The Pawn: axb8N

Turns out that the "metal key" that the game hinted the existence of was on my person from the start! This opens the toolshed, where I find a hoe, rake, and wheelbarrow. But I can't find any immediate use for these that works - I try using the hoe to lift the loose floorboards inside the tree, to dig in the garden, and I try raking leaves in the forest, but either these are invalid actions or I just haven't found the right words to communicate them.

I turn to a walkthrough. The first thing I missed; if you speak to Kronos about your wristband the first time you meet, he gives you the cursed chest earlier. I can get the adventurer to spawn by wandering the path, and I even score some points for giving it to him, which kills him, but the wristband doesn't come off and Kronos is nowhere to be seen.

Next point in the walkthrough - by searching the palace fountain, we find an IOU for one ferg. Honest John will accept this, but I don't yet know what I can do with any of his wares. But this teaches me to be more thorough in examining objects, even ones that seem to be background scenery, and when I apply this lesson to the toolshed, I also discover a trowel on top of the workbench, and a potted plant under it. But I still don't really see how this helps solve my immediate problems, and though I can remove the plant from its pot, "plant the plant" is an unrecognized command, much as I'd like to see what happens when I try.

Back to the walkthrough - to get any help from the guru, I must remove my shirt and cover up the wristband so that he stops laughing. Why is he the only person who finds it so funny? Who knows. But he requests "essential nourishment." The spring water sold by Honest John doesn't do; too commercial for his tastes. And I can't find a way to fill his bowl with water from the palace fountain or the river underneath the bridge. He also does not accept rations or beer.

So the walkthrough again - the next steps don't complete the guru's quest, but solve a problem I didn't know could be solved yet, in a manner (and verbiage) I would have never guessed.

This opens up a new area, a narrow path up into the mountains, where I find a cave entrance too dark to fully explore, and a snowy plateau region, where a snowman guards the entrance to an ice tower. At one point, the adventurer shows up and begins fighting him.

I discover that if I murder the adventurer, I can ride his horse, and explore the dark cavern on it. Cruelly, I discover during this time that if you simply DROP objects, some of them (like the guru's bowl and the potted plant) will break. At least the game tells you. PUT ALL DOWN will do it safely.

• A pool of ammonia collects in the middle, but I can't find a way to interact with it.
• Northward, a small cave is too tight for the horse to enter, but too dark to enter on foot.
• Southward, a hazily lit corridor opens up to a locked door that neither of my keys will open.
• Eastward, a malformed REM statement states that this this where I fall into a trapdoor, but I can find no trapdoor.
• Further east, a precarious path by lava river forces me to explore on foot. A narrow upward shaft takes me to one of hell's radiators, where I can break down a crumbling wall and release the inflow back down to the lava river, cooling off a a sub-area.
• On the north bank of the lava river, now crossable, an exit sign warns that an irrelevant maze lies past it, and sure enough, not only is this true, but the maze behind is completely unsolvable and inescapable. Instead, pushing a pedestal here reveals a blue key underneath it.

Infuriatingly, there's a bug that causes "PUSH PEDESTAL" to not work, which is solved by restarting the computer and reloading a saved game. But for awhile, I was banging my head on the keyboard with "PUSH PEDESTAL" and "MOVE PEDESTAL" and "LIFT CUBE" and all these permutations until I tried doing a restart/reload (a reload alone does not fix it). It makes me wonder how many other failed actions were bugs, and definitely does not inspire any confidence that this game was playtested by anyone.

Anyway, the blue key's purpose isn't quite clear, but an uncharacteristically logical solution to another problem hit me - snows from the mountain in the guru's bowl satisfy his demand, and he tells me,

"Some light in the forest would help you and the trees. We must live in harmony with nature you know." 

I ride my light-emitting horse into the forest, and the description of the clearing seems different. Inspecting the stump, I now find a pouch containing a glowing red, blue, and green. No, I did not forget a word in that sentence.

Stuck again, because I don't know what to do with these colors, the walkthrough claims they act as portable light sources (if this is true, I haven't figured out how to use this property yet), but the next action it directs me to take is in the treehouse in the rank forest. Remember those loose floorboards that the game said were too heavy to lift? The game lied. It's not too heavy - the door was in the way! Close the door and you can lift it.

