335:, Shay Adams highlighted the high level of difficulty of the game. Adams praised the game's story, calling Rodney Smith's humorous writing a successful mix of object and communication-related puzzles. He noted that while other companies had made giant advances in their game parsers, the BTZ parser showed no improvement from previous games; Adams was critical of this, saying that two years after its development, the BTZ parser still required precise inputs instead of analyzing intuitive player behavior. He also criticized the frequent copy protection query as "annoying".
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seven Lau who are supposed to perform the ritual are attacked on the surface of Borg by "Breakers" – intergalactic smugglers who conduct their business through an orbiting space station operated by the United Mining
Combine. The Breakers kill six of the seven Lau, but are then surprised by a squad of Gaks, the security forces of the United Mining Combine. In the course of the fighting, the surviving seventh Lau – the character controlled by the player – loses consciousness and wakes up in orbit on the space station.
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The planet Borg is threatened by a telepathic collision with a mysterious twin planet, a collision that cannot be proven using scientific methods. The planet's inhabitants, the Lau, will not survive the collision unless one of them performs a ritual requiring several artifacts called "elements". The
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stated that this game's "labyrinthine" plot offered a very puzzling and difficult opening scene, but that the game was enjoyable thanks to the advanced parser, communicative NPCs, and its writing style that was clearer than previous games. The magazine gave the game an average rating of 7 out of 10
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The player must first become familiar with the social network of the residents of the space station, take sides in a dispute between enemy smugglers and uncover cases of drug and human trafficking. The player also has to deal with the question of why United Mining
Combine operates the space station
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was not based on the work of a well-known author, but on a 40-page novella written by Rodney Smith, an acquaintance of several
Synapse employees. A booklet containing Smith's novella was included with the game, and served as an introduction to the game. It also provided the copy protection for the
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Successful independent game developer
Synapse Software ran into financial difficulties in 1984 and was bought by Broderbund. Broderbund subsequently used Synapse to produce games for a short-lived trend called "Bookware". This synthesis of analog books and computer games reached its height of
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was released in 1986, there was little media coverage of the game, and sales were disappointing. Following this, Broderbund decided to leave the "bookware" genre, and
Synapse Software was closed. Several games under development by Synapse remained unpublished.
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in orbit at Borg, sometimes in high secrecy, even though all raw material deposits from the planet have already been depleted. The object of the game is to recover the ritual "elements", return to the planet Borg and successfully perform the ritual.
305:, hence the name "Better Than Zork". However, by 1986 Infocom had spent considerable resources improving their parser technology, while Synapse had not made any significant improvements to BTZ. The result was that Infocom's
204:. The game was the last of Broderbund's "Electronic Novels" series, and was not a commercial success. Critics complimented the complex storyline, but found the game's parser had not kept pace with other game developers.
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and saw in the 40-page printed introduction of the game an "allusive, thought-provoking (...) invitation to science fiction myth formation," giving the player an immersive insight into the myths of a fictional people.
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The game starts from this point. The Lau is considered a
Breaker by the Gaks and is confined to a single bar on the space station. The other Breakers in the bar also consider the Lau one of their own.
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a "story about identity work", and said the technique of communicating with NPCs was reminiscent of interrogations.
247:. By 1986, with the trend already subsiding, Broderbund no longer used the term "electronic novel" when marketing
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game — at various points during the game, the player would be asked for a specific word from the novella.
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used the BTZ ("Better Than Zork ") engine, which had been developed in 1982 by
Synapse programmers
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popularity between 1984 and 1986 with the release of numerous literary text adventures such as
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and Steve Hales. This engine's parser understood about 1200 words, almost twice as many as
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315:, was able to parse over 2100 words, significantly more than BTZ's outmoded parser.
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and director of the university's Games
Institute, analyzed the literary content of
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353:, inventor of the interactive fiction programming language
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525:"Determining Literariness in Interactive Fiction"
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602:Video games developed in the United States
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338:Neil Randall, English professor at the
275:Like its Synapse Software predecessors
254:Unlike other literary text adventures,
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244:The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
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476:(4th ed.). Placet Solutions.
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499:"Breakers: Borg under a Bad Sign"
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323:American computer game magazine
180:video game published in 1986 by
497:Addams, Shay (September 1986).
311:, released at the same time as
184:, which was then a division of
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13:
1:
364:
270:
552:Interactive Fiction Database
529:Computers and the Humanities
474:The Inform Designer's Manual
318:
7:
597:Science fiction video games
441:Maher, Jimmy (2014-12-04).
409:Maher, Jimmy (2013-09-10).
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547:Breakers (1986 video game)
331:In the video game journal
188:. It was released for the
567:1980s interactive fiction
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40:
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447:The Digital Antiquarian
415:The Digital Antiquarian
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523:Randall, Neil (1988).
340:University of Waterloo
18:Breakers (Broderbund)
388:(41): 24. March 1987
238:Dragonriders of Pern
443:"Bookware's Sunset"
178:interactive fiction
160:Interactive fiction
587:Commodore 64 games
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16:(Redirected from
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572:1986 video games
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182:Synapse Software
56:Synapse Software
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174:science fiction
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30:1986 video game
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27:1986 video game
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540:External links
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483:978-0971311909
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470:Nelson, Graham
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351:Graham Nelson
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299:'s 1980 game
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75:Programmer(s)
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450:. Retrieved
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390:. Retrieved
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333:Questbusters
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198:Commodore 64
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133:Commodore 64
100:Rodney Smith
63:Publisher(s)
51:Developer(s)
224:Development
116:Platform(s)
561:Categories
531:(22): 186.
452:2020-01-23
420:2020-01-23
411:"Bookware"
392:2020-01-23
382:"Breakers"
365:References
271:Technology
186:Broderbund
82:Joe Vierra
68:Broderbund
592:DOS games
386:Computist
357:, called
325:Computist
319:Reception
285:Mindwheel
277:Brimstone
96:Writer(s)
472:(2001).
359:Breakers
344:Breakers
328:points.
313:Breakers
289:Breakers
264:Breakers
256:Breakers
249:Breakers
194:Atari ST
190:Apple II
176:-themed
169:Breakers
155:Genre(s)
128:Atari ST
123:Apple II
36:Breakers
550:in the
512:(9): 1.
308:Trinity
297:Infocom
232:Amnesia
146:Release
480:
355:Inform
283:, and
241:, and
202:MS-DOS
200:, and
138:MS-DOS
106:Engine
502:(PDF)
281:Essex
262:When
172:is a
478:ISBN
302:Zork
208:Plot
149:1986
110:BTZ
563::
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461:^
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20:)
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Additional terms may apply.
