We've written before of the impact of 7th Guest, the title generally considered to have single-handedly kick started the migration of PC owners to the CD-ROM format. That was in 1993. In 1996, the game's developers, Trilobyte, left Virgin for the welcoming arms of Electronic Arts. Virgin honcho Tim Chaney mourned their passing with the memorable phrase, "This is one of those situations when you ask yourself 'do we want them to go or do we want them to stay?' The answer to both is 'not really'."

What had happened? In a nutshell, 11th Hour. The much-delayed sequel to 7th Guest had finally been released at Christmas 1995 and was, essentially, a disaster. It was virtually identical to 7th Guest (lavish FMV, leave-ish puzzles) and this time, the zap for public and reviewers had gone. (Though curiously both would fall for exactly the same trick years later with Riven, the successful follow-up to Myst.)

Trilobyte made one game for Electronic Arts, an 'interactive comedy movie' (ie, more FMV and puzzles) called Clandestiny. Don't remember it? Exactly.

We've no idea what happened to Trilobyte subsequently - a few reports suggested they broke up soon afterwards - which is a bit of a shame for gaming history. Still, their legacy of popularising the CD and keeping Malcom McDowell in work lives on.