Just in case you thought I was kidding

 

Also, this is another action affected by the invalidation bug. If you successfully lift the floorboard and then reload a game (as I did, to take the above screenshot), then it won't work any more until you restart the computer.

The passage below is, of course, dark, and I'll need to figure out how to use my pouch of primary colors to see. 

My Trizbort map so far:

Game 461: The Pawn

 

Before Data Driven Gamer, I had virtually no knowledge of any IF titles outside the Infocom canon and Sierra's proto-adventures. Even now, it's still pretty limited. From my own perspective, Infocom remains the main contributor to the genre in 1985, but their relevance is quickly waning despite significant advances in world size, mechanical depth, and vocabulary. In the UK, where Infocom lacks a publisher and the disk drives needed to play their games are uncommon, audiences are served by Adventure International's exports, and a cottage industry of BASIC adventures in the same style (and limitations) thrives but sees no fame abroad.

The UK's biggest and most iconic homegrown IF studios are Level 9 and Magnetic Scrolls, whose games are released overseas through British Telecom. The latter is known for lusciously illustrated scenes on cutting-edge 16-bit platforms, and the former known for squeezing impossibly large game worlds into the confining limits of 32KB micros. I have yet to play a single game by either studio.

The Pawn was Magnetic Scrolls' first release, and the earliest by Telecom to make whale status, but their trademark illustrations aren't here yet; the initial release was on Sinclair's ill-fated 16-bit Spectrum successor "Quantum Leap" and was text-only. Presumably there is a reason why this was the target platform, but it's not a well explored one, and this is likely the only time I will ever emulate one. A consequence is that the only emulator I could find and get working with the QL's "microdrive" cartridge format is QemuLator, which lacks many modern emulation niceties, including native resolution screenshotting. Which I guess doesn't matter that much for a text-only game.

The original booklet, titled "QL-Pawn," explains that this adventure is set in the fantasy world of Kerovnia during a time of social upheaval driven mainly by whiskey and beer shortages. I'm not really sure how seriously we're supposed to take that backstory, but the dwarves are banished, King Erik is unpopular, and we're here for some unexplained reason and purpose. It also outlines the capability's of Magnetic Scrolls' parser, and demonstrates no particular feat that we haven't seen from Infocom, but complex, compound sentences parse, adjectives are recognized, and there is even some structure for interpersonal conversation.

 

Well, no points for originality in this intro.

Unsurprisingly, the wristband can't be removed, and has no remarkable qualities when examined. So, as always, I begin by Trizborting.

This initial area is wide open with most "rooms" having exits in all eight directions, though a few non-orthogonal passages exist, and rooms are not all uniquely named.

• To the east of the path, Honest John the traveling salesman, offers rations, water, whiskey, and armor for sale, but I have no money right now.
• Southward, a magician "Kronos" asks me to deliver a sealed message to King Erik.
• Further east, a bridge leads to the palace gardens, where a toolshed is seen in the corner, and a conspicuous mat reveals a key when lifted. This key does not open the toolshed, unfortunately, and the parser none-too-subtly reveals the existence of a metal key when I try ("wooden key or metal key?" it tasks, when I tell it to unlock the door with my key).
• The place guards permit me an audience with the king, but he promptly throws me out after reading Kronos' message.
• A series of notice boards posted on the southern edge of the map inform me that this is the edge of the adventure, and crossing any further in possession of artifacts is impossible. This proves to be correct.
• The western side of the map is the "Rank Forest" and gives me the most mapping trouble of any area, consisting of multiple confusingly laid-out rooms, though unique room descriptions help.
• A tree stump lies in a clearing in the middle, but there is no obvious significance.
• A sole tree in the forest is climbable, and at the top, a little wooden door is opened by my wooden key, but I get no further; the room is empty save for loose floorboards that I'm told are too heavy to lift.
• In the hills to the north, a  spiritual leader dwells in suitably austere living space, and is remarkably unhelpful.

 

And now I'm stuck. There are two other events I've seen while exploring, but I've restarted since and am unable to figure out what triggers them - an adventurer on horseback appeared once, somewhere around the main path, and Kronos appeared in the forest clearing demanding that I murder the adventurer with a cursed chest in exchange for my freedom from the wristband. Sound fishy, but I guess it's not called The Pawn for nothing.

