of Eden and Countdown, and served as producer on
various titles in the Links golf franchise, and others.
Jones is best recognized by many gamers for the cre-
ation and portrayal of Tex Murphy, beginning with
1989’s Mean Streets. Initially, this meant little more
than posing for the game’s digitized sprites, but as
the series transitioned to full motion video with the
third installment Under A Killing Moon Jones’ role
became increasingly cinematic, acting alongside es-
tablished Hollywood actors such as Brian Keith and
Russell Means.
5
After Access was re-christened Indie Built, and sold
to Take Two Interactive, he was the company’s Chief
Financial Officer until its dissolution in 2006.
Following the dissolution of Indie Built, the com-
pany’s golf division was spun off into a new com-
pany, TruGolf, focusing on high-end golf simulators
using real clubs. Jones serves as Finance Executive
for TruGolf and, in 2007, he founded Big Finish
Games, which shares the same office. Big Finish
Games initially aimed to bridge the gap between
casual games and the traditional adventure game
audience, by offering simple hidden object games
with a heavy focus on story. Their first title, Three
Cards to Midnight, was released in May 2009. Other
Big Finish titles include Three Cards to Dead Time
(2010), Murder Island: Secret of Tantalus (2011),
Escape from Thunder Island (2011), and Rita James
and the Race to Shangri La (2012).
Big Finish, which employs several longtime mem-
bers of Access Software, had hoped to raise funds to
revive the Tex Murphy series, even going as far as
announcing a new project, but after failing to gener-
ate enough, they instead decided to crowdfund the
remainder of the money on Kickstarter. They suc-
cessfully raised almost $600,000 on Kickstarter, ex-
ceeding their stated goal of $450,000*. On June 18,
2012, Big Finish Games began production on a new
Tex Murphy game that would again star Jones.
 7.1
Developer Access Software
(AMI) The Code Monkeys
Publishers Access Software
(ST & AMI) U.S. Gold
Director Bruce Carver
Producer Bruce Carver
Original release date 1989
Control Point-and-click
Platforms MS-DOS
Amiga
etc.
Length 12 hours
Download Site Gog.com Atari ST

Mean Streets is a graphic adventure game developed and published by Access

Software for MS-DOS and Commodore 64, in 1989. It was later ported to the
Atari ST and Amiga in 1990 but these ports were only released in Europe. The
game, set in dystopian cyberpunk neo-noir world, is the first in the series of
Tex Murphy mysteries; its immediate sequel is Martian Memorandum. In 1998, Commodore 64

Mean Streets was later remade as Tex Murphy: Overseer.

The Tex Murphy character was first created for the amateur film Plan 10 from
Outer Space, created by Chris Jones and other members of Access Software.
Following the development of their flight game Echelon they wanted to cre-
ate another 3D flight game that cast players in the role of the futuristic private
Amiga
investigator. Eventually, adventure and action elements emerged, eclipsing the
still-present flight sim sequences. Mean Streets would be noted for its use of
high-color VGA graphics, digitized actors, and for its “Real Sound” technology,
which allowed waveforms to be played back on the PC’s speaker without the use
of a sound card.
The player plays the role of Tex Murphy, a down-and-out private investigator
MS-DOS
living in post-apocalyptic San Francisco. Tex is hired by a beautiful young wom-
an named Sylvia Linsky to investigate the death of her father, Dr. Carl Linsky,
a professor at the University of San Francisco. Sylvia suspects murder, but the
police say it was routine suicide.

