Game Review: Rigel’s Revenge (Commodore 64, Bulldog)

The Bulldog label had been set up by Mastertronic to showcase what they regarded as The Best of British. Most of the games previous to Rigel’s Revenge had been mainly of an arcade or strategy element. Step forward Smart Egg Software, with Ron Harris on game design and scenario, Nigel Brooks on implementation and development, and Said Hassan with programming and systems. They clearly had made their own adventure system which worked on all three major 8-bit formats, and would follow this up later with Quest for the Golden Eggcup, released as a standard Mastertronic game.

Setting the Scene

The plot of the game on the inlay explains the scenario: Harper and Elliot formed a news gathering team in the 22^nd century. Their coverage of the Re-Unification War was communicated widely as the Federation regained control of the colonies. Elliot persuaded Harper they should be agents for the Alterian Corps, a group dedicated to peace. Their mission was to go to Rigel V, where one region still held out against Federation troops. Those Rebels claimed to have a Doomsday Device and they would wreak havoc unless the Federation withdrew.  Elliot was smuggled in as a Rigellian trooper, and would report back to Harper a week later as the front-line reporter. The instructions: to meet Elliot at night in a certain back street in an occupied sector of the town.

With that in mind, and as the game loads, note how the game requests you press the space bar to cycle though the pages. After the initial high resolution loading screen, the next two pages reveal some of the plot, and you will need to note down what is written carefully – as this allows you to work out what you do need to do for the first puzzle in the game. If you went and made a cuppa during loading and came back, you would not have a clue and would be attempting to type in commands aimlessly, even the infamous BITE LIP command from The Incredible Hulk. None of that does any good, but if you had seen the screens, you will soon be underway and off adventuring.

That Sinking Feeling

Once you have worked out the initial puzzle, the game takes a somewhat unexpected plot twist, which is well written with yellow text instead of white in some part to emphasise the moment that is occurring. The context then becomes more apparent as you progress, meaning that you need to find a way to locate and stop the Doomsday Device as mentioned in the plot. Of course, finding your way around is relatively easy, with the usual compass commands as well as up and down working as they should. Wander the wrong way, and you may encounter one too many enemy robots for your own good, so tread carefully.

One early puzzle involves you being in a building with a kitchen, where above the kitchen sink is a window which happens to have its glass broken, but there are iron bars in the way, so you cannot necessarily get through. Or can you? Working out what to do here with this puzzle may seem initially difficult, but it is a case of noting some of the parser as mentioned in the instructions and then working out which way round to use the commands, and noting what you may find within the kitchen to be of use. It certainly does have you thinking and there is a good sense of satisfaction as you manage that.

Pleasing Parser

I should add that it is well worth reading the instructions in full after the plot. Not only does it kindly give you some useful words and commands to be able to use, but also shows the complexity of the parser. So, for example, a full command such as THROW SUIT THROUGH WINDOW works well, and synonyms are also allowed. You can either firmly pull the chain, or pull chain hard, and both would work too. You can also look in, at or under certain objects too, which shows the thought of the parser. There are some nice shorthand commands too, so apart from the compass directions, I for inventory, Z for wait, R for redescribe (handy to note from a current location) and so on.

The other useful words mentioned are really that, so the likes of CAREFULLY and FORCIBLY can be used to your advantage, and it does note too that the loading screen gives you a clue (as mentioned). It is also well worthy of note to use the wait command with care, as time does pass when you type in a recognised command as well as wait, so that time can be crucial to work your way past certain situations or moments in the game itself. That also does introduce the need to be careful and have your wits about you, as well as examine everything to be sure you have not missed something important. Again, the parser and descriptive text performs well to aid you instead of hindering you, and even recognises the odd spelling mistake, so if you spell EXAMINE as EXAMAINE, it still works the same.

I should add that as well as the standard LOAD and SAVE commands to both tape and disk, there is also the very handy RAMSAVE (RS) and RAMLOAD (RL) commands, so you can save your position to RAM instead of having to use tape or disk. This can be handy during play as you can potentially save the position you are in and go back there before you make a fatal mistake. This is a welcome feature and also speeds up the gameplay nicely without having to wait for the tape to record, so well worth utilising to your advantage.

Science Fiction Setting

The science fiction setting, and indeed the plot, does make the game a real sense of becoming more like interactive fiction as well as a text adventure, with the occasional graphic coming on screen to describe a scenario in more detail. You may for example find a hotel room and a corresponding door, but how you get through that door is all important. The very well written descriptions with these occasional images are there to assist, and when reading the text, be sure to note all the text down. Indeed, it does really draw you in the more you read, and the quality of the writing certainly makes it believable. I was engrossed in the plot, despite not being a huge science fiction fan, and it is testament to the authors that they clearly concentrated on making the game with the immersion level set very high.

Two Parter

The game does load in two parts, and if you reach the end of part one, you are asked to save your game to tape or disk so it can be loaded into part two. Note that you cannot just save any game and load it into part two either, it must be a saved game where part one has been completed – I tried with a standard save game and it knew!  If you do have a correctly saved game, the second part follows on, with you as Harper attempting to get closer to find the all-important Doomsday Device, and you may have found a bomb with a somewhat irreverent sense of humour along the way – I’ll leave you to work that one out for yourself.

There is also a lot of potential crawling around to do – just how you get to that point to be able to do is entirely up to you. Again, as with the first part, the written text and parser is excellent, and feels very interactive as you progress. Naturally, your main aim here is initially of survival, followed by some stealth too. Quite what that may involve, we can leave you to guess, but certainly having managed to get so far, you will soon realise that time is of the essence and rushing in may not always be the best thing to do – sometimes, you just have to wait for the right moment. It is this sort of real time adaptation that also works very well.

Graphics and Sound

The graphics in Rigel’s Revenge are mainly minimal but well drawn high resolution images, notably with the loading screen and sections where needed to emphasise the plot. A sensible font which looks remarkably like the Amstrad CPC system font has been used so the text is readable and easy to follow. There is no sound to speak of, which is a shame as a brooding soundtrack would have really helped the mood, but I suspect this was to enhance the parser and the adventure engine itself and utilise the memory that way.

Final Thoughts

For someone who is not necessarily the biggest fan of text adventure games, I can recall playing Rigel’s Revenge back in late 1987 and getting hooked – and with good reason. All the descriptive text within really does set the scene well for the challenge ahead, and even though it can take some time to be able to solve the first few puzzles, the excellent instructions that give you clues to the parser complete with the loading presentation means that not only can you get started, but utilise a good extensive parser to put together some meaningful commands. If you are a fan of science fiction, the writing here is first rate and coupled with the lengthy descriptions of each location and plenty of plot interactions, it certainly does feel more an interactive novel rather than a lifeless text adventure. If you are a fan of the text adventure genre, you will love this, and even if you are not, you may find it actually shows what you may be missing out on.

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