 

My Trizbort map (so far) - most of the extraneous room connectors are removed in order to keep the map from looking like a Factorio blueprint:

Game 460: Little Computer People

Background: 

In late 1985, Activision's R&D department made a breakthrough computing discovery; that so-called "Little Computer People" dwell in every personal computer, and possess individual appearances, names, and personality traits. To aid in their study, researcher David Crane created the "House-on-a-Disk" diskette, a simulated three-story house with five rooms and a spacious attic, which said people can live in and be directly observed.

These studies have, of course, been long abandoned, superseded by projects such as "The Sims" and "The Sims 4" which do not require obsolete 8-bit personal computers. However, the sudden scarcity of RAM in the year 2025 impels fieldwork with more modest requirements, and with it, an opportunity for a retrospective in 64KB. How are these Little Computer People doing after 40 years? Can they tell that their natural habitat is also a simulation? Does the Y2K bug affect them?

 

Video log of activity:

 

Field notes:

 

9:30: Simulation begins. A Little Computer Person (henceforth to be referred to as LCP) enters the domicile and begins to inspect it. The kitchen pleases him. The computer in the study does not. LCP uses the washroom, does not flush or shut the door, and barely washes his hands afterward.

9:35: LCP goes to the living room and sits on the lounge chair for less than a second before standing back up. Exits and leaves the lights on. LCP inspects the bedroom and leaves the closet door and all drawers open. Attic and kitchen are re-inspected before he leaves via front door - at least he closed the refrigerator.

9:37: LCP returns with a small parcel of his personal effects. A small dog follows. LCP watches television, then acknowledges my presence by turning his head toward the glass of the computer monitor. He speaks, but I cannot understand his language. I suggest to him, through a teletype-like interface, that he type me a letter, but he ignores me and goes downstairs, leaving the TV on.

9:39: LCP picks up the phone and speaks. Did he mean to speak to a friend, or is he trying to speak to us? He didn't dial. Either way, I still can't understand him. LCP then does jumping jacks in the master bedroom.

I said please!

 

9:40: LCP puts on a 33 1/3 RPM record. "We Wish you a Merry Christmas," and sits and watches TV quite unmerrily. Perhaps a new record might brighten his mood?

9:41: LCP taps on the glass of the monitor and requests a game of "Card War."

This is an incredibly boring and drawn out game of chance with no strategy and no decisions whatsoever, but this is also the most interactivity that's been offered since the simulation started, so I humor him. Playing improves his mood somewhat, namely when he is winning, but beating his hands makes him grumpier.

9:47: I unilaterally end the game, being ahead by 26 cards at the time with no end in sight, and LCP is visibly unhappy. I send him a new record as a holiday present, which he dispassionately collects from the front door and stashes away.

9:49: LCP makes another unintelligible phone call. I call him, and we speak, unproductively.

 

9:50: LCP plays his new record, a progressive rock album, and leaves the house, not bothering to stop the player.

9:51: LCP returns and makes another phone call. I attempt to pat him on the back; he stands up before the network-activated mechanical hand can make physical contact. Nevertheless, and to my surprise, this immediately improves his mood. Could simple touch be the key to a good disposition? LCP turns off the record and feeling inspired, plays some piano, and shows himself to be fairly skilled.

The sprite animation does a reasonable job of looking like the LCP is playing music and not just pressing random keys.

9:54: LCP washes his hands and prepares a quick, unheated meal.

9:56: LCP brushes his teeth. I try to tell him to turn off the TV, but he ignores me again.

 

9:57: LCP makes another phone call, then goes upstairs to watch more TV. I end the observation, leaving him to his devices.

 

Addendum:

I return briefly in the afternoon. LCP is named Ian - I learn this as I'm able to coax a letter out of him.
 

Ian misspells 'typist' before backspacing and correcting.

Strange - his water cooler isn't empty! In fact, it's at the same volume as when I left it. Is he rationing?

I dutifully fill it to the brim and offer a phone call, but then I leave.

 

GAB rating: N/A.

Little Computer People is a cute semi-interactive toy, but it's not a game, and there's only so much to see and do. Even in 1985, I have to imagine that I would have exhausted the possibilities of this house-on-a-disk very quickly and gotten bored of it.