6

The game starts in Tex’s speeder flying car, and the
player can perform various functions, including
moving the speeder, switching between different
views, and accessing the on-board computer. The
player can also contact Tex’s secretary and inform-
ant and receive faxes from them if they ask for infor-
mation on suspects.
The majority of the game involves the player ques-
tioning people over the course of the game. Ques-
tioning people often results in them giving out in-
formation that further deepens the plot. After people
give out the information, the player has the option of
offering them money or threatening them when they
appear uncooperative.
In some instances, the player receives an address of
the person whom they asked about. These addresses
consist of a four-digit code which the player enters
into the computer on-board their speeder. Once the
code has been entered, the destination is marked by
a flashing square, and the player must guide their
speeder to it. By doing this, the player needs to trav-
el up and down the coast of California.
There are some situations where Tex have to search
people’s apartments and laboratories to get further
leads. In these cases, the player can, among other
things, walk around the area, search desks, disable
alarms, and access computers. The player’s primary
objective is to collect eight passcards, along with
their passwords, and use them to stop the project
Carl Linsky was working on.
Mean Streets is one of the first DOS games to feature
256-color VGA graphics, at a time when VGA cards
were not commonplace. It was also one of the first
7
games to incorporate Access Software’s patented
RealSound technology in DOS gaming. This tech-
nique uses the PC speaker to generate high-quality
digitized sounds such as speech, music, and sound
effects without the use of additional hardware.
Computer Gaming World praised the game’s “ex-
hilarating” interactivity. stating that “Mean Streets
offers a fully realized environment ... this license,
this freedom, is refreshingly adult”, and praised the
excellent graphics and “authentic hardboiled atti-
tude and voice”. The magazine, however, stated that
“mechanical” gameplay, such as repetitive room
searches and interrogations, prevented it from being
a great game.
In 1996, the magazine ranked it as the 139th best
game of all time, saying that it “set a new stand-
ard for 286 games and offered tribute to Raymond
Chandler’s novels.”
The series’ third game, Under a Killing Moon,
marked a dramatic shift for the series in terms of
both presentation and gameplay, and introduced the
character to a much wider audience. In 1998, Ac-
cess released Tex Murphy: Overseer as a re-telling
of Mean Streets’ story, done in the style of the newer
games. It used a frame narrative set later in the se-
ries, and told the story through a series of flashbacks.
There are many references to TV shows and movies
in Mean Streets. For example, turn on the TV in Ron
Morgon’s Cabin and the sound resembles Star Trek.
Also, the US box art bears a striking resemblance to
Blade Runner’s original theatrical poster.
 7.6
Developer Access Software
Publisher Access Software
Designers Chris Jones
Brent Erickson
Programmer Brent Erickson
Original release date 1991
Control Point-and-click
Platforms MS-DOS
etc.
Length 9.3 hours
Download Site Gog.com

Martian Memorandum is a dystopian cyberpunk/noir graphic adventure game

that was originally released in 1991 for the MS-DOS. The game is the second
in the series of Tex Murphy mysteries; its immediate sequel is Under a Killing
Moon. The game is set in 2039, several years after Mean Streets.
For the sequel, Access developed a more traditional point and click adventure
game, Martian Memorandum. Like Mean Streets it featured digitized actors,
including Chris Jones as Tex, and featured a great deal more digitized voice.
Martian Memorandum also introduced dialog trees to the series, which would
continue to be a prominent element.
In the story, Tex Murphy is hired by business mogul Marshall Alexander, founder
of TerraForm Corporation, to locate his missing daughter, Alexis. As in the first
game, Tex travels between destinations and interrogates characters associated
with the subject such as Alexander’s attorney, his wife, and Alexis’s roommate
and business partners. Interrogations are menu-based and dialogues open up ad-
ditional destinations and dialogue options. The investigation will reveal to Tex
that the girl’s disappearance is linked with an item in Alexander’s possession.

