Mathica

Mathica

Developers
	BrainGame Development
Publishers
	BrainGame Publishing GmbH
Release dates
Windows	November 4, 2002
macOS (OS X)	Unknown
Taxonomy
Monetization	One-time game purchase
Microtransactions	None
Modes	Singleplayer
Perspectives	First-person
Controls	Point and select
Genres	Adventure, Educational
Art styles	Stylized
Series	Heureka Classics

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail		The 2nd CD-ROM is required while playing, but only because it contains all the graphics and animations of the game.

Available at the official online shop.

Essential improvements

Videos not playing (properly)

Adjust Quicktime settings
Navigate to Control Panel/Quicktime (depending on your Windows version you may have to first click on a special x86 folder in the Control Panel). Select Video in the upper dropdown menu. Choose Safe mode (GDI only). Select Sound Out in the upper dropdown menu. Choose waveOut as playback device.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\Mathica.ini
macOS (OS X)

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\mathica.rup
macOS (OS X)

Video

Graphics feature	State	Notes
Widescreen resolution		The only available resolution is 800x600.
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Borderless fullscreen windowed		Always runs in a borderless fullscreen window.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Vertical sync (Vsync)		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
60 FPS and 120+ FPS		All graphics are prerendered and the cutscenes run at ~31 FPS.
High dynamic range display (HDR)

Input

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support

Audio

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls		Master volume can be adjusted. However, the narrator can only be switched on or off.
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost		Video sequences are paused automatically.
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
German

Issues fixed

Item gets stuck on the cursor

Throughout the game you will encounter a snack bar owner to whom you have to bring an item. However, the item may get stuck on your cursor.

The exact cause of this issue is currently unknown, but it may be necessary to let the character animation complete before clicking any item. If you run into this issue you can't do anything except reloading a previous savegame.

Quicktime can't find video files

During certain parts of the game a Windows Explorer message may pop up stating that Quicktime couldn't find the video file the game wants to play back.

Make a full copy of the 2nd game disc on your PC as an iSO file. You can use CDBurnerXP to do this. Extract your ISO file to a new folder with 7-Zip or a similar software. Open the folder and navigate to ./Game/Media. Copy all files with the .mov extension into the parent directory (./Game). Use Folder2Iso or a similar software to recreate the ISO file with your changes. You should be able to mount your new ISO file as virtual drive by simply opening it with Windows Explorer once. From now on, this file will replace your original 2nd game disc.

Other information

API

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows
macOS (OS X)

Middleware

	Middleware	Notes
Cutscenes	QuickTime	Version 6.52. Game disc contains installer.

System requirements

Windows

macOS (OS X)

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	98SE	7
Processor (CPU)	Pentium III 500 MHz
System memory (RAM)	64 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	150 MB

Soundcard, 16x CD-ROM-Drive

macOS (OS X)
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	8.6	Mac OS X 10.2 - 10.6.8
Processor (CPU)	PowerPC G3 400 MHz
System memory (RAM)	64 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	150 MB

Soundcard, 16x CD-ROM-Drive