Also, in a rather consumer-unfriendly twist, though one that makes sense in-universe, once you generate an LCP, you're stuck with him on your disk forever, without any way to "reset" the game except by using fanmade utility disks. The manual even recommends ordering more house-on-a-disks if you want new LCP's. I don't think they can die through neglect a la Tamagotchi, but wouldn't it be cruel if they could?

Superauthenticity: NES aspect ratios

Early NES box art had square-ish pixels

Unlike the Atari 2600, the Famicon/NES had a standard resolution enforced by the video display processor; 256 pixels per scanline, and 224 active scanlines per frame (240 for the PAL versions which we won't be discussing here).

For a long time, NES emulators would draw square pixels, and that's just not authentic! Many give the option to scale the raw image to a TV-matching 4:3, and for many this is preferred, but that isn't actually authentic either, for two reasons.

The first, more nitpicky one, is pixel aspect ratio, which was subject to an analog variance that most emulators don't account for (and would you want them to?), but would always be slightly wider than tall. Without going too deep into the electronics, an ideal NES pixel length is about 1.14 times wider than the scanline height, or a PAR of 8:7. Which is potentially confusing because 8:7 is also the resolution ratio, but these numbers are completely unrelated. In any event, if an NES screen is drawn with perfect 8:7 pixels, the display aspect ratio is about 1.306:1, which is very close to a television aspect ratio but not quite 100%. Most emulators don't even account for this and just give you a 4:3 scaling option. Close enough, honestly.

The second reason is overscan.

240p test suite

 

On a real analog television, you'd lose significant portions of the picture on all four sides, and it's impossible to emulate this 100% accurately because the amount lost would vary. And you probably don't want this eliminated, because games often rendered artifacts in the overscan areas, which would be hidden under normal conditions, but distracting on an emulator that just shows everything. Emulators do account for this, but there's no perfect setting that gives optimal results for all games.

The overscan issue is less of a concern among the earliest, single-screen NES games, where the lack of scrolling means no loading seam, and for this set of comparisons I'll just use the default FCEUX overscan settings which use lines 8-231 for NTSC games and don't perform any horizontal edge cropping. But it is something that superauthenticity needs to consider.

Donkey Kong

Scaling:	1x 2x
PAR:	Square 8:7
DAR:	Raw 4:3

 

Oh my. With wider pixels, Donkey Kong ought to be called Chunky Kong!

Let's look at the vertically-oriented arcade version for comparison.

Scaling:	1x 2x
DAR:	Raw 3:4

These are the same sprites! The colors are a bit different and the hammers are redrawn, but apart from that, the sprites have the same pixel layouts. Nintendo did account for horizontal orientation by redesigning the stages for the NES conversion, but they apparently did not account for a wider PAR.

Verdict: Square pixels. These sprites were originally composed of tall pixels, not wide pixels. Authentically wide pixels do not improve the look or align with Nintendo's artistic direction.

Mario Bros

Scaling:	1x 2x
PAR:	Square 8:7
DAR:	Raw 4:3

Subjectively, wide pixels just don't look as good as square ones, once again. Let's pull up the arcade version again for comparison.

Scaling:	1x 2x
DAR:	Raw 4:3

Resolution and orientation is the same here, but the sprites and tiles are not the same. Overall, I think the arcade version looks better at 4:3 than the NES version does, but square pixels look more consistently good on either platform; the font in particular looks distorted at 4:3 and I have a hard time getting over the non-square platform tiles.

Verdict: Square pixels.

 

Let's look at some Famicom originals.

Baseball

Scaling:	1x 2x
PAR:	Square 8:7
DAR:	Raw 4:3

Ok, so the perspective here makes no sense. The lines at home base make a perfect right angle, as they should from an overhead perspective, but the players' orientations suggest an oblique perspective. But the lines just aren't obeying any sort of consistent geometric laws.

Subjectively, I think 8:7 PAR looks best overall, but not so clearly that I can be sure this was the intention.

Verdict: 8:7 PAR 

 

Tennis

Scaling:	1x 2x
PAR:	Square 8:7
DAR:	Raw 4:3

A regulation doubles tennis court viewed at a 52° overhead angle looks like this:

If anything, square pixels on the NES make it slightly too wide!

Verdict: Square pixels

 

Duck Hunt

Scaling:	1x 2x
PAR:	Square 8:7
DAR:	Raw 4:3

Despite the large sprites, this looks right at any aspect ratio. The dog and ducks just get longer. I guess the font looks better with square pixels.