8

Alexis will be traced on planet Mars, whose exploi- Dragon gave the game 3
tation is mostly owned by Alexander’s company. out of 5 stars. Computer
Tex will find out that Alexander was actually Collier Gaming World in 1992
Stanton, a scientist and explorer of Mars, infamous praised the audio and
for killing mutant colonists to obtain the “Oracle digitized animation, and
Stone”. With this stone, Alexander foresaw the fu- concluded that “Martian
ture and read antagonists’ minds and built his corpo- Memorandum produces
rate empire. Alexis’s good will was used to lure her hours of enjoyment and
into stealing the Stone and bring it to Mars, only to provides a tremendous
fall into the hands of Thomas Dangerfield, the origi- challenge”. That year the
nal discoverer of the Stone. magazine named it one
of the year’s top four ad-
The character of Larry Hammond, who appeared
venture games.
in Mean Streets, returns to this game, giving infor-
mation to the player. Lowell Percival who is intro-
duced here, also appears in Killing Moon, as does
Mac Malden, who appears in both Killing Moon and
Pandora Directive.
Unlike the more experimental Mean Streets, Mar-
tian Memorandum adheres to the genre conventions
of the point-and-click adventure game. The game-
play style is based on interrogations, gathering in-
formation which “unlocks” new destinations and
interrogation options. A verb bar at the bottom of the
screen allows players to select different ways to in-
teract with their environment. Certain objects can be
collected and placed in an inventory and then used
at a later point in time. It also introduced dialog trees
to the series. Conversations feature voice and small
video clips, elements that were greatly expanded in
later games in the series. The game is notable for its
increased use of digitized human voices and digital
“video” of human actors, playable even through a
PC’s internal speaker.

9
 7.9
Developer Access Software
Publisher Access Software
(EU) U.S. Gold
Director David F. Brown
Original release date October 31, 1994
Control Click-and-drag, Keyboard
Platform(s) MS-DOS
Mac OS
etc.
Length 17.6 hours
Download Site Gog.com

The third title in the series, Under a Killing Moon, spent nearly four years in de-
velopment, and represented the company’s most ambitious game to date. Under a
Killing Moon shipped on a previously unheard-of four CD-ROMs, and featured
full voiceover and hours of cut scenes and dialog featuring live actors. Unlike
many games using full motion video, however, it also featured high-end real-
time 3D graphics and explorable environments unlike anything previously seen
in the genre. Under a Killing Moon was widely praised for its use of technology,
and represented the series’ commercial peak.
Under a Killing Moon takes place in post-World War III San Francisco in De-
cember 2042. Tensions between Norms and Mutants have risen dramatically.
The Mutants are usually forced to live in the run-down areas of cities such as
Old San Francisco. There, the private investigator Tex Murphy is trying to deal
with unemployment, upcoming poverty, and his melancholic mood following
his divorce. After solving a simple robbery case, Tex attracts the attention of a
mysterious woman who calls herself Countess Renier, and is hired by her to find
a missing statuette. Things gradually begin to go wrong in this investigation, and
Tex finds himself involved in a confrontation with a powerful and dangerous
secret cult.

10

The player controls the protagonist Tex from a first
person perspective. The virtual world allows full
freedom of movement, and as such allows the player
to look for clues in every nook and cranny. It was
also the first Tex Murphy game to stray from the tra-
ditional adventure game dialogue format of provid-
ing options that showed exactly what the player’s
character would say. Instead, descriptions of the dia-
logue choices were given, providing some mystery
to what Tex would say.
Under a Killing Moon was one of the largest video
games of its era, with a budget of 2 million dollars
and arriving on four CD-ROMs (although some
material was duplicated among the four to reduce
the amount of swapping). The game combined full
motion video cutscenes with an advanced 3D vir-
tual world to explore. Though action games with 3D
environments and first-person perspective had been
popularized by first-person shooters such as Doom,
it was very unusual at the time to see these char-
acteristics used in an adventure game. It is notable
that the game’s 3D graphics did not use ray casting
techniques like Doom, but true texture-mapped pol-
ygons that allowed players to look in all directions
as well as duck, and ran in then-high resolutions of
up to 640x480. The designers Chris Jones and Aar-
on Conners recalled they went to their programmers
and said, “we want the 3D movement of Wolfen-
stein, but we want it to look closer to the quality of
The 7th Guest.”
Under A Killing Moon marked the death of Access’
RealSound technology; the patent holder said in an
interview that, by that time, “the market had moved
on and the use of sound cards had become common-
11
place.” There is still a small bit of technical innova-
tion in the MIDI engine (designed by Human Ma-
chine Interfaces) in Under A Killing Moon, though:
If the user chose to check the “digital drums” option,
sampled drum sounds were used instead of synthe-
sized ones. This made the music sound less artificial
on FM synthesis-based sound cards like the Sound
Blaster.
Sometimes the limitations of the technology became
apparent when moving very close to textures. An in-
side joke is made about that when examining the fire
extinguisher on the wall; Tex quips that the landlord
was so cheap that he painted fire extinquishers on
the walls to fool the building inspector, since the in-
spector had “only one eye and no depth perception”.
Under a Killing Moon received universally positive
reviews. Contemporary reviews praised the game
for its technology and cinematic presentation. In
2002, Adventure Gamers gave it a score of 4.5 out
of 5, calling it “a fantastically-plotted mystery with
great characters and classic Tex Murphy humor.”
According to IGN in 2006, the game “has weathered
the test of time as one of the best detective games to
this day.” IGN also called it “a landmark for adven-
ture games” and “a rebirth for the series, using new
technology to create a game that was both cinematic
and playable.”
Computer Gaming World ranked it as the 99th in
their 1996 list of the best computer games of all time
for the “campy humor combined with amazing 3D
scenery in this futuristic film noir.” In 2011, Adven-
ture Gamers placed it 25th on their list of all-time
best adventure games.
 8.4
Developer Access Software
Publisher Access Software
Designers Chris Jones
Aaron Conners
Original release date July 31, 1996
Control Click-and-drag, Keyboard
Platform(s) MS-DOS
etc.
Length 24.4 hours
Download Site Gog.com

