Coktel Adventures Series

Last updated: May 13, 2026

Overview

The Coktel Adventures Series is the umbrella term for the diverse catalog of adventure, edutainment, and full-motion-video games developed by French publisher Coktel Vision from 1988 to its later subsidiary Tomahawk in the late 1990s, plus its post-Sierra continuations through 2026.¹ Coktel was acquired by Sierra in 1993 and operated as a Sierra Label (Sierra Label (Coktel)) for the rest of the 1990s.² The studio’s signature franchises — Pierre Gilhodes’s Gobliiins puzzle-adventure series, Muriel Tramis’s socially-conscious adventures (Méwilo, Freedom: Rebels in the Darkness), and the company’s specialty in full-motion-video adventures (Urban Runner, Lost in Time, Fascination) — collectively make Coktel one of the most distinctive non-American voices in Sierra’s history.

Coktel is unusual among Sierra-lineage studios because:

• It pre-existed Sierra’s acquisition by five years and brought a fully-formed catalog and design language into the Sierra fold.
• Its design idiom is recognizably European — the Gobliiins games’ wordless visual puzzle-solving and surrealist art direction are unlike anything in Sierra’s American adventure output.
• It has continued releasing games, with Pierre Gilhodes independently completing Gobliiins 4 (2009), Gobliiins 5: The Morgloton Invasion (2023), and Gobliins 6 (2026) — making Coktel the only Sierra-lineage studio with releases extending to the late 2020s.³

Pre-Sierra Coktel Era (1988–1993)

Before Sierra’s 1993 acquisition, Coktel Vision built a French/European adventure-game catalog notable for its distinctive design voice. Founded in 1985 in Paris by Roland Oskian, Coktel’s first big adventure-era hits came in 1988–1989:

Year	Title	Designer	Notes
1988	20,000 Leagues Under the Sea	Various	Jules Verne licensed adventure
1988	African Raiders-01	Various	Rally-driving sim
1989	Asterix: Operation Getafix	Various	Asterix licensed adventure
1989	Emmanuelle	Various	Controversial adult adventure
1989	E.S.S.: European Space Simulator	Various	Sim
1989	Legend of Djel	Muriel Tramis	Caribbean-set adventure
1990	Cougar Force	Various	Action
1990	Geisha	Various	Japan-set adventure
1991	Gobliiins	Pierre Gilhodes	Founds the Gobliiins franchise
1991	A.G.E.	Various	Sci-fi
1991	E.S.S. Mega	Various	E.S.S. expansion
1991	Fascination	Various	FMV adventure
1992	Gobliins 2: The Prince Buffoon	Pierre Gilhodes	Second Gobliiins
1992	Bargon Attack	Various	Sci-fi adventure
1992	Ween: The Prophecy	Various	Fantasy adventure
1992	Inca	Various	FMV adventure (Inca Series founding)

Sierra Label Era (1993–1999)

After Sierra’s 1993 acquisition, Coktel continued producing games under the “Sierra Label (Coktel)” lineage. The signature releases:

Year	Title	Designer	Notes
1993	Goblins Quest 3	Pierre Gilhodes	Third Gobliiins
1993	Lost in Time	Various	FMV time-travel adventure
1993	Inca II: Wiracocha	Various	Inca sequel
1995	Bizarre Adventures of Woodruff	Pierre Gilhodes	Spiritual Gobliiins successor
1995	The Last Dynasty	Various	FMV sci-fi
1996	Urban Runner	Various	FMV cyberpunk adventure

The Coktel design language during the Sierra era refined two distinct threads:

1. The Gobliiins puzzle-adventure line (Pierre Gilhodes) — Increasingly elaborate visual puzzle-solving with multiple controllable characters, surrealist art direction, no text/voice dialog (the goblin protagonists communicated entirely in gibberish). The series’ core innovation — three (later more) characters with distinct abilities who must combine actions to solve puzzles — directly influenced later games like the Lost Vikings and Trine series.
2. The FMV-adventure line — Games like Fascination (1991), Inca (1992), Lost in Time (1993), The Last Dynasty (1995), and Urban Runner (1996) used live-action filmed footage as the backdrop for adventure-game interactions. This put Coktel in direct competition with Sierra’s American FMV titles (Phantasmagoria, Gabriel Knight 2) but with a distinctively European visual sensibility.

The Coktel Vision label was wound down by Havas/Vivendi in the late 1990s as the FMV-adventure genre’s commercial appeal faded.⁴

Tomahawk Era and Reactivation (2000s–2009)

Coktel’s edutainment subsidiary Tomahawk continued producing children’s edutainment products through the early 2000s, including the Adi / Adibou / Adiboo educational series (the Adiboo family is in vault/Games/Adiboo/) and the Playtoons line.⁵

In 2009, Pierre Gilhodes — having left Coktel decades earlier — independently revived the Gobliiins franchise with Gobliiins 4, crowdfunded and released through Wide Screen Games.⁶ This re-opened the dormant series.

Post-Sierra Era (2023–present)

Gobliiins 5: The Morgloton Invasion (2023) and Gobliins 6 (2026) — both designed by Pierre Gilhodes and developed by his own French studio — extend the franchise into the 2020s, making Gobliiins the only Sierra-lineage adventure series with brand-new releases this decade.⁷⁸

These post-Sierra entries operate under independent licensing arrangements with the current rights holder (Microsoft Gaming via the Activision Blizzard acquisition) and are notable both for preserving the original wordless-puzzle design language and for incorporating modern UI and accessibility conventions.

Designer Profiles

• Pierre Gilhodes — Founding designer of the Gobliiins franchise; the single most influential Coktel voice. Active from 1991 to the present.
• Muriel Tramis — Caribbean-French designer of Méwilo, Freedom: Rebels in the Darkness, Legend of Djel; pioneering voice in socially-conscious adventure games.
• Roland Oskian — Founder of Coktel Vision.

Legacy

Coktel’s importance to the broader Sierra archive is twofold:

1. The Gobliiins puzzle-adventure design — A genuinely original adventure-game design idiom that has continued to inspire indie developers (Machinarium, the Lost Vikings line, Trine).
2. The European adventure-game voice — Coktel brought a recognizably non-American sensibility into the Sierra catalog, expanding what “a Sierra adventure” could be.

For most of Sierra’s history Coktel’s productions were marketed in France/Europe under a French label and in North America with English localization. Many of the more obscure titles (Cougar Force, Geisha, Bargon Attack) had limited or no North American distribution and exist primarily as European releases.

See Also

• Coktel Vision — Developer page
• Pierre Gilhodes — Gobliiins designer
• Muriel Tramis — Coktel designer
• Corporate Lineage — Sierra acquisition era
• Inca Series — Sub-series within Coktel’s catalog (planned)

References

Footnotes

1. Wikipedia — Coktel Vision — Studio history, catalog overview ↩

2. MobyGames — Coktel Vision — Game credits ↩

3. Wide Screen Games — Gobliiins 4 — Pierre Gilhodes independent revival ↩

4. The Digital Antiquarian — Coktel Vision — Studio history ↩

5. Wikipedia — Adi and Adibou — Tomahawk edutainment line ↩

6. MobyGames — Gobliiins 4 — 2009 revival ↩

7. Steam — Gobliiins 5 — 2023 release ↩

8. Steam — Gobliins 6 — 2026 release ↩