Verdict: Square pixels

 

Excitebike

Scaling:	1x 2x
PAR:	Square 8:7
DAR:	Raw 4:3

At 8:7 PAR, the wheels are about as perfectly round as it's possible for them to be at this resolution, even when you're doing flips. At square pixels they're just a smidgen too narrow.

Verdict: 8:7 PAR

 

Balloon Fight

Scaling:	1x 2x
PAR:	Square 8:7
DAR:	Raw 4:3

Balloons are oblong, not spherical!

Verdict: Square pixels

 

Ice Climber

Scaling:	1x 2x
PAR:	Square 8:7
DAR:	Raw 4:3

Low detail makes these visuals resilient to distortion, but I think the sprites' chubbier, rounder look with 8:7 PAR is more in line with Nintendo's artistic intentions.

Verdict: 8:7 PAR 

 

Super Mario Bros.

Scaling:	1x 2x
PAR:	Square 8:7
DAR:	Raw 4:3

And here it is, Nintendo's ultimate 40KB showcase! And what's the story? Honestly, wide pixels might be more authentic, but they don't do Mario's highly geometric world or his figure any favors. A few visual elements, like the clouds, look better stretched, but most don't.

Verdict: Square pixels

My conclusion? There's enough examples of 8:7 PAR looking better that I think we can conclude some of Nintendo's artists were thinking about pixel aspect ratio, but for the most part, these games look better with non-authentic square pixels. I expect the artists just found it easier to plot sprites on square graph paper and were not overly worried about a level of video precision that the televisions of the day weren't equipped with. If Mario is 14% too fat, oh well, hitting the deadline matters more!

For these games, a square pixel aspect ratio (which is what 8:7 will actually mean most of the time in the real world!) can, I think, better preserve the visuals as the artists envisioned them and achieve superauthenticity, but not always! 8:7 PAR is never going to be wrong; this is what players experienced back in the day, but 8:7 DAR can be wrong sometimes, even if it's usually an improvement.

I will probably play most first-party NES games with square pixels for this reason, but 4:3 will always be there if things look a little too thin.

Game 459: The Legend of Kage

This is as stealthy as Kage gets.

The Legend of Kage is one of my earliest video game memories. Specifically, the NES conversion, which, along with City Connection, was among the first non-Mario Nintendo games that I ever played. There weren't a lot of options back then, and the majority of third-party support was from arcade developers like Taito testing the waters with coin-op conversions rather than making original titles. I am certain that this port is responsible for Kage's modestly enduring fame, but I won't be replaying it.

If nothing else, Taito's developers knew the look and feel they were going for, and did well with the technology available. It's by no means cutting edge - by 1985 Sega had that sector cornered (leaving a few table scraps for a struggling Atari), but it's a noticeable upgrade from the crude sprites and backgrounds of Elevator Action and Front Line. You're a spry ninja in a cute little romper battling endless waves of the demon clan in the spooky woods and castles of feudal Japan, and the animation, colors, and FM soundtrack evoke this setting well.

Speaking of which, there exists a prototype version, available through Hamster Corporation's Arcade Archives but not yet emulated in MAME, featuring a PSG-based soundtrack, and I think I like it a little better than the final FM synth soundtrack. Or maybe I'm just sick of it.

In my best attempt before getting bored, I completed a single loop - a phrase that already feels archaic to type out - but ran out of lives halfway through the second.

Legend of Kage really wants you to soar through the forest, leaping over the treetops in a single bound as you duel with flying demon clan ninjas and monks in the highest branches like a scene from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Do not do this! Kage can indeed jump higher than Bomb Jack, but once you go up, you're not coming down for quite awhile, and while Bomb Jack let you control your jumps with a graceful precision, Kage gives absolutely no control over your altitude or airborne trajectory, so if a stray shuriken comes flying in your direction, there's no avoiding it! You can block with your swords, but that won't help much if they hit you in the feet, or come in multiple directions, or later on when the ninjas start throwing smoke bombs.