For The Pandora Directive, the fourth installment in the series, Access re-used
the engine and technology they had developed for Under a Killing Moon, but
hired Hollywood director Adrian Carr to direct the game’s video sequences and
improve the storytelling and presentation. Although The Pandora Directive was
well received by fans and critics, it was unable to replicate the financial success
of its predecessor.
Like all Tex Murphy games, The Pandora Directive takes place in post-World
War III San Francisco in April 2043. After the events of Under a Killing Moon,
tensions between the two groups have begun to diminish. The end to the Cru-
sade for Genetic Purity was a turning point in the relations between Mutants and
“Norms”. Tex still lives on Chandler Ave., which recently underwent a city-fund-
ed cleanup. The events of WWIII still left the planet with no ozone layer, and to
protect their citizens many countries adopted a time reversal. Instead of sleeping
at night, and being awake in the day, humans have become nocturnal, in a man-
ner of speaking. In The Pandora Directive, Tex is hired by Gordon Fitzpatrick to
find his friend, Thomas Malloy. Tex quickly discovers that Fitzpatrick is not the
only one who is looking for Malloy and finds himself dragged into a dangerous
situation. With few he can trust, Tex must try and unravel the mystery surround-
ing Malloy, and along the way he’ll learn the devastating truth behind the great-
est government conspiracy of all time. The game has a large cast of characters
ranging from the deranged to deadly.

12

Players explore environments from a first-person The Pandora Directive provided two difficulty set-
perspective and can click to examine objects or in- tings, Entertainment and Game Players mode. On
teract using a variety of verbs. In addition to verb Entertainment, hints were available and the player
interaction, players can gather, use, and combine could bypass certain puzzles if the player so chose.
items to solve a variety of puzzles, and must also Some minor objects and video scenes were avail-
solve self-contained logic puzzles. Character inter- able on this setting that were not available on Game
action consists of two primary modes: asking char- Players mode. A total of 1500 points were available
acters about a universal list of topics available to on Entertainment mode. On Game Players mode, no
the player, and branching dialog trees. These dialog hints were available and puzzles could not be by-
trees were unusual at the time in that they did not passed. Bonus points were available to those who
display Tex’s full response, but rather a short and solved certain puzzles in an allotted time or within
sometimes humorous description, a convention later a certain number of moves. In addition to this, ex-
popularized by Bioware. tra in game locations and puzzles were available
on Game Players mode that weren’t available on
The Pandora Directive was one of the first adventure
Entertainment mode, making for a more challeng-
games to feature branching narratives and multiple
ing game playing experience. A total of 4000 points
endings. The player could take Tex down “Mission
were available on Game Players mode.
Street” where he takes the high road and wins the
love of his long time crush, Chelsee Bando. Mission Computer Gaming World gave it the Adventure
Street has three possible endings. Down “Boulevard Game of the Year award.
of Broken Dreams”, Tex is a selfish and cynical jerk
A novelization of the game was written by Aaron
worrying only about the big payoff. Boulevard of
Conners in 1995. It differs slightly in details from
Broken Dreams leads to four possible endings. If
the game, but the overall story is the same.
the player chooses neither path, Tex will go down
“Lombard Street”. On this path, he’s not really a nice
guy, but he’s not mean either. Lombard Street leads
to two possible endings, both of which are common
to Mission Street. The “best” Mission Street end-
ing is achieved when the player has taken the high
road every time he was given the choice, and by ex-
actly following two conversation paths earlier in the
game.

