Early 3D adventure games on 80s tech: The Freescape games
As I look more into old computer gaming, everything that turns up from the British computer market seems to just be the coolest thing I've ever seen. Many are probably familiar with Elite, which was already revolutionary with its early 3D spacetrader gameplay. But one British company, Incentive Software, released a string of fully 3D, first person adventure puzzle games in the late 80s, for both 8-bit and 16-bit computers, and I don't know how I hadn't heard of it sooner.
It was done using their specially-made "Freescape" engine, one of the earliest examples of such in the field, and a name proudly flaunted on the box of each game. There were 6 such Freescape games released between 1987 and 1990, each made of rooms filled with simple 3D shapes and interactive puzzles, and they're all quite a trip to play.
Here are some screencaps of the third and fourth, "Total Eclipse" from 1988, and its 1989 sequel "Sphinx Jinx". Chosen simply just because you're an archaeologist in the 1930s exploring a pyramid to stop a pharaoh's curse, and I love temples and deserts.
You're equipped with a pistol and a constantly-draining bottle of water (and in the 16-bit versions, a flashlight as well), and your health is represented by a heartbeat-ometer. You have to face mummies, illusory rooms, and a limited amount of total keys, so multiple playthroughs and mapping the pyramid out on paper are required to find the correct path.
Because the IBM PCs hadn't caught on in the UK as much as they had in the US at this time, the DOS versions of these games was on par with the 8-bit ports, limited to only 16-color EGA graphics. So, for completion's sake, I got an Amiga emulator running to experience the game for a second time.
The sequel, Sphinx Jinx, was only available bundled with the first as part of a "Special Pack" that was only released for the 8-bit computers, and never saw the PC, Atari ST, or Amiga. So, I set up a Commodore 64 emulator, too.
However, it runs pretty damn slowly, and it's supposed to be the hardest of all the Freescape games, so it's a bit of a slough. Luckily, ScummVM recently added support for all the Freescape releases, so they all can be ran natively with higher resolution and WASD+mouse controls.
For a lot more information and screenshots of each Freescape game, here's a set of great blog posts: https://hg101.kontek.net/freescape/freescape.htm
#amiga #commodore #msdos #retrocomputing