My strategy to survive this part - keep moving left, throw shurikens constantly, and if you see an enemy, get him off the screen ASAP. Whether that means killing him or just moving enough to scroll the screen away and deref the sprite, you just do whatever is quicker, because it only takes a second for a ninja to wander onscreen and kill you with a shuriken because you were distracted by another ninja. Be especially careful around the red ninja; he attacks more aggressively, loves to jump and throw shurikens downward at tricky angles, and can parry your strikes and catch you in a riposte if you're foolish enough to run right back into his sword after you bounce away like a pinball. Firebreathing monks will eventually start spawning, and after killing three, a fourth, red one will spawn. Killing him finishes this stage.

Next stage is the secret passage.

Not much to say here. You can hide in the moat, and Kage will breathe through a reed when you do, but you shouldn't; this just makes you a smaller, immobile, and defenseless target. Don't even go into the moat; you can't throw your shurikens, and you can't get out without jumping. Easiest way to kill the ninjas is by nailing them as they jump out.

Kill ten and you move onto the battlements.

 

You knew you'd have to use your super ninja jumping skills eventually. Good luck! Hope you're decent at parrying.

The castle is at the top.

Getting some real Kung-Fu Master vibes here.

Stairs are the worst - you're effectively in a dead-end against flying shurikens and you can't even jump, which is one of the few times you'd want to. And nasty things tend to wait for you at the top of them.

You can climb the pillars, but you shouldn't. Noticing a pattern?

Princess Kiri and a cinematic cutscene await at the top.

 

Fight the boss - he's an anticlimax who goes down in one hit - and you do it all over again with changing seasons and more difficult ninjas who now throw unblockable smoke bombs.

 

GAB rating: Below average

Paper-thin gameplay

Floaty, annoying controls

Kung-Fu is better

Koronis Rift: Won!

The all-important repo-tech bot freezes up on the final rift

 

One gets the impression that Koronis Rift was rushed to meet a deadline (I empathize!). The engine itself is cool stuff, featuring rolling terrain with multiple levels of elevation, multiple levels of parallax depth with dynamic shading to indicate distance, and a 3D perspective that convincingly bumps up and down as you drive through the rifts' endless peaks and valleys, but everything after that is a technical mess.

The most obvious clue are the bugs. Dear lord, the bugs. I've seen:

• Modules disappear from my inventory
• The rover unable to move from its landing zone
• Shields not recharging, despite having ample energy
• The RT Robot get stuck on terrain
• Modules that don't do anything
• The screen become half-filled with corrupt graphic data

 

Most of these bugs can put the game in an unwinnable state, but they can be prevented with a bit of care to avoid their trigger conditions, or if worse comes to worse, using the ingame save/load system.

What can't be avoided is the askew difficulty curve which is completely at odds with the game's premise. 

The apparent intended gameplay loop of Koronis Rift seems to be one where you explore the rifts, fight drones, and collect upgrades for your craft so that you can move on to harder rifts and get even greater rewards, but this just doesn't work out. Drones become deadly within a few minutes of playtime, and get deadlier the longer you play. You do not even have time to clear out the first and easiest rift; the upgrade modules you find there are pretty weak, and the drones will overwhelm you before you have time to find them all.

To get anywhere, you've got to figure out which modules are worth having, you've got to know where to find them, and you've got to have a plan to extract them efficiently, because this is a perpetual arms race between you and Koronis' planetary defense system.

To that end, there are four module upgrades which you absolutely must have. In order of priority:

• A shield module, so that you don't immediately die when shot at. You start with an utterly worthless one.
• A generator, to recharge your shields and weapon energy. Once you have a decent shield and generator, your life expectancy improves dramatically.
• A battery, for more weapon energy.
• A better laser gun. The one you start with is crap but it's better than nothing. But you'll need more firepower to do any real damage against the drones once they start showing up with shields of their own. Any upgrade requires a battery, and the bigger the gun, the bigger the necessary battery.

 

You do okay with the basics.

That's four modules, and there's only six slots for modules, so you've only got two more to play with. The modules also come in a variety of colors which enhance or reduce effectiveness against drones of matching/opposing colors, and the manual recommends keeping a variety of colors, but I can't see how that is feasible when you're already using four out of six available modules just for the essentials!