13
 7.1
Developer Access Software
Publisher Access Software
Designers Chris Jones
Aaron Conners
Original release date February 28, 1998
Control Click-and-drag, Keyboard
Platform(s) Microsoft Windows
Length 24 hours
Download Site Gog.com

Access’ plans for a sequel eventually evolved into plans for a trilogy, but these
plans were scrapped when Intel approached Access about creating a game to
demonstrate new DVD technology they were working on. To accommodate the
accelerated schedule needed for the project, Access shifted their plans to a re-
telling of Mean Streets, done in the style of the later games in the series, and
stripped away many gameplay elements. When Intel dropped the project, Access
spent 3 months expanding the game’s interactive elements and making it into a
“full featured” title. They shipped the title themselves as Tex Murphy: Overseer.
The game was met with mixed reviews, and would mark the end of the series for
well over a decade.
Like before, Tex Murphy: Overseer takes place in post-World War III San Fran-
cisco. Since Overseer is told as a series of flashbacks, it actually takes place in
two different time frames. The current year is 2043, shortly after the events of
The Pandora Directive and as tensions between the Mutants and Norms have
begun to die down. However, the flashbacks take place in November 2037. The
Crusade for Genetic Purity is beginning to gain momentum, and tensions are
building between the two groups. The Mutants are usually forced to live in the
run-down areas of cities such as Old San Francisco. Tex lives in his new apart-
ment on Front St. in New San Francisco. He has just been kicked out of the
Colonel’s Detective Agency for reporting the Colonel’s unethical practices, and
has now gone into business on his own.

