Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events

Lemony Snicket's
A Series of Unfortunate Events

Developers
	KnowWonder
Publishers
	Activision
Engines
	Unreal Engine 2
Release dates
Windows	November 9, 2004
Reception
Metacritic	64
IGDB	59
Taxonomy
Monetization	One-time game purchase
Modes	Singleplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Perspectives	Third-person
Controls	Direct control
Genres	Action, Adventure, Platform, Puzzle, TPS
Art styles	Realistic
Themes	Steampunk

Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events is a platform video game based on the Lemony Snicket book series and the 2004 film of the same name. The game is based primarily on the 2004 film, which in turn is loosely based on the plots of the first three books from A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning (1999), The Reptile Room (1999), and The Wide Window (2000). The Windows version of the game runs on Unreal Engine 2.0, sharing much of the same underpinnings as Unreal Tournament 2003.

The game was released on November 2004 to tie in with the film, and is a separate release from the console releases, sharing the same basic plot and premise but with different levels and gameplay mechanics. While most releases of the Windows version are shipped without DRM, the German-language release came with SafeDisc v3.

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail		Uses SafeDisc 3 DRM for disc checking on the German-language release.
Amazon.com

SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows Vista and later (see above for affected versions).

Key points

This game is not available digitally.

Different game compared to the console versions.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\System\*.ini

Default.ini contains general settings.

DefUser.ini contains camera FOV, mouse, keyboard/controller bindings and other settings.

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows

Video

Graphics feature	State	Notes
Widescreen resolution		See Widescreen resolution.
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen		See Widescreen resolution.
4K Ultra HD		See Widescreen resolution.
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed
Borderless fullscreen windowed		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)		See Anisotropic filtering (AF).
Anti-aliasing (AA)		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
High-fidelity upscaling		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Vertical sync (Vsync)		Always on by default. To turn it off, see Vertical sync (Vsync) (Not recommended to do so).
60 FPS and 120+ FPS		See Run the game at screen refresh rate.
High dynamic range display (HDR)
Ray tracing (RT)

Widescreen resolution

Edit ini file
Launch the game at least once then close it. Open Default.ini. Go to the [WinDrv.WindowsClient] section. Set FullscreenViewportX and FullscreenViewportY to the desired resolution. Notes HUD and menus are stretched. Some menu elements become cropped. Lower vertical FOV at wider aspect ratios (Vert-). Increase FOV to compensate, see Field of view (FOV).

Use the Widescreen Fix
Notes Camera FOV is fixed both during gameplay and in-engine cutscenes. Menu elements are no longer cropped. HUD and menus are stretched.

Windowed

Edit ini file
Launch the game at least once then close it. Open Default.ini. Find the section [WinDrv.WindowsClient]. In that section, find an entry WindowedViewportX= and set its value to your desired window width. In that section, find an entry WindowedViewportY= and set its value to your desired window height. Set StartupFullscreen= to False to start the game in windowed mode.

Anisotropic filtering (AF)

Edit ini file
Launch the game at least once then close it. Open Default.ini. Change the line LevelOfAnisotropy=1 to any value desired (between 1 and 16).

Vertical sync (Vsync)

Edit ini file
Launch the game at least once then close it. Open Default.ini. Change the line UseVSync=False to UseVSync=True.

Input

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support		Set UseJoystick=True in Default.ini under [WinDrv.WindowsClient].
Full controller support
Controller remapping		Edit in DefUser.ini.
Controller sensitivity		Edit in DefUser.ini.
Controller Y-axis inversion		Edit in DefUser.ini.

Controller types

XInput-compatible controllers

PlayStation controllers

Generic/other controllers

Additional information
Controller hotplugging
Haptic feedback
Digital movement supported
Simultaneous controller+KB/M

Audio

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
Italian
Spanish

Issues fixed

Vsync (Always on) not working on Windows 10

Use dgVoodoo2
Download dgvoodoo2. Copy D3D8.DLL from the \MS\x86\ folder to the game install directory.

Game crashes to desktop when running at higher resolutions

Use dgVoodoo2
Download dgvoodoo2. Copy D3D8.DLL from the \MS\x86\ folder to the game install directory. Run dgVoodooCpl.exe. Go to the "DirectX" tab and set desired resolution.

Poor performance on Windows 8/8.1/10/11

Install dgVoodoo2.

Use crosire's d3d8to9 wrapper
Download d3d8.dll from here. Place it in <path-to-game>\System.

Run the game at screen refresh rate

Maximum selectable refresh rate is 60 Hz. This does not limit FPS, but may set your monitor's refresh rate to 100 Hz, which may result in screen tearing on a 120 Hz or 144 Hz monitor.

Set fullscreen refresh rate
Launch the game at least once then close it. Open Default.ini. Find the line DesiredRefreshRate=60. Change the value to set your monitor's refresh rate. For example, 120 or 144. Notes Modifying any video options will undo the custom refresh rate.

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	8

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows

Middleware

	Middleware	Notes
Audio	OpenAL
Cutscenes	Bink Video	1.5.21.0

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	98, ME	2000, XP
Processor (CPU)	Intel Pentium III 600 MHz AMD Athlon 800 MHz	Intel Pentium 4 1.5 GHz AMD Athlon XP equivalent
System memory (RAM)	128 MB	512 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	998 MB	2 GB
Video card (GPU)	32 MB of VRAM DirectX 9.0b compatible	128 MB of VRAM Shader model 2.0 support