Archipelagos

Archipelagos

released on Dec 31, 1989

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Archipelagos

released on Dec 31, 1989

Restore the Planet. Plastics. Poisons. Nuclear waste. Ozone-destroying gases. Genetic mutations. There was no end to what man did to make earth uninhabitable. And now man wants to reclaim it. Specially trained ecological engineers, called Environmental Purifiers (EPs), are being sent to earth to undo centuries of damage. Is it too late? You're about to find out. Because you are one of our best EPs. You'll enter the earth's hazardous atmosphere in a plasmic hoversphere. Then begin by destroying radioactive nodes and obelisks. You'll build land and fly across oceans. Avoiding mutant strains of experimental species, like poisonous Viral Trees and deadly Eco-Eggs. Or watch out for wandering Necromancers and sweeping air purifiers. There have been others before you and we may as well tell you the truth: no one has returned alive. But you can do it. Because you have one thing the others didn't: a love for the Earth. Explore all 360 degrees of this living landscape. See the sky evolve from day to night. Watch plants grow and move, painting the landscape with their poison. Even when you're not moving, everything else in this animated 3-D world is. Node: The collector nodes funnel radioactive energy to the obelisk; so they must all be destroyed first. You may even need to create land bridges linking the nodes and obelisk, in order to "short circuit" the nodes. Eco-Egg: The Eco-Egg was genetically cultivated to trap poisons in a bulbous flower. Which it does, until disturbed. Then its deadly poison pod explodes. Viral Tree: This strain of Viral Trees protects itself by poisoning the land around it. It's constantly growing and forever inching its way towards anything with body heat. Leaving a wake of poison in its path. Necromancer: This was once an environmental Purifier. Now mutated into an aimless Necromancer, a lost soul who hovers around beaches, destroying coastlines. Aircleaner: This whirling dervish is actually a highly sophisticated and extremely effective Air Cleaner called the 900-B. Problem is, it'll clean up everything. Including innocent EPs. Obelisk: Each archipelago is home to a single obelisk that send out ultra-high doses of UV and GAMMA radiation. These are the heart of the problem- and must be destroyed before the island can be purged.


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imo survives more on the feel of its mechanics and challenges (namely: satisfying friction between bounding across stretches of water but still having to bridge landmasses for a different reason, the limited perspective, maintaining spatial awareness, managing resources to fill out spaces on a grid) than on level design in particular. WHICH IS A BLATHERY WAY OF SAYING less of a puzzle game than i expected. what i liked most was the uncanniness, e.g. the contrast between the abstract boardgame visuals and text like "YOU WERE KILLED BY THE BLOOD OF THE ANCIENTS" and the lore and the necromancers and wailing ghosts. crusty pixelated sky turns blood red as the corruption spreads - the music is rly creepy too. it's also somewhat unnerving to contend with the landmasses in such a zoomed-out and unbearably close-up way at the same time - may just be the case for any game with a minimap but i think its intensified here by that "bridging landmasses" condition. feels like you're a snail crawling across a big war painting, to twist something thecatamites said. this especially becomes clear in the handmade levels which often contain large stretches that make sense as part of the picture you can see in the world map but are unrecognizable on ground level.

A bizarre game. Some of these early 3D and pseudo 3D games had an uncanny way of creating some disturbing worlds due to your mind having to fill in a lot of detail. Then you add in the bleeding palm trees and radioactive obelisks and you have a full fledged horror game in a weird liminal space.