Seastalker

Seastalker (English for "Sea Stalker ") is a text adventure from Infocom from the year 1984.

Action

The player is a young oceanographer and inventor. An undersea research station called Aqua Dome asks him for help, as a sea monster attacking the station. Together with his assistant Tip investigated the player on the station and is in investigations. As an additional problem it turns out that there is a saboteur on board the station. A player's task is to save the station from real or imagined threats.

Gameplay and technology

Seastalker is a text adventure, that is, there is no graphic elements. Environment and events are made and the actions of the player entered as on-screen text also as text using the keyboard. The parser of Seastalker understands about 900 words, which is significantly more than the parser of Zork ruled.

A personalization of the game is done by entering the player's name. This is the name of the player is approached by other characters, his company is named after him, and the name appears in numerous documents on.

As side dishes ( " Feelies " ) contained the early releases of Seastalker a Discovery Squad stickers, a nautical map of Frobton Bay, four InfoCards including decoder to be able to read this, as well as a logbook of Uboots with which you travel around the game. These supplements have been referenced in the game and therefore presented a copy dar. example, are not mentioned outputs from rooms in the game, but go clear from the maps produced.

Reception

Seastalker is the only Infocom game whose difficulty was classified as a junior part of the company. It is aimed at children who do not have experience with text adventures. Accordingly, it was noted in the press that the game is for players who do not belong to this target group is rather unsuitable because of its simplicity. Furthermore, some minor shortcomings of the parser were criticized. Were positively emphasized the humor of the game as well as the extensive package inserts.