Some other modules you might find:

• Radar - Waste of a slot. Your normal radar always points toward the closest hulk, but radar modules override this by pointing toward the closest hulk containing a module with the same alien insignia as the radar. Pointless unless you already know exactly what you're looking for.
• ECM - The manual claims that it makes you harder to detect, but I don't think it actually does anything.
• Drive - Improves propulsion speed. I never bothered using it.
• Crosshairs - Locks onto drones of certain colors. Has some usefulness but not all that great; it doesn't lock onto everything, it won't "lead" (and therefore won't let you hit) fast-moving drones, and it has a tendency to hijack your rover controls making you drive or turn when you didn't intend to.
• Inertial dampener - This one's a game changer, but you definitely don't want it activated all the time. Turn it on, and enemy drones slow down, making them sitting ducks as long as they're close enough to shoot. But it's an energy hog, and using it slows down your shield and laser recharge rates. It also doesn't stop the drones from shooting back; in fact, they'll be able to concentrate fire on you until you destroy them (or they move out of range). A powerful weapon, but it can get you killed if you're not careful.
• Detonator - You need to find one to win the game. You can just keep it on the scoutship until you reach the final rift, because it has no other purpose.
• Map module - Displays a minimap. Very rare, very useful, because some of the later maps are quite maze-like and the Fractalus engine isn't terrific for first-person navigation.

 

As a side note, when you are using all six module slots, it's possible to collect and carry a seventh one back to the ship for analysis/equipping, but this is a pretty tedious process that requires multiple trips back and forth to shuffle your inventory around between your rover, scoutship, and RT bot. It's worth it, but it's annoying and could have been avoided with better UI design.

 

Through days of failed attempts and note taking on what can be found where, I eventually discovered a solution. You can't afford to waste a lot of time exploring the early rifts, but you can't just jump to the end and survive on your basic starting kit either. But you can skip a lot more of Koronis than you probably think. 

 

Rift 1 

Even in this early rift, there's not enough time to fully explore and loot its meager powerups, but the things you actually want are fairly close by.

Loot the hulk immediately in front of you for a 15% power shield (better than nothing) and keep going for a 12% power generator. Ahead of you is a radar - do not collect it yet! Keep moving, going around the crest, and you'll discover a battery.

Turn back, grab and ignore the radar, and your compass will now point to the last thing on the rift worth taking - a 6% power laser.

Lift off and fly to Rift 16. Yes, that's right, rift 16.

 

Rift 16

Shields are indicated in the upper-right; each bar absorbs the corresponding laser color

I said it before - your upgrade priorities are shields, generators, batteries, and lasers, in that order, and you find all of them on Rift 1, they're just weak.

You'll find all of these on Rift 16 too, only here, they're far more powerful. And you'll find them in almost the same order. The tricky part is surviving long enough.

The shield, rated at 62% power, is right behind you, and if you're fast you can grab and equip it before Koronis scrambles its first drone.

The generator, at 81% power, is the next closest, but you'll need to go around a ridge to get it. Try not to get distracted by the other hulks who may take priority on your radar - you really need this generator to survive long here, but with a bit of luck you can locate it and fight off the drones before your shields run out of juice.

Once you get it, you're safe for awhile, even with an underpowered gun. Fights will take longer, but it will be some time before the drones can penetrate your shields. Still, you don't want to dawdle. There's a crosshair module by the inner ridge too, which I don't bother with, but the rift also has a 70% power battery, and 79% power laser, both of which which you absolutely want, and an inertial dampener which I find more useful than the crosshairs.

The inertial dampener should always be turned off when you are not engaging drones. Turn it off whenever you make planetfall, prepare to turn it on when you need to fight, and turn it on when one flies onscreen. Don't be afraid to turn if off in the middle of a fight, especially if your shields start to run low.

Leave once you have it all. The only other things found here are two out-of-the-way radars which are incapable of finding anything in subsequent rifts.

 

Rift 17 

Turn right here, not left.

 

You start tucked in a crevasse, but if you can find your way out of it, you'll soon locate the critical detonator module. Stash this on the ship for sure.

Other good things here include a 70% power shield, 91% power generator, 85% power battery, and mapper. It's a pretty open map, so it's not that hard to find them.

Rift 18 

 

The mapper comes in real handy here, thanks to the maze-like ridges. But there are only a few things worth keeping; a 95% power generator, 77% power laser (the efficiency is much higher than the 79% power laser found earlier), and 95% power battery. Everything else can be dismantled.

