February, 2017 | The Obscuritory

Monthly Archives: February 2017

Enchanted Scepters stream with Keith Kaisershot

February 19, 2017 Phil Salvador

This Saturday, February 25th at 3PM EST, I’ll be streaming the Macintosh RPG Enchanted Scepters with Keith Kaisershot (Other Ocean Interactive, The Journeyman Project: Pegasus Prime, and all-around Mac enthusiast).

Enchanted Scepters was among the first games for the Macintosh, created shortly after the computer’s release in 1984. It combined text-based adventure and role-playing mechanics with one of the earliest uses of a mouse in a game. The ability to interact with an object by clicking on it has become a universal feature that feels strange to single out as an achievement, but Enchanted Scepters tried the idea (imperfectly) before almost anyone. Developer Silicon Beach Software later adapted the interface into World Builder, a popular game creation tool.

On top of its historical value, it’s also a sprawling, continually surprising game that I’m looking forward to sharing. Keith has a far deeper knowledge of Enchanted Scepters than I do, so I’ll probably need some coaching to get through it.

See everyone on Saturday on the Obscuritory Twitch channel!

UPDATE: Thanks for watching, and thanks to Keith for joining! A replay is available here. I really like this game’s stream-of-consciousness. Please don’t mistake my comparison of it during the stream to amateur game design as a negative; I appreciate that it channels the same liberating sense of blowing up the usual rules of world-building.

Leave a comment 1984, 1985, 80s, black and white, fantasy, first-person, Macintosh, Silicon Beach Software, uses game creation tool, World Builder

Alpha Waves

February 11, 2017 Phil Salvador

Alpha Waves (Continuum in America) was one of the earlier computer games to allow players to look and move in three dimensions. Like other virtual reality analogues that run short on processing power, it’s abstract – simple, flat, and polygonal with no feints to the real world. The game takes place in a 16×16 grid of boxy, solid-color rooms, grouped into regions with metaphysical New Age-y names like Stimulate or Awaken. Your vehicle, called a “mobile,” has six different appearance options, and they all look like fancy triangles.

Appropriately, the player has abstract goals. You need to get somewhere. Anywhere. » Read more about Alpha Waves

Leave a comment 1990, 3D, 90s, abstract, Amiga, Atari ST, CGA, DOS, EGA, first-person, Infogrames Entertainment, international developer – France, third-person, VGA

Executive Suite

February 4, 2017 Phil Salvador

Executive Suite isn’t a conventional business simulation. You don’t track money or statistics or care about helping the company. Instead, you roleplay a newcomer hustling for the top seat at your company. You’re in this for yourself. It’s a choose-your-own-adventure story not far from the movie Wall Street and its stressful lifestyle. And although Executive Suite mocks the business world, it appreciates that your problems, no matter how small, don’t always have a clean solution. » Read more about Executive Suite

2 comments 1982, 80s, ANSI graphics, Armonk Corporation, business, CGA, choose your own adventure, independent developer, PC booter, text-based