Rendezvous with Rama (computer game)
| Rendezvous with Rama | |
|---|---|
| Studio | Byron Preiss Video Productions |
| Publisher | Telarium |
| Senior Developer | Byron Preiss , Arthur C. Clarke |
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
1984 |
| platform | Apple II , C 64 , DOS , MSX2 |
| Game engine | Spinnaker Adventure Language (SAL) |
| genre | Text adventure |
| Game mode | Single player |
| control | keyboard |
| language | English Spanish |
Rendezvous with Rama is a computer game by the US company Telarium (formerly: Trillium) from 1984. It belongs to the genre of text adventures and is based on the novel Rendezvous mit 31/439 by the writer Arthur C. Clarke .
action
The science fiction adventure takes place in the 22nd century. The player is the commander of the spaceship Endeavor. His task is to research an alien spaceship (named after the Hindu god Rama ) that appears in the solar system and approaches Earth. Supporting characters in the game are three crew members of the Endeavor and four organic, ape-like robots ("Simps"). While exploring the alien spaceship, the player is accompanied by the Simp Goldie.
Game principle and technology
Rendezvous with Rama is a text adventure, which means that the environment and events are displayed as screen text and the visualization is largely up to the player's imagination. In contrast to classic text adventures, which do not have any graphic decorations, the game comes up with a picture of the respective environment. By default, this takes up about 40% of the screen, the bottom 60% is used for text input and output. The adventure is controlled via the keyboard. The game commands are entered via a text parser which can process complex sentences as well as individual English words. There is a time limit for solving the game.
Production notes
The game has two-dimensional graphics, a theme melody and sound effects. It was implemented for the platforms C 64 , DOS , MSX2 and Apple II . The port for MSX2 systems is a translation into Spanish ("Cita con Rama") and has new illustrations.
The adventure is based on the novel Rendezvous with Rama (Harcourt Verlag, 1972) by the writer Arthur C. Clarke . Clarke wrote a new ending that deviates from the book for the adventure. In charge of the development was Byron Preiss and his company Byron Preiss Video Productions is responsible. Since Clarke was living in Sri Lanka at the time, the collaboration between him and the developer Ronald Martinez - apart from two author meetings - mainly took place via email and telephone, as Byron Preiss described ("In the course of working on the game, he would often send us messages on the computer that someone would call up and dictate "). Sending manuscripts electronically was not uncommon for Clarke in the early 1980s; he also sent book manuscripts from Sri Lanka to his publisher by email via satellite. Architects were brought in to design the alien spaceship in Rendezvous with Rama.
reception
In the 1980s, the game's review by a computer magazine highlighted the complexity of the plot and the diverse possibilities for dialogue with the other characters.
A study from 2005 placed the game, which was co-developed by Arthur C. Clarke, in a row with other literature-related adventure games from Telarium, which focused on narrative elements.
Web links
- Rendezvous with Rama at MobyGames (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Overview of those involved in development and production under Rendezvous with Rama at MobyGames (English)
- ↑ a b Boris Schneider-Johne , Heinrich Lenhardt : Science-fiction-Adventures . In: Happy Computer . May 1985, p. 145.
- ↑ Sharon Darling: Byron Preiss and Ronald Martinez. Trillium Software Developers . In: Compute! S Gazette, Issue 18, December 1984, pp. 52–58 (58), photo by Clarke and Preiss on p. 54.
- ↑ Sharon Darling: Byron Preiss and Ronald Martinez. Trillium Software Developers . In: Compute! S Gazette, Issue 18, December 1984, pp. 52-58 (58).
- ↑ Konrad Lischka: Young technology with an old tradition. Reflections on the cultural history of computer games. Federal Agency for Civic Education, Bonn 2005 (Chapter Development - From Words to Images of Virtual Realities )