Asterix - Searching for the Black Gold (1997)

## The Game

Asterix: Searching for the Black Gold is an adventure game. It was only released in Germany but comes in German, French and English. It is essentially a digital version of the comic book Asterix and the Black Gold with voice acting, several minigames and an encyclopedia about Asterix and various things mentioned in the comic.

Main MenuA comic page

### Minigames

The game contains 6 minigames. The player can skip any of them, or disable them entirely in the settings if they just wish to read the comic. There’s also a separate menu just for the minigames. By playing minigames the player will get and spend items, as well as earn gold. The High Scores menu converts the player’s inventory into gold.

Minigame Menu

#### Wild Boar Hunt / Nothing Boar-ing about This!

*Warning: you may not be able to play this minigame due to technical issues.*

Shoot as many boars as you can before time runs out.

Move the mouse to aim, hold the left mouse button to increase the distance of your shot, release to shoot. Right-click to move Obelix from side to side. You’ll get a provision unit for each boar you hit. The time limit is represented by the sun moving from the left side to the right.

#### Pirate Quiz

Answer as many questions correctly as you can, preferably without checking the encyclopedia.

You get 6 questions related to the comic, each of them comes with 3 answers and only one of them is correct. Click the button next to an option to answer. You can check the encyclopedia for help. If you answer correctly without checking the encyclopedia you get 2 sacks of gold, if you answer correctly after looking in there you only get 1 sack.

#### Battleship

Sink as many Roman galleys as you can before you run out of moves (provisions).

You have a play field divided into squares, some of which have galleys. There are 3 types of galleys with different movement patterns: white, red and blue. Right-click on a ship to see all the squares to which it can move. When you left-click on a space, all the galleys change position and you shoot at the same time. If a galley moves to the same space where you shot, you’ll destroy it and earn gold sacks: white galleys give 1 sack, red galleys  – 2, blue galleys – 3.

#### Numerobis’ House

Click the menhir buttons to move around the building. You can find two mini-games inside.

The first minigame is a sliding puzzle. You need to reassemble the picture from 15 square pieces by moving them around.

The second minigame revolves around a pyramid consisting of 5 stones which are stacked in a specific order. This pyramid needs to be moved all the way to the right space. You can only move one stone at a time and put smaller stones on bigger stones. Use the middle space as an aid.

#### The Archway to Tyre / Harbour Blockade

Navigate around the maze, collect all the pieces of Ekonomikrisis’ ID card and reach the pier in the top right corner, but avoid the Roman galleys.

You can use the buttons on the screen or your keyboard keys. Press Up to start moving forward, press Down to stop, use Left and Right to rotate your ship. Run into buoys to collect the ID card pieces. If you collide with a Roman galley, you’ll sink it at the cost of a magic potion unit. If you run out of potion and run into another galley, you lose the minigame.

#### Barrels o’Fun

Watch the barrel with green rims. After it turns normal, the barrels will swap with each other. Click on the barrel which you think had green rims. For each correct guess you’ll get 2 sacks of gold. You have 10 attempts, the difficulty will gradually increase.

### The Great Asterix Encyclopedia

In this menu the player can read about the characters in Asterix, things related to the Asterix and the Black Gold book, Mesopotamia and more. The pages are listed in alphabetic order. The search bar can be used to find a specific page quickly.

The articles are accompanied with expandable images and may be listened to. Many of them have the “See also…” button which redirects to another page. Some pages include short videos.

The encyclopedia can be also accessed by clicking highlighted words in the comic, or pressing the Asterix button in Pirate Quiz.

Encyclopedia indexA page in the Encyclopedia

## Manual

### Original German version

Manual Back and FrontManual Pages 2-3Manual Pages 4-5Manual Pages 6-7Manual Pages 8-9Manual Pages 10-11Manual Pages 12-13Manual Page 14-15Manual Pages 16-17Manual Pages 18-19

### Community-made English translation

Text by Feurus Fuchsus#0655, visual editing and minor text edits by Stinkek#5686.

Manual Pages 2-3Manual Pages 4-5Manual Pages 6-7Manual Pages 8-9Manual Pages 10-11Manual Pages 12-13Manual Pages 14-15Manual Pages 16-17Manual Pages 18-19

## Trivia

* The icon above player names is a portrait of Justforkix.
* Battleship and some pages in the encyclopedia use cartoon clips.
	+ The tutorial and the player’s moves are accompanied with clips from Asterix in Britain (1986). In the film’s context, the Romans are shooting at each other because they mistook a commander trying to shake off an annoying bird for a signal to attack.
* Numerobis has a different name in English – Edifis, however it’s not used in this game.
* A boar dish recipe can be found in Numerobis’ house, with an option to print it.

### Technical

* The game may work on Windows 98. Attempting to open the installer on newer systems will most likely result in one of these scenarios: the installer states the game needs Windows 3.1 or 95, or it can’t be launched at all.
* 4 out of 6 minigames can be opened without installing the game, and they work on modern systems. They’re found in the folders on (game’s drive letter):\GAME and launched through EXE files. The folders are GAME1G (Wild Boar Hunt), GAME3G (Battleship), GAME5G (The Archway to Tyre) and GAME8G (Barrels o’Fun). Pirate Quiz and Numerobis’ House are the only minigames not accessible this way.
* Wild Boar Hunt runs extremely fast on modern computers and is prone to crashing with an error.