Амерзона: Ұмытылған құстар және жасырын экспедиция

The world of Amerzone interweaves fact and fiction. "Amerzone" itself is the name of a fictional region in South America and the great river that runs through it. The name, and the lush tropical rainforest in the Amerzone, suggest that it is inspired by the real life Amazon rainforest. Valembois lives in a lighthouse on the fictitious Langrevin peninsula in Brittany. The game veers further into the realm of fantasy once the player enters Amerzone. The country is home to many strange plants and animals, depicted through watercolor sketches in Valembois's exploration journal. The flora comprises mostly herbaceous plants such as the orchid like Orcochi. Animals in the Amerzone tend to resemble real life animals, but with bizarre flourishes: the ventousier resembles a shrew, but its snout branches off into sucker bearing arms; the rhinopotamus is cross between a rhinoceros and hippopotamus; the web footed giraffe navigates the marshlands with its webbed feet. The White Birds are the key plot point of the game. The Birds are born legless and as such spend their entire lives gliding over the thermals issuing from a great volcano, sustaining themselves on a diet of flying insects. Their wings keep growing after the rest of their bodies has stopped, such that they end up disproportionately long. The Birds' limited range threatens their survival, as does their method of reproduction: every three years, a single, enormous egg is laid, containing many embryos. However, the volcano's fumes will naturally make the eggs "ill", such that they will hatch as Black Birds. Only a nearby indigenous tribe, the Ovo volahos, knows how to "cure" the eggs to make them hatch as White Birds. Most Amerzonians believe the White Birds to merely be a fanciful myth.

The journalist: The player character; a faceless, nameless, silent protagonist. Has virtually no identity: all that is known is they were assigned by their employer, Mondial Magazine, to interview Valembois about the Amerzone. Alexandre Valembois (voiced by Michel Barbey): Born in 1904, he studied natural history in Paris. Fascinated by the biology of Amerzone, he goes on a scientific expedition there from 1932 to 1934. There, he encounters and becomes enamored with the White Birds, and finds love in a native girl called Yékoumani. When he brings back one of the White Birds' eggs, the scientific establishment laughs it off. After World War II, he gets a career as a lycée professor.

The game proper begins in 1998 with the journalist's interview of Valembois, but much of the plot is backstory about Valembois's 1932 expedition.

Alexandre Valembois, a zoology buff fascinated by Amerzone, lobbies the National Museum of Natural History in Paris to fund an expedition to discover the exotic flora and fauna mentioned by Antonio Alvarez. The Museum grants his wish in 1932, and he devises a watercraft called a Hydraflot to get to and around the country. Valembois, Alvarez, and the Jesuit David Mackowski set out on October 22 of that year, finding their way by following the migrating Amerzone geese. On the way, the Hydraflot is damaged by a sperm whale, so they make the rest of the trip on a Peruvian whaling vessel. They set foot in Amerzone on Christmas Day, and make their way to the former trading post of Puebla. Valembois begins sketching and studying the wildlife. On New Year's Day, he learns of the White Birds from one Luis Angel, and decides to pursue the lead despite widespread disbelief in the creatures. He hires Angel as a guide and rows up the Amerzone River, going it alone after Angel abandons him on February 18. On the 22nd of the month, he discovers a native tribe—the Ovo vohalos—but hesitates to make contact. That night, he contracts a debilitating illness, and is nursed back to health by the comely native girl Yékoumani. They grow very close, It is also equipped with a grappling hook. He leaves to the journalist his old expedition journal, containing all his observations on Amerzone wildlife, and a candid letter detailing his experiences. The journalist sets sail, and stops to refuel at the same island where Valembois ran into the sperm whale. An ultrasonic repellent keeps the craft safe, but a disoriented whale ends up tangled in a fishing net. The journalist manages to free it, and finds a disk that turns the Hydraflot into a helicopter. After fueling up, he heads for Puebla. In the once lively, now heavily militarized village, he encounters an aged Mackowski who tells him that a despondent Yékoumani committed suicide in 1935. Mackowski wishes to aid the journalist in his quest, but Alvarez has him assassinated and the journalist captured to cover up the existence of the Birds. The journalist manages to escape, fuels up and locates a disk which lets him go up the Amerzone river. On his way upstream, he discovers the plants and animals mentioned in Valembois's journal. A collision with a three horned buffalo damages the Hydraflot so badly that only the grappling hook is left functioning, and the journalist must pull himself from rock to rock until he reaches the Ovo volaho village. He narrowly escapes death when the hook catches on an ill tempered rhinopotamus. At the village, he has the egg cured, acquires a new disk and rides one of Valembois's contraptions to get above some waterfalls that are in the way. He thus reaches the swamp, but not before the Hydraflot is knocked over and finally put out of commission. The egg thus becomes lost in the mazelike swamp. The journalist finds a whistle in a pile dwelling, which lets him call and ride a web footed giraffe deeper into the swamp. After finding the egg, he climbs a great tree and crosses a rope bridge into the temple Valembois had written of. There, he encounters Alvarez, who threatens to kill him but doesn't have the strength left for it. Further on, he rides a primitive hang glider which takes him to the volcano's rim. He sets the egg down and it hatches the White Birds, thus accomplishing Valembois's dying wish.

