Amazon (computer game)
| Amazon | |
|---|---|
| Studio | Michael Crichton , Stephen Warady, David Durand |
| Publisher | Telarium |
| Senior Developer | Michael Crichton |
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
1984 |
| platform | Apple II , Atari ST , Commodore 64 , MS-DOS , MSX2 |
| genre | Text adventure |
| Game mode | Single player |
| control | Keyboard , joystick |
| medium | diskette |
| language | English Spanish |
Amazon is a computer game by the US company Telarium (formerly: Trillium) from 1984. It belongs to the genre of text adventures ( Interactive Fiction ) and was developed by the writer and film director Michael Crichton , who used motifs from his novel Congo .
action
The plot in the style of an adventure story with science fiction elements takes place in the Amazon region in South America. The player works on behalf of NSRT (National Satellite Resource Technology) . He is looking for a twelve-person NSRT expedition team that was supposed to recover diamonds in the jungle on the Amazon and went missing. He is accompanied by the talking parrot Paco .
Game principle and technology
The adventure is played using the keyboard and joystick. Game commands are entered in short, English sentences using a text parser on the keyboard. Typical game commands are, for example, examining objects ("examine") or questioning people ("ask", "talk"). Short action sequences are controlled with the joystick, e.g. B. fine-tuning a radio to receive an emergency call from the missing NSRT expedition team. Some game actions must occur within a time limit. The adventure can be played in three different difficulty levels. The adventure has two-dimensional graphics, some of which are animated, a title melody and sound effects. Amazon was implemented for the C 64 , DOS , Atari ST and Apple II .
Development and production details
Michael Crichton had shown an early interest in home computer technology, which was not very widespread at the time, and had familiarized himself with the programming of his Apple II. He later came up with the plan to develop a computer game; His aim was not so much to give the player a specific mechanic as to explore alternative forms of narratives . When Telarium product manager Seth Godin asked Crichton in 1983 whether they would be interested in a collaboration, Crichton not only accepted, but even presented an almost finished game. It was developed by Crichton, Stephen Warady and David Durand; the latter was also responsible for the graphics. Crichton had done some of the programming himself in BASIC ; Warady then converted these into machine language . The plot is based in part on Crichton's novel Congo (Alfred A. Knopf, New York 1980). Since he had sold the implementation rights for all media to 20th Century Fox , changes had to be made to the setting and plot of the computer game. The game is set in South America instead of Africa, and instead of the communicating monkey, a talking parrot appears.
An MSX2 version translated into Spanish with newly created graphics appeared in 1987.
reception
In the 1980s, game reviews highlighted the adventure's extensive and well-written texts. In the test report of a computer magazine, the action, graphics and vocabulary of the parser were each rated very good.
At the beginning of the 2000s, in a journalistic review of the history of computer games in the online magazine Telepolis , Amazon was placed in a row with other literature-related adventures from Telarium, in which the gaming experience is largely based on the process of reading and the game itself is narrative making available a fiction resembled. In a retrospective in 2010, the computer game blog Gaming After 40 praised the dynamics of the game processes, the innovative integration of mini-games into the plot and a “novel, literary chatter” of the texts compared to those of the adventures by Scott Adams, which were popular at the time . Inconsistencies in the parser and lack of freedom of choice for the player were criticized, as Crichton gave him little opportunity to leave the storyline.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Betsy Staples: Michael Crichton . In: Creative Computing . 11, No. 2, February 1985, p. 26.
- ↑ Filfre.net: From Congo to Amazon. Retrieved January 15, 2017 .
- ↑ a b Konrad Lischka: Where's the gasoline. The history of computer games from literature to sport and back again. Article from January 28, 2001, Telepolis, heise.de.
- ↑ Overview of those involved in development and production under Amazon at MobyGames (English)
- ^ Heinrich Lenhardt : 7 class adventures in one go . In: Happy Computer 9/1985, p. 145; Boris Schneider-Johne , Heinrich Lenhardt: Science Fiction Adventures . In: Happy Computer 5/1985, pp. 145ff.
- ↑ GamingAfter40.Blogspot.com: Adventure of the Week: Michael Crichton's Amazon (1984). Retrieved January 15, 2017 .