Heaven’s Dawn was a classic point and click adventure game that was poorly marketed and was, as a result, passed up by many a gamer. To this day, there are a select few people that have ever heard of it, which is not to say that it was a bad game at all. It was created by Art 9 Entertainment, which was a company based in Taiwan. To make an effort to break into a more mainstream United States and UK market, it was translated into English and re-released by an Australian firm known then as Manaccom.
Heaven’s Dawn redoes a theme that seems to keep reappearing in games, both modern and classic. It is similar to Accolade’s Altered Destiny in this manner. The premise sees a clueless individual who is minding his own business and then inexplicably finds himself sucked into an alternate reality with no immediate means of escape. In this game, the main character is a tourist who is seeing the sights in a strange city and finds himself before an even stranger beggar. The beggar has some ideas about God and is more than willing to share them. According to this seemingly mad homeless man, God is angry with mankind for all of his past and continued sins, and has ordered
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five of his lesser deities to lay curses upon all of humanity. Before the tourist can even process this odd curse and prophecy, he finds himself in an odd fantasy world, with no ties to his home world except for the necklace that the beggar had been wearing when he encountered the strange man. The man has no idea what has happened to the world as he knew it. The goal for the remainder of the game will be to determine what has become of humanity, and then save it from the wrath of an angry God. Of course, finding his way back to his own place and time would be a huge bonus.
Similar to other Lucas Arts games, this one will play using the mouse as the main driver. By mousing over various interesting objects on each screen, the player will be able to read the descriptions of the objects to gain clues, and sometimes pick them up for later use on other screens. There is an inventory screen that is accessible from a simple click, although there is no description for the items once they are placed in inventory. Most of the puzzles are inventory based and are fairly logical and rudimentary to solve. There are a lot of very fun magical artifacts, however, that add a spin to the game. This is just one of the many things that make Heaven’s Dawn a little known, but still good, play.