Amerzone plays like a typical first person point and click adventure game. The player flips between panoramic "screens", which can be panned around to view the game world. Certain elements can be interacted with by clicking on them. To progress in the game, the player must solve puzzles, which may involve talking to people or using items collected throughout the game. Some items are not required for puzzle solving, but instead serve to flesh out the game's plot: this is the purpose of the explorer's journal and Valembois's letter. The game has a resource management component in the Hydroflot: the player must constantly be on the lookout for fuel and floppy disks required to keep the vehicle running. The game's mobile port modified some gameplay elements. An optional hint system was added to get struggling players back on track, and certain puzzles were redesigned in an attempt to limit tedious back and forth travel between locations. Since iOS devices use touchscreens for input, the controls were redesigned: objects are highlighted with clickable icons, and the camera can be controlled by tilting the device.

Before entering the gaming industry, Benoît Sokal drew comic books like Canardo, which he colorized on a personal computer. With the advent of CD ROMs, which could store hundreds of times more data than then ubiquitous floppy disks, Sokal was inspired in 1995 to create a multimedia CD ROM containing 2D and 3D art which would add up to a cohesive universe. His comic publisher, Casterman, approved of the idea, and after a successful demonstration Sokal began work on the project with software developer Gregory Duquesne. He did hire fellow comic book artist Benoît Peeters to assist with writing, but he soon left the project. He admitted to thinking the game may have been too simple as a result, and promised that "if [they] were to make a sequel, I think it would be more complex, especially toward the end". Sokal wrote the game much as he typically wrote comics: first writing a linear story, then rendering it frame by frame as a storyboard. His guiding principle was to make "the kind of adventure that you no longer get these days, an adventure out of the early 20th century". The challenge for Sokal was making this adventure interactive; in that regard, he found Duquesne's input very valuable.

The team began producing artwork in 1996, using LightWave 3D for character and object models, and Bryce 3D for environments. He ended up highly satisfied with the output of his collaborators. Sokal recalls that the game's development was troubled at many points. In 1997, Casterman had fallen on hard times and called upon the publisher Microfolie's to help with financing. Tetraedge Games—a developer of adventure games for mobile devices for Windows on March 18, 1999. Mac OS and PlayStation ports followed in September and December of that year. December also saw the DVD ROM rerelease of the game, in which the cutscenes were in MPEG2 format instead of Smacker video. The DVD ROM version saw further rereleases, some of them by Mindscape, some of them as bargain priced pack ins with other adventure titles. The official strategy guide, Amerzone: Strategies & Secrets was released in June 1999. In addition to a walkthrough of the game, it contains a guide to the Amerzone universe, an interview with Sokal and some behind the scenes information. Another book, Amerzone: Memoirs of an Expedition, was put out by Casterman in November of the same year. It compiles the art from the game and also some concept art that didn't make it into the final product. It is annotated with text explanations of the images, most of which are from the in game expedition journal. In January 2014, the Android port of the game was released. It is identical to the iOS release.

Amerzone was a surprise commercial success; GameSpot UK noted in June 1999 that it had become a "big hit in France". Following its release in France in March 1999, it sold 10,000 units by early May, a number that French paper Libération considered a promising sign. The game proceeded to have a long shelf life. Its global sales surpassed 500,000 copies by March 2002. At the time, Mathieu Van Overstraeten of La Libre Belgique noted that these sales were unusual for Benoît Sokal's work, as each volume of Inspector Canardo averaged 30,000 units sold. Ultimately, the game sold 1.5 million copies by 2013.