Labyrinth: The Computer Game is a graphic adventure game developed by Lucasfilm Games and published in 1986 by Activision. Based on the fantasy film Labyrinth, it tasks the player with navigating a maze while solving puzzles and evading dangers. The player's goal is to find and defeat the main antagonist, Jareth, within 13 real-time hours. Unlike other adventure games of the period, Labyrinth does not feature a command-line interface. Instead, the player uses two scrolling "word wheel" menus on the screen to construct basic sentences.
Labyrinth was the first adventure game created by Lucasfilm. The project was led by designer David Fox, who invented its word wheels to avoid the text parsers and syntax guessing typical of text-based adventure games. Early in development, the team collaborated with author Douglas Adams in a week-long series of brainstorming sessions, which inspired much of the final product. Labyrinth received positive reviews and, in the United States, was a bigger commercial success than the film upon which it was based. Its design influenced Lucasfilm's subsequent adