Gold rush!
| Gold rush! | |
|---|---|
| Studio | Sierra On-Line |
| Publisher |
Sierra On-Line The Software Farm Sunlight Games |
| Senior Developer | Doug MacNeill, Ken MacNeill |
| composer | Anita Scott |
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
1988 |
| platform | Amiga , Atari ST , MS-DOS , Macintosh , Apple II , Apple IIGS |
| Game engine | Adventure Game Interpreter (AGI) |
| genre | Adventure |
| Game mode | Single player |
| language | English |
Gold rush! (also known as California: Gold Rush! ) is an adventure game released by Sierra On-Line in 1988 . It was developed by Doug and Ken MacNeill. The game was re-released by The Software Farm in the late 1990s and by Sunlight Games in 2014 .
action
The game is set in 1848, just before the California gold rush . The player takes on the role of Brooklyn newspaper editor Jerrod Wilson , who receives the news that he can find his long-lost brother in Sacramento . Jerrod can choose different ways to get to his brother, so he can travel by stagecoach or on two different ship routes, which, depending on the choice, has different advantages and disadvantages. Arriving in California, Jerrod begins panning for gold, always being on the lookout for bandits and at the same time trying to track down his mysterious brother.
Game principle and technology
At Gold Rush! Figures composed of sprites act in front of hand-drawn, partially animated backdrops. The player can use the mouse to move his character through the locations. The interaction with the game world takes place via commands entered using the keyboard, which are processed by a parser . As the story progresses, more locations will be unlocked.
Production notes
Gold rush! is the third from last game to be developed using the Adventure Game Interpreter (AGI), Sierra's adventure game engine at the time. For the next Sierra in-house development, King's Quest IV, the company used the newly developed engine "Sierra's Creative Interpreter" (SCI) for the first time.
Gold Rush used words from the instructions as a form of copy protection. If the user does not enter the correct words, the game character Jerrod is immediately arrested for unauthorized digging in a non-own area and hung on the gallows , which is also a punishment in the game for the same crime, theft or breaking into a hotel room. In the 2000 publication, copy protection was removed.
In 2000, Software Farm released California: Gold Rush! in a wooden packaging. The company also released an "Economy Pack" with just the game in an envelope.
Remake
After the German independent developer Sunlight Games acquired the rights to Gold Rush! backed up, the company released a version of the original that could run on modern operating systems in July 2014 and a remake called Gold Rush! Anniversary for Windows, Mac OS and Linux. The remake was released for iOS and Android in March 2015. In the remake, all graphics are pre-rendered, while the animations are played in real-time 3D. The graphics are in HD and all pieces of music have also been re-imported. The texts were taken from the original and optimized, and all texts are also spoken. The game can be played with a novel point-and-click control, or with a parser very similar to that used in the old Sierra games.
At the same time, Sunlight Games released a special edition that is limited to 350 pieces. This edition includes a DRM- free version on DVD, a poster, a card with the serial number, a printed making-of brochure, a printed brochure with old concept art from the 1980s and a gold-colored coin designed by Gold Rush! .
In 2017 Gold Rush! 2 .
reception
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Gold rush! received average to somewhat positive ratings. The game was reviewed in Dragon magazine # 145 in 1989 by Patricia Hartley and Kirk Lesser in the section "The Role of Computers". The critics rated the game 4.5 out of 5. Computer Gaming World gave the game a positive rating, highlighting both the mix of historical simulation and Sierra's unmistakable character. The Compute! called Gold Rush "entertaining, a little educational, and a fantastic journey for those new to the adventure game," but cautioned that the simplicity of the game could disappoint some experienced gamers and that the graphics are inferior to some of the other Sierra's -Games are. The trade magazine Adventure Gamers ranked Gold Rush! In 2011 it was ranked 96th in its list of Top 100 All-Time Adventure Games .
Web links
- Gold rush! at MobyGames (English)
- Website of the remake
Individual evidence
- ↑ Sierra retrospective on Adventurecorner.de. Retrieved July 27, 2015 .
- ↑ Matthias Siegk: 1848: ... in sunny California: A greenhorn follows the call of gold ... . In: Current software market . April 1989.
- ↑ Lesser, Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk: The Role of Computers . In: Dragon . No. 145, May 1989, pp. 44-53.
- ↑ Guerra, Bob: Gold Rush . In: Compute! , August 1989, p. 73. Retrieved November 11, 2013.
- ↑ AdventureGamers.com: Top 100 All-Time Adventure Games. Retrieved January 3, 2016 .