14

Tex Murphy: Overseer starts out with Tex going on Tex will say when you select an option helps to keep
a date with Chelsee Bando. Worrying about Tex’s the dialogue surprising, and often funny.
ability to commit to a relationship, she confronts
The game provided two difficulty settings: Enter-
him about how he still wears his wedding ring from
tainment mode and Gamer mode. On Entertainment
his ex-wife, Sylvia Linsky. This leads Tex to recount
mode, hints were available and you could bypass
the story of his first case. Tex is hired by Sylvia Lin-
certain puzzles in the game. A total of 1,500 points
sky to discover the truth behind her father’s suicide.
were available on Entertainment mode. In Gamer
She believes he was actually murdered, but the po-
mode, no hints were available and puzzles could not
lice have already closed the case. With no one else
be bypassed. A total of 4,000 points were available
to turn to, she goes to Tex for help. Tex becomes
on Gamer mode, though due to a glitch with one
involved in a plot involving implants and mind con-
puzzle, only 3,900 of these points are actually attain-
trol, and must do what he can to stop it, before it’s
able. Unlike its predecessor, The Pandora Directive,
too late. The story which Tex recounts to Chelsee is
Overseer didn’t have any other changes to gameplay
essentially the events of Mean Streets, the first game
between the two modes.
in the series. There are, however, several notable
plot differences between the two. Overseer was the first game to ship a version devel-
oped specifically for DVD-ROM. The package con-
The game continues the Tex Murphy tradition of us-
tained two copies of the game, one on five CDs and
ing some well-known actors to portray major char-
one on a single DVD. The advantage to the DVD
acters, such as Michael York, Henry Darrow, Rich-
version was the absence of any disc swapping and
ard Norton, Joe Estevez, and Clint Howard.
the higher quality video files used. They were other-
Tex Murphy: Overseer is the third game in the Tex wise identical in content. Some versions of the game
Murphy series to use virtual world technology. For have a blinking red LED embedded in the front of
Overseer, Access Software created a new virtual the box, on top of the central building.
world engine designed for use in Windows 95/98.
Initially, Access intended to develop a proper sequel
Along with the new engine came a slightly modified
to The Pandora Directive called Trance, but shifted
control system. The virtual world still allowed for
their plan to Overseer in order to take a shorter term
full freedom of movement and allowed the user to
contract with Intel, who wanted a game to bundle
search for clues in every corner, which by this point
with upcoming hardware. The choice to use an exist-
had become a staple of the Tex series.
ing story arose out of the needs of an accelerated de-
Overseer continued the use of the Tex series’ unique velopment cycle. Never intended as a full-on sequel,
method of dialogue selection. Instead of providing let alone the final Tex Murphy game, director Adrian
you with a list of responses showing the exact words Carr said it was “created solely as a demonstration
that Tex will say, each dialogue choice is given an for a new Intel computer chip.”
adequate description. Never knowing exactly what
15
 8.1
Developer Big Finish Games
Publisher Atlus
Original release date May 7, 2014
Engine Unity
Control Point-and-click
Platforms Microsoft Windows
OS X
Linux
Length 20 hours
Download Site Gog.com

Shortly after the release of Tex Murphy: Overseer in 1998, Access Software was
sold to Microsoft. By this point in time, the adventure genre was in sharp de-
cline, and Microsoft was more interested in having the studio develop sports
titles. Several Tex Murphy games were proposed during this time in a variety
of genres, but none ever entered production. Access was later sold to Take-Two
Interactive, and then closed down in 2006. In 2007, series leads Chris Jones and
Aaron Conners formed a new studio, Big Finish Games, in Salt Lake City, and
by 2009 had re-acquired the rights to the series. Conners declared his optimism
to the community, stating, “I no longer think Tex’s return is an ‘if,’ but a ‘when.’”
Big Finish updated the main page of their site in April 2009 with an announce-
ment of “Tex Murphy - Project Fedora” as a future release. This led to much
speculation amongst the Tex Murphy fanbase that a new project in the form of
a game was in the works as the fedora is a signature component of Tex’s outfit,
especially in light of the fact that this announcement coincided with the news
that the rights to the series had been secured.
On March 20, 2012, Big Finish Games announced an upcoming Kickstarter cam-
paign for “Tex Murphy - Project Fedora”. On May 15, 2012, Big Finish Games
launched the Kickstarter campaign with a goal of $450,000, to be supplemented
by an additional $300,000 from Big Finish. This goal was met on June 7, and the
campaign eventually raised $657,196, including PayPal donations. Production
began on June 18, 2012. The game’s official name was revealed on July 10, 2013
as Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure.

