Virtual Theatre

The Virtual Theatre is a computer game engine designed by Revolution Software to produce adventure games for computer platforms. The engine allowed their team to script events, and move animated sprites against a drawn background with moving elements using a point-and-click style interface. The engine was first proposed in 1989, while the first game to use it, Lure of the Temptress, was released in 1992.

Upon its first release, it rivaled competing engines like LucasArts' SCUMM and Sierra's Creative Interpreter, due to its then high level of artificial intelligence. It allowed in-game characters to wander around the gameworld independently of each other, performing "every day life" actions, which was not previously possible. Another unique feature All of the in-game objects (including non-player characters) occupied space. Consequently non-player characters had to side-step the player's protogonist and any other object they came across, as well as the player had to side step them. As the result, the engine achieved a more realistic game world than previous engines were unable to provide, though non-player characters could unwittingly block a path as the player was traversing the game scene. This was remedied with the release of Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars.

First used for Lure of the Temptress, it was used again in for Beneath a Steel Sky (1994), Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars (1996), and Broken Sword II: The Smoking Mirror (1997). Because Beneath a Steel Sky was six times the size of Lure of the Temptress, non-player characters had to perform much simpler tasks than in its predecessor. Games that use the Virtual Theatre engine can be now played on modern hardware using ScummVM, which as a result allows the engine to run on platforms where the titles were not officially released. In 2012, it was confirmed that the engine will be revived as "Virtual Theatre 7" for the upcoming fifth Broken Sword titled Broken Sword: The Serpent's Curse (2013).