Opening Night

• Title — Opening Night • Developer — MECC • Publisher — MECC • Released — 1995 • Platforms — Windows, Macintosh • Genre — Education/simulation

Players create, direct, and perform mystery plays in a lifelike theatre, featuring The Children's Theatre Company actors in period costumes. They do this by manipulating multimedia including 40 actors, 100 sets, and 300 props to create stories. Lighting, music, and sound effects can be later added. To access an item, players first choose the Category Viewer to choose the category, then next the Item Viewer to choose the item. Double-click ing on the item places it onto the stage. The game was curriculum-driven; it aimed to allow students to use their creativity to write scripts and create plays for assessments, and to use their imagination. A timer helps synchronise actions, while the recorder is used to capture action. Text-to-speech technology allows the player to hear the character say what they have written, but if words are mispronounced they are encouraged to type the words out phonetically instead. Star Tribune commented that the dialogue can either appear at the bottom of the screen like movie subtitles, or spoken in a "Stephen Hawking monotone".

The actors were added by first being filmed or photographed then digitized into the game, in a similar vein to Mortal Kombat. A bonus expansion pack named Opening Night Behind the Scenes was released in 1995 on Windows 3.1 and Macintosh. It was developed in cooperation with The Children's Theatre Company in Minneapolis and published by MECC. The disk illustrated how the game was made and showed how a theatre operates. Players could watch interviews by industry professionals from The Children's Theatre Company and look up terms in a glossary. The CD also include Quicktime movies showing tours of different aspects of the theatre.

Dale LaFrenz, MECC president and chief executive officer, commented that she expected Opening Night, alongside MayaQuest and Math Munchers Deluxe, to be released in time for the pre-holiday selling season of 1995. The game was the 73rd best-selling title during the November–December 1995 period (holiday season).