Explora III: Sous le Signe du Serpent

Explora 3 is a french point-and-click adventure game, the final sequel of the original Explora (released as Chrono Quest in English-speaking markets). The time traveling antics of the other games continue on this title, albeit in a more tangential way. You play as a writer with a severe lack of ideas that has a 3 month deadline to deliver a manuscript to his publisher. While watching TV you see your name linked to a report about a mysterious murder. It is your job to unravel this conspiracy.

The interface of the game has a more minimalist approach this time, the icons were reduced to only three revolving on the bottom-right of the screen: a magnifying glass to examine the scenario, a hand to pick and drop things, and a hammer as the “use” verb. Above these icons there is a clock: the developers added a dimension of time to the proceedings, and certain actions can only be performed at an exact time point. This installment also ditches the synthesized speech of the second game.

The games of this series share a common trait of being quite unforgiving: the player can easily get stuck on a unwinnable situation by forgetting to take some crucial object or not performing the exact action at the exact time. Death also comes swiftly and unexpected, sometimes only by opening a door at the wrong moment.