 

Rift 19 

The most maze-like rift, but it's not worth exploring.

 

This one's a quick snatch-and-grab. The only worthwhile thing here is a 67% power shield (also rated much more efficient than then 70% power shield found earlier; I'm guessing that means faster recharge). And it's directly ahead of where you start.

 

Rift 20

 

Sell the inertial dampener - by now it's a liability. Equip the detonator. In retrospect, you don't really need the mapper here; the rift layout is pretty open, but I brought it anyway. A drive module might have been better here, but oh well.

There are no upgrade modules to be found here, only drones and bases that shoot back, but if you got here quickly enough and equipped properly, your shields should protect you. Bases can be destroyed with your own laser, or by the RT bot, but it has a tendency to get stuck after destroying them - you can fix this by blowing away your own bot and returning to the scoutship for a replacement.

Eventually your radar will lead you to the main defense base. Once the skies are clear, send the RT bot in with the detonator, and Koronis is yours.

 

GAB rating: Bad

Funnily enough, Koronis Rift's biggest issue is poor difficulty balance, just like in Sinistar, only this time it's seemingly thanks to being rushed rather than executive-level demands for greater coin returns. More time spent playtesting would have improved this game immensely.

The technology here is impressive, the concept is novel, there are some interesting ideas on display, and I had a modicum of fun once I figured out an optimal path to Koronis Rift's conclusion, but the vast majority of my playtime was tedious trial and error, frustrated further by bugs and UI hiccups, and that part of it wasn't fun at all.

Game 458: Koronis Rift

 

I'll give LucasFilm credit for one thing - their original wave of Atari games might not have all been fantastic, but they've all been original. Even as the third and final game to use the Fractalus engine, Koronis Rift is wildly different from either of the games that came before it; a flight sim, a dungeon crawler, and finally, well, this one's a little hard to pin down.

 

The manual, once again placing more emphasis on backstory than gameplay instructions, explains a familiar scenario. You are a space scavenger, you've been searching the galaxy for scraps of valuable precursor technology, and you've hit the motherlode - the legendary Koronis planetoid, the dumping grounds of the Ancients, whose garbage makes your state-of-the-art science computer look like a ZX80. 

With 20 rifts to explore and loot, you land your surface rover into the nearest one and start searching for caches of their strange technology, all of which is compatible with your rover, and some of which enhances it.

And in about five minutes, the planet's drone defense system blows you and your underpowered rover into space dust.

What the manual doesn't tell you is that you're on a time limit. The game starts seeming like a tank sim, with some pretty convincing movement and acceptable visuals, with a looter shooter element as you need to explore the rift for upgrade modules like better shields and better lasers, but you absolutely do not have time to wander. The drones get powerful fast, and you need to keep up.

The modules and their locations are not randomized, but their purposes are obscure. Each module comes with two symbols and colors with some cryptic meaning to puzzle out - the manual gives some explanation, but it's badly explained, and deliberately incomplete. For instance, it will tell you that the eye icon represents shields, and that power and efficiency are both important stats, but do you want the pink Terran shield with 12% power and 12% efficiency, or the green growthform shield with 11% power and 15% efficiency?

Then, to actually analyze and equip these modules, you've got to wrestle with a horrendously over-engineered interface.

 

PSYTEK, your onboard science droid officer, is cute, but makes the simple act of comparing two modules a laggy, frustrating experience. You've got to move stuff from the rover to the conveyor belt. You've got to activate the belt to bring the thing in front of him. Selecting "Analysis" begins an overlong animation of PSYTEK punching numbers into the computer before he eventually comes up with the power:efficiency ratio of the selected module, but it also might do nothing, because this screen tends to drop inputs and lags when it doesn't, giving you no immediate feedback to indicate your command was accepted.

Worst of all, when you move a module back into the rover, it's incredibly easy to move it onto an occupied slot by accident, which deletes the module already in it. Forever. This will almost certainly happen if you touch the joystick during the conveying animation before it finishes. If that happens to a module you wanted to keep, then you might as well restart the game, and this has happened to me a lot.

One thing is clear by now - this isn't merely a tank sim looter shooter, but a metapuzzle to be solved through trial and error. You've got to learn where the good stuff is stashed, you've got to learn what it does, and you've got to be efficient about it, and you've got to accept that you're going to die a lot in the process.