| Rescue on Fractalus! | |
|---|---|
 European Commodore 64/128 cover |
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| Developer(s) | Lucasfilm Games |
| Publisher(s) | Atari, Inc. Activision |
| Platform(s) | Amstrad CPC, Apple II, Atari 5200, Atari 8-bit, Commodore 64, Commodore 128, TRS-80 CoCo, ZX Spectrum |
| Release date(s) | March 1984 |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Rescue On Fractalus! is a March 1984[1] computer game created by Lucasfilm Games (later LucasArts Entertainment). It was originally released for the Atari 8-bit family and the Atari 5200 games console. It was also ported to other popular platforms of the day, such as the Apple II, ZX Spectrum (by Dalali Software Ltd), Amstrad CPC, Tandy Color Computer 3 and Commodore 64. The game was one of the first two products from the fledgling Lucasfilm Computer Division Games Group led by Peter Langston.
Contents |
Synopsis
Flying
The game utilizes fractal technology to create the craggy mountains of an alien planet, where the visilibility was drastically reduced by the dense atmosphere. The player controls a fictional "Valkyrie" space fighter[1] (converted for search and rescue duty) from a first-person view, attempting to land and pick up downed Ethercorps pilots. Some of these mountains hold anti-aircraft guns, which have to be avoided or destroyed. Due to the varied terrain, the direction finder has to be used to locate the pilots, whose visual beacons are often masked by mountain ridges.
At higher levels, the enemy Jaggis begin flying kamikaze saucers. The mission area also moves into day/night boundaries. Night missions are particularly difficult, requiring diligent use of the altimeter to avoid crashing.
Flying consumes fuel. The way to replenish this supply is to rescue downed pilots who bring their remaining fuel supplies on board.
The thick atmosphere is sufficiently acidic that downed pilots' craft were being slowly disintegrated. An exposed pilot's survival time outside his craft is less than a minute, due to his flight suit and helmet literally dissolving. This makes it imperative that the player rescue pilots as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Rescue
After landing within sufficient "walking" proximity to the pilot, the player shuts down the engine, also turning off the ship's shields. Turning on the engines prematurely would incinerate the exposed pilot. The downed pilot then disembarks his crashed ship, run down to the Valkyrie's cockpit, and knocks on the crew entry door; the player can then open up and let the pilot in to complete the rescue. Failing to open the door kills the pilot; his knocking on the hatch becomes at first frantic, then slower and more feeble as they perish in the corrosive environment.
As an amusing twist on this relatively straightforward premise, added at the suggestion of George Lucas[2], some of the "pilots in distress" are actually hostile aliens in disguise. After landing near a downed pilot, the player watches him run off-screen, and then wait for several tense seconds—if it were human, the familiar, frantic "tap-tap" noise would be heard from the ship's hatch; otherwise, the alien Jaggi would suddenly jump back into view, sans helmet, roaring and trying to smash into the cockpit. Unless the player restores the ship's shields, the windscreen cracks open and the pilot is killed. Likewise, inadvertently letting a Jaggi pilot into the player's ship has disastrous results - it would then begin to dismantle the ship. In early levels, the Jaggi can be distinguished by their green heads versus the white human helmets. However in later levels the aliens evidently learn to don the human helmet and become identical in appearance. This, along with an unpredictable pause between the human/alien approach and the tap-tap/alien jump makes for a very tense experience. According to head developer
Trivia
The development version of this game was called Behind Jaggi Lines!. This has a double meaning. The aliens in the game are called "Jaggi", so when playing the game you are flying "Behind Jaggi Lines". The word "Jaggi" was derived from "jagged" during development because the graphics depicting the cockpit of the Valkyrie spacecraft were not anti-aliased and are therefore very "jagged". So the player is "Behind Jagged Lines".[2]
The game, as many of other Lucasfilm Games' early releases (c.f. Ballblazer), was widely available to the computer underground on pirate bulletin boards. Copies of the Atari 8-bit version were still entitled Behind Jaggi Lines!.
Disk and cartridge based versions, on the Atari 8-bits, also had an extra intro screen depicting the pilot's mothership.
A poster of the game appears in Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders.
Unreleased versions
In 2004, an unreleased prototype of Rescue on Fractalus! for the Atari 7800 was found in the possession of its original programmers. While most of the core elements of the game were intact, the project was cancelled before the gameplay could be completed. The 7800 version would have taken advantage of the system's better graphical performance to produce a much smoother simulation of the planet Fractalus.[3]
References
- ^ Atari Age scan of original game manual
- ^ a b c Interview with David Fox (from: James Hague: Halcyon Days: Interviews with Classic Computer and Video Game Programmers)
- ^ "AtariProtos.com page on RoF for Atari 7800". http://www.atariprotos.com/7800/software/rof/rof.htm. Retrieved 2007-11-26.
See also
External links
- Rescue on Fractalus! at MobyGames
- Rescue on Fractalus! at World of Spectrum
- Early Lucasfilm Games Group remembrance by founder Peter Langston
- An Atari 8-bit reminiscing site
- Video from the 1984 Lucasfilm press conference introducing Rescue on Fractalus! and Ballblazer
- Thrills, Chills & Pant-Spills — Rescue on Fractalus elected as one of the scariest games ever by the Way of the Rodent gaming magazine
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