16

Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure (developed The game was almost universally hailed as a faith-
under the working title Project Fedora) is the sixth ful sequel, with much of both the game’s praise and
game in the series, developed by Big Finish Games criticism hinged on its steadfast adherence to the
and published by Atlus. Like the previous three conventions of the genre and series. Patrick Klepek
games, it tells much of its story through live-action from Giant Bomb remarked “It’s unapologetic about
full-motion video sequences, and features freely ex- its roots, even when it probably shouldn’t be.” Poly-
plorable 3D environments during gameplay. gon’s Justin McElroy wrote, “Fans will love Tesla
Effect, and it will make them deliriously happy,” but
Tesla Effect begins in 2050, seven years after Tex
added “If you weren’t already a fan? You may be
and his love interest, Chelsee Bando, were attacked
left wondering what all the diehards are so excited
at the end of Tex Murphy: Overseer. The story starts
about.” Among the conventions commonly criti-
as Tex suddenly awakes disoriented in his office at
cized were the need to search for small, hard-to-find
the Ritz Hotel with strange markings and signs of
objects, and the ambiguity of dialog choices.
violence on his body and no memory of the past sev-
en years. He then discovers that Chelsee has been Adventure Gamers praised the game for its tradi-
missing ever since the attack and is presumed dead. tional adventure gameplay, arguing that “Tesla Ef-
He sets out to find out what happened to him, what fect doesn’t reinvent the wheel, nor does it aim to.
became of Chelsee, and to regain his past memories, What it does attempt – and successfully accomplish-
and in so doing uncovers a web of intrigue involving es – is to mark the comeback of a beloved adventure
murders, double crosses, and the lost inventions of gaming icon, and to do so in a way familiar to le-
Nikola Tesla. gions of fans.” Likewise, Adventure Classic Gaming
praised the game as “a perfect sendoff for a beloved
Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure received
series that has survived the rise and fall of a once
mixed to positive reviews from critics. Mixed opin-
dying genre” and “an easy recommendation for all
ions of the game came mostly from general interest
Tex Murphy fans who long to see Tex return in full
gaming sites, whereas more positive opinions of the
form.”
game came from gaming sites focused on adventure
games. It received an average score of 69.74% on
GameRankings and a weighted score of 68/100 on
Metacritic. The game’s production values sharply
divided opinion, with most praising the quality of
the FMV portions, while criticizing the quality of
the in-game graphics.

17
 Novelization
Two novels of from the Tex Murphy universe was
created by the game’s original writer Aaron Con-
ners.
The Pandora Directive
ISBN: 0-7615-0068-5
Publisher: Prima Publishing
First Published: Sebtember 1995
Pages: 325
Aaron Conners wrote The Pan-
dora Directive as a novel first,
which the computer game was
then based on. While there are
differences between the two,
the novel serves as a great
companion piece for fans of the
the game, as it elaborates upon and fleshes out many
of the same characters and plot points.
The plot of the story is as followed; Project Blue-
book was the official government investigation of
Unidentified Flying Objects that examined, among
other things, the “incident” at Roswell, New Mex-
ico. The official story has been told: the Roswell
crash was a balloon, nothing more. Project Blue-
book was closed. But the real story is that Project
Bluebook became Project Blueprint and helped start
World War III. How does Tex get involved? Well, he
meets an old Cubana-smoking gent who’s looking
for a missing friend. It doesn’t seem like much of
a case at first, but then Tex Murphy has never been
very good at staying out of trouble...and this time
he’s in for lots of trouble!
18
Under a Killing Moon
ISBN: 0-7615-0420-6
Publisher: Prima Publishing
First Published: April 1996
Pages: 328
The novelization of Under a
Killing Moon was released in
1996. Although the basic plot,
characters, and setting remain
mostly the same, it differs sig-
nificantly from the game, pro-
viding a great deal of extra
information, new characters, character deaths, and
more detailed character motivations related to the
main plot involving the Moonchild, while removing
scenes and characters from the game that did not re-
late to the Moonchild plot, creating a more singular
Chandler-esque mystery novel. The final ending of
the game (meeting The Colonel and Eva in the bar,
and dancing lessons with Delores Lightbody) is also
changed to continue this style.
Radio theater
When plans for a new game fell through, Chris
Jones and Aaron Conners, produced a series of au-
dio dramas in 2001, to continue the storyline. The
radio theater stars several of the original characters
and voices from the games, including Jones as Tex
Murphy. They were financed out-of-pocket by the
creators and released for free as digital downloads.
These episodes continue to be available through The
Unofficial Tex Murphy website. A new series of six
more episodes have been announced to accompany
the upcoming Project Fedora as a reward for quali-
fying backers.
This is a “Wikipedia” look at the Tex Mur-
phy games. The book is made as a supplire
for the book, “A Wikipedia look at Point-
and-Click Adventure Games”. I have tried
to make this as informative and easy to look
through as possible. So, please enjoy.

DaddaRuleKonge