Born in the late '70s. I grew up with a great supply of console and home computer systems and games. I remember playing pong on the Atari, the trials and tribulations of the Spectrum ZX80, the simple yet fun Philips Videopac. Not to mention the Commodore 64, followed by an Amiga and on to the first DOS machines. For me the Adventure Game genre left the biggest impression on me. Even after 30 years and longer, I still enjoy playing Sierra and LucasArts games.
The moment you start up this game, you know you're in for a treat. The cheesy music, accompanied with two-and-a-half colours active on screen and an intro featuring a dork in a white tuxedo, chasing what appears to be, a blow-up doll. Yes, welcome in the Land of the Lounge Lizards.
Discovering foreign worlds or even distant planets has always been the kind of fascination that can be simulated especially by computer games in such an enjoyable way. On closer inspection, however, the programming of such worlds alone is worth exploring. The DOS game Joe Starman On Planet X is a short tour through some role-playing fantasy and – as it is open source – also allows a look at the QuickBasic code in the background.
LostInSpace
It had to happen. Desperate for more material, Puffin Books started accepting outside book submissions into the Fighting Fantasy line, and here is their first definite misstep. Space Assassin used the very first book as a blueprint, not accounting for any developments since then. Worse, it is not even remotely a good imitation of the original. Don't worry, Andrew Chapman's books improved a lot later on.
Mr Creosote
Retro computers are particularly well suited to lightweight puzzle games such as Aztec Tomb on the C64, which do not drown the player at graphical fireworks and super-realistic ray tracing effects. Here you can still sit and relax with a cup of coffee in front of the computer and solve some puzzles, instead of being directly absorbed into it by the maelstrom of a psychologically sophisticated story and the accompanying moments of shock.
LostInSpace
Here is a game none of you have ever heard of, let alone played. In spite of 1497: Five Years After not even being such a bad name. The theme is instantly set without being overly generic. It triggers the "I get this" reflex without being elitist, too clever for its own sake. Between 1996 and 1998, it went through various revisions, starting at version 0.09 and finally reaching the treasured 1.0. Let's have a look at that one.
Mr Creosote
Time flies. A Golden Wake is almost ten years old by now. For me, it is a recent acquisition. Being totally decoupled from any pressure to get something new "urgently" has its advantages. It takes a lot of pressure out of life. And it enables to simply buy on a whim when prices are down. Of course, this also leads to the infamous "piles of shame" these days. And a number of games in one's collection which honestly aren't very good.
Mr Creosote
Watch out, the ring wraiths are hot on your trail! Talisman of Death may not offer the most original sword & sorcery scenario ever, but then, this has never been the key selling point of the Fighting Fantasy line, has it? Nevertheless, there was always room for experimentation. Genre insiders will be delighted to see the origins of what later became its own line of gamebooks here.
Mr Creosote
Of Microprose's early output, there is the big question of what is their best non-airplane simulation. I'm in the Silent Service camp. The intensity of the sneaky operations simply grabs me every time. Dated graphics, almost no sound, who cares?
Mr Creosote
Since the now grown-up fans of the Amstrad CPC probably have more than a little pocket money at their disposal, the developers of Red Sunset are willing to take a rather handsome price for their work. Read here whether the money is well invested in this newly developed vertical shooter.
LostInSpace
Welcome to the House of Hell! Towards the end of the 1980s, this one supplanted Caverns of the Snow Witch as my favourite gamebook. Why? I started to appreciate its real world setting over what I found to be rather tired sword & sorcery material found in most of the books. Indeed, it still has that going for it. But of course, upon recent replay, I did spot many other things which were not so clear to me back then…
Mr Creosote
Did Dynamix ever make a bad game? My feeling is their track record is pretty much spotless. Not only that, a large number of their works was great in their day and even holds up well today. Case in point, Project Firestart.
Mr Creosote