Mindwheel

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Mindwheel
Studio Synapse software
Publisher Brøderbund
Senior Developer Robert Pinsky
Erstveröffent-
lichung		 1984
platform Apple II , Atari 8-bit , Atari ST , C64 , DOS
Game engine BTZ ("Better Than Zork ")
genre Text adventure
Game mode Single player
control keyboard
medium diskette
language English
copy protection Manual referencing

Mindwheel is a text adventure from Synapse Software , which was published in 1984 by Brøderbund for various home computers.

action

In the distant future, the system of human coexistence has collapsed, civil wars bring epidemics and a nuclear catastrophe looms. The impending end of the world is said to be through Dr. Virgil can be prevented by procuring the "Wheel of Wisdom" from the past. Virgil discovered that the souls of the dead leave imprints that can be explored by the living. The player, connected to numerous medical devices, has to penetrate the souls of four deceased people, experience their dreams and find talismans in these. These people are

  1. Bobby Clemon, murdered rock star and leader of a peace movement
  2. Generalissimo, executed dictator and war criminal
  3. The Poet, famous poet who died a cruel death because of love
  4. Dr. Eva Fein, famous scientist and creator of cruel weapons

With the help of the talismans he can get to the "cave master", an ape-like creature from the distant past who, inspired by the wheel of wisdom, developed basic models of human coexistence. Obtaining this wheel of wisdom is the ultimate goal of the game.

Gameplay

Mindwheel is a text adventure, which means that the environment and events are displayed as screen text and the actions of the player are also entered as text via the keyboard and processed by a parser that understands around 1500 words and thus works on the level of later Infocom adventures . Unlike most other text adventures, the game takes place in real time; H. The NPCs have a life of their own and go about their day's work even when the player is inactive.

Development history

Mindwheel goes back to the wish of Synapse managing director Ihor Wolosenko to design a better adventure than that of the industry leader Infocom. This request wasn't just related to the complexity of the parser. At the time Mindwheel was developed, "bookware" was in vogue, text adventures based on, or even designed by, the works of writers. Infocom had worked successfully with Douglas Adams , Telarium with Michael Crichton and Ray Bradbury , Electronic Arts had Thomas Michael Disch write the adventure Amnesia a little later . Volosenko wanted to jump on this bandwagon. His choice fell on Robert Pinsky because he was comparatively cheap as a poet and easy to contact as a lecturer at UC Berkeley . At the time the game was published, Pinsky was primarily the author of poetry and non-fiction books on poetry and the cultural editor of the New Republic . Lacking experience with the computer game genre, he was supported by the programmers Cathryn Mataga (then William Mataga) and Steve Hales , who ultimately implemented Pinsky's script for home computers. As a programmer, Mataga is responsible for the games Dragon's Lair , Neverwinter Nights and Shamus , among others . Hales was called in when the fine-tuning project stalled. Synapse promoted the game with the claim that it was the most complex, longest and hardest adventure game in the world. With Essex , Brimstone and Breakers , Synapse published three other games, which had a predominantly literary claim.

A printed, 93-page short story is included with the game, which introduces the game world and shows the events up to the start of the game. This short story also serves as copy protection as its content is referenced in the game.

reception

Computer Gaming World decided that Mindwheel was finally a game in the same league as Infocom's products and called it "truly interactive". Creative Computing praised the game as "enchanting", highlighting "timeless prose", a "compelling plot" and a solid parser. In the 64'er called Boris Schneider-Johne Mind Wheel "the most interesting [...] that it has ever been in the adventure sector," but criticized slow load times, noted that good English skills are a prerequisite.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b article on Filfre.net. Retrieved March 1, 2015 .
  2. ↑ Happy Computer 1/86, p. 163, available online
  3. ↑ a b 64'er 2/86, p. 141, available online
  4. ↑ CGW Vol. 5.1, January 1985, p. 12, available online
  5. ↑ Creative Computing Vol. 11, No. 9, September 1985, p. 78, available online