Sanctuary Woods

Short description: Video game developer and publisher

Not to be confused with Sanctuary Wood.

Sanctuary Woods Multimedia, Inc. was a Canadian-American multimedia developer and third-party game publisher. It was one of the early multimedia companies developing products for CD-ROM distribution. The founders, Brian Beninger and Toni Beninger, were both experienced technologists who saw the potential for developing family-oriented and educational multimedia projects when Apple Inc. released Hypercard.

It published two games developed together with actress Shelley Duvall — It's a Bird's Life and It's a Dog's Life. It also published some well-known titles developed by Presto Studios.

In 1994 Sanctuary Woods purchased from MicroProse the MicroProse Adventure Development System game engine used to develop Rex Nebular and Return of the Phantom.[1] Following disappointing sales through 1995, the company underwent mass layoffs and a corporate restructuring.[2] Sanctuary Woods went out of business in 2001.[3]

## Contents

* 1 Games published
* 1.1 3DO
* 1.2 Macintosh
* 1.3 PC
* 2 Games developed
* 2.1 Victor Vector & Yondo
* 2.2 PC
* 3 Reception
* 4 References
* 5 External links

## Games published

### 3DO

* Dennis Miller: It's Geek to Me
* Dennis Miller: That's News to Me
* It's a Bird's Life

### Macintosh

* Software:Hawaii High: Mystery of the Tiki (1994)[4]
* The Journeyman Project Turbo! (1994)
* Software:The Journeyman Project 2: Buried in Time (1995)
* Ripley's Believe It or Not!: The Riddle of Master Lu (1995)
* How Do You Spell Adventure? (1996)[5]
* Math Ace JR.
* Victor Vector & Yondo: The Cyberplasm Formula

### PC

* Software:Hawaii High: Mystery of the Tiki (1994)[4]
* Wolf (1994) — the first of two wildlife simulators
* The Journeyman Project Turbo! (1994)
* Software:The Journeyman Project 2: Buried in Time (1995)
* Ripley's Believe It or Not!: The Riddle of Master Lu (1995)
* Lion (1995) — the follow-up of Wolf
* How Do You Spell Adventure? (1996)[5]
* It's a Bird's Life
* It's a Dog's Life
* Radio Active: A Music Trivia Game
* Victor Vector & Yondo: The Cyberplasm Formula
* Victor Vector & Yondo: The Hypnotic Harp
* Victor Vector & Yondo: The Vampire's Coffin
* Victor Vector & Yondo: The Last Dinosaur Egg
* Math Ace Grand Prix Edition
* Word City Grand Prix Edition

## Games developed

### Victor Vector & Yondo

Victor Vector & Yondo is a series of games published by Sanctuary Woods starring a superhero-like main character called Victor Vector, with a side-kick St. Bernard dog called Yondo. The games were published in the 1990s and had an educational spin to them. They were among the first CD-ROM games to be targeted at children.

* Victor Vector & Yondo: The Cyberplasm Formula
* Victor Vector & Yondo: The Hypnotic Harp
* Victor Vector & Yondo: The Vampire's Coffin
* Victor Vector & Yondo: The Last Dinosaur Egg

### PC

* Once Upon a Forest
* Orion Burger
* Victor Vector & Yondo|Victor Vector & Yondo: The Cyberplasm Formula
* Victor Vector & Yondo: The Hypnotic Harp
* Victor Vector & Yondo: The Vampire's Coffin
* Victor Vector & Yondo: The Last Dinosaur Egg
* It's A Bird's Life
* Ripley's Believe It or Not!: The Riddle of Master Lu

## Reception

Computer Gaming World in 1993 described Victor Vector & Yondo as "Heavy on the flash and light on the substance, this product is more of a talking comic book than a graphic adventure" and criticized the quality of the digitized speech.[6]

Entertainment Weekly rated Shelley Duvall's It's a Bird's Life a C− stating "While there are plenty of activities-an on-screen storybook, sing-alongs, connect-the-dots puzzles-the animation is primitive, the button-pushing can get awkward, and there are enough disc-access delays (blank screens to you and me) to shatter the attention span of even the most devoted bird fancier" [7] The game failed commercially.[8]

## References

1. ↑ "MicroProse Adventure Development System Purchased". Computer Gaming World: 12. April 1994. http://www.cgwmuseum.org/galleries/index.php?year=1994&pub=2&id=117.
2. ↑ "News Bits". GamePro (IDG) (92): 21. May 1996.
3. ↑ "Company Overview of Sanctuary Woods Multimedia Corporation". Bloomberg: pp. 1. September 2015. https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=339007.
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Colker, David (17 June 1994). "THE GOODS : Everything a Girl Wants in a Game--and Less". https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-06-17-ls-5247-story.html.
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Sorrels, Cynthia A. (July 1996). "How Do You Spell Adventure?". http://www.gamesdomain.co.uk/gdreview/zones/reviews/pc/july96/how_do_y.html.
6. ↑ "Forging Ahead or Fit to be Smashed?". Computer Gaming World: 24. April 1993. http://www.cgwmuseum.org/galleries/index.php?year=1993&pub=2&id=105. Retrieved 6 July 2014.
7. ↑ EW Staff (January 14, 1994). "Shelley Duvall's It's a Bird's Life". https://ew.com/article/1994/01/14/shelley-duvalls-its-birds-life/. Retrieved December 27, 2021.
8. ↑ Carlton, Jim (June 25, 1995). "Competition stiff in video game arena". p. 39. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/91162776/the-news-tribune/. Retrieved December 27, 2021.

## External links

* Sanctuary Woods profile from MobyGames
* Sanctuary Woods profile from IGN

* v
* t
* e

Presto Studios

Journeyman Project series|

* The Journeyman Project
* Pegasus Prime
* Buried in Time
* Legacy of Time

Other titles|

* Gundam 0079
* Star Trek: Hidden Evil
* Stephen King's F13
* Myst III
* Whacked!

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