Today I learned about Laura’s Happy Adventures from 1998. I cannot believe this slipped by me. It looks amazing! Incredible art style and seamless transitions inside buildings. I wonder what type of 3D card you needed for this.
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According to the back of the box, any 4MB card with Direct 3D, which if I recall was not cheap back in 1998 (though my memory of that time is fuzzy). Source at archive.org
Apparently it had a Game Boy Color version as well. I’m sure it was quite the downgrade.
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That game has really nice environments! Also love how she puts items in her backpack.
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I’ll have to check this out further once I’m not on mobile anymore but this reminded me of a lot of fun and janky experiences playing the Playmobil game Hype - The Time Quest
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Laura’s happy adventures looks better than anything I remember playing in 98!
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According to Mobygames the game didn’t actually release until 1999. But reviewers agreed that the specs were absurd for the day.
4MB graphics cards were still quite rare. Though not out of the question for a newly bought normal person PC by this point.
But you would have needed a dedicated 3D accelerator (or hybrid card) to get graphics even approaching whats in the video, which I assume was captured on modern hardware. Just being “Direct 3D compatible” wouldn’t be enough.
A video game enthusiast with a newish machine in (early) 1999 would have probably have something like an 8MB video card with 8/12MB Voodoo 2 3D accelerator.
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