Prisoner of Ice

Prisoner of Ice
Developer(s)	Infogrames Multimedia
Publisher(s)	MS-DOS, Windows, Mac Infogrames Multimedia (Europe) I•Motion (North America) Saturn, PlayStation Xing Entertainment
Platform(s)	MS-DOS, Windows, Mac OS, Saturn, PlayStation
Release	MS-DOS, Windows, Mac NA: 1995 EU: May 24, 1995 Saturn JP: December 23, 1997 PlayStation JP: December 25, 1997
Genre(s)	Adventure
Mode(s)	Single-player

Prisoner of Ice (also Call of Cthulhu: Prisoner of Ice) is an adventure game developed and released by Infogrames Multimedia for IBM PC compatibles and Macintosh in 1995 in America and Europe. It is based on H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, particularly At the Mountains of Madness, and is a follow-up to Infogrames' earlier Shadow of the Comet. In 1997, the game was ported to the Sega Saturn and PlayStation exclusively in Japan.

Prisoner of Ice begins during the run-up to World War II, primarily around Antarctica. The main character is a young U.S. intelligence officer, Lt. Ryan, who has been assigned to a British submarine, HMS Victoria, for a special mission. As the game begins, the submarine is fleeing the Antarctic after rescuing a Norwegian who has recently escaped from a secret German base in the Antarctic (it is later revealed that the base is built atop the Ancient Ruins mentioned in At the Mountains of Madness). Along with the Norwegian, the sub has picked up two mysterious cargo crates stolen from the Nazis.

Late in the game, in Argentina, Ryan meets John Parker, the central character from Shadow of the Comet, and reveals the links between the two games. Narackamous, the main antagonist of Shadow of the Comet, also returns.

The game has a choice of two endings, though there is little difference between them.

The game involves solving puzzles through a point and click user interface. The player can examine any item and, depending on the item, either pick it up, use another item on it, or operate it in some way.

Some puzzles, if not completed within a short span of time (always less than a minute), will result in a game over. To ensure that the player does not get stuck by saving their game at a point from which they cannot possibly complete a puzzle in time, the game autosaves onto a separate save file at the beginning of each timed puzzle.

The game was released for MS-DOS compatible operating systems, Microsoft Windows, and Macintosh. It was published in the US in 1995 by I Motion and in Europe in 1995. In PAL territories it was titled Call of Cthulhu: Prisoner of Ice.

Three French-language comic books were published as tie-ins to the game: La Geôle de Pandore (Pandora's Jail), Le Glaive du Crépuscule (The Dagger in the Dusk) and La Cité des Abîmes (The City of the Depths).^[1]

In Japan, the game was released in 1997 by Xing Entertainment as Prisoner of Ice: Jashin Kourin, and ported to the Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation game consoles. These ports contain no enhancements from the PC versions. The English voice acting of the PC version is retained, but the text which appears when examining or picking up objects is translated to Japanese. The Saturn version is compatible with the Netlink Mouse.

In 2015, Prisoner of Ice and Shadow of the Comet were re-released as DRM-free on GOG.com for modern computers.^[2]

Reception
Review scores Publication Score Next Generation [3] Computer Game Review 85/78/80[4]

According to the French newspaper Les Échos, Prisoner of Ice was commercially successful. Its sales surpassed 30,000 units in the United States alone during its first day of release.^[5]

A reviewer for Next Generation gave the PC version three out of five stars, praising the gripping storyline, beautiful animation, and eerie atmosphere, but criticized the "emotionless" voice acting. He concluded, "It's worth checking out for the great storyline and art, but not good for much else."^[3]

• Call of Cthulhu: Beyond the Mountains of Madness

• MobyGames is a commercial database website that catalogs information on video games and the people and companies behind them via crowdsourcing. This includes over 300,000 games for hundreds of platforms.^[1] Founded in 1999, ownership of the site has changed hands several times. It has been owned by Atari SA since 2022.

Edits and submissions to the site (including screenshots, box art, developer information, game summaries, and more) go through a verification process of fact-checking by volunteer "approvers".^[2] This lengthy approval process after submission can range from minutes to days or months.^[3] The most commonly used sources are the video game's website, packaging, and credit screens. There is a published standard for game information and copy-editing.^[4] A ranking system allows users to earn points for contributing accurate information.^[5]

Registered users can rate and review games. Users can create private or public "have" and "want" lists, which can generate a list of games available for trade with other registered users. The site contains an integrated forum. Each listed game can have its own sub-forum.

MobyGames was founded on March 1, 1999, by Jim Leonard and Brian Hirt, and joined by David Berk 18 months later, the three of which had been friends since high school.^[6][7] Leonard had the idea of sharing information about computer games with a larger audience. The database began with information about games for IBM PC compatibles, relying on the founders' personal collections. Eventually, the site was opened up to allow general users to contribute information.^[5] In a 2003 interview, Berk emphasized MobyGames' dedication to taking video games more seriously than broader society and to preserving games for their important cultural influence.^[5]

In mid-2010, MobyGames was purchased by GameFly for an undisclosed amount.^[8] This was announced to the community post factum , and the site's interface was given an unpopular redesign.^[7] A few major contributors left, refusing to do volunteer work for a commercial website.{{Citation needed|date=June 2025} On December 18, 2013, MobyGames was acquired by Jeremiah Freyholtz, owner of Blue Flame Labs (a San Francisco-based game and web development company) and VGBoxArt (a site for fan-made video game box art).^[9] Blue Flame Labs reverted MobyGames' interface to its pre-overhaul look and feel,^[10] and for the next eight years, the site was run by Freyholtz and Independent Games Festival organizer Simon Carless.^[7]

On November 24, 2021, Atari SA announced a potential deal with Blue Flame Labs to purchase MobyGames for $1.5 million.^[11] The purchase was completed on 8 March 2022, with Freyholtz remaining as general manager.^[12][13][14] Over the next year, the financial boost given by Atari led to a rework of the site being built from scratch with a new backend codebase, as well as updates improving the mobile and desktop user interface.^[1] This was accomplished by investing in full-time development of the site instead of its previously part-time development.^[15]

In 2024, MobyGames began offering a paid "Pro" membership option for the site to generate additional revenue.^[16] Previously, the site had generated income exclusively through banner ads and (from March 2014 onward) a small number of patrons via the Patreon website.^[17]

• IGDB – game database used by Twitch for its search and discovery functions

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