Sanctuary Woods

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.

Not to be confused with Sanctuary Wood.

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]

Games published

3DO
  • Dennis Miller: It's Geek to Me
  • Dennis Miller: That's News to Me
  • It's a Bird's Life

Macintosh

PC

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

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.[5]

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" [6] The game failed commercially.[7]

References
  1. "MicroProse Adventure Development System Purchased". Read.Me. Computer Gaming World. April 1994. p. 12.
  2. "News Bits". GamePro. No. 92. IDG. May 1996. p. 21.
  3. "Company Overview of Sanctuary Woods Multimedia Corporation". Bloomberg. September 2015. p. 1. Retrieved 24 September 2015.
  4. Colker, David (17 June 1994). "THE GOODS : Everything a Girl Wants in a Game--and Less". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 21 May 2019.
  5. "Forging Ahead or Fit to be Smashed?". Computer Gaming World. April 1993. p. 24. Retrieved 6 July 2014.
  6. EW Staff (January 14, 1994). "Shelley Duvall's It's a Bird's Life". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved December 27, 2021.
  7. Carlton, Jim (June 25, 1995). "Competition stiff in video game arena". The News Tribune. p. 39. Retrieved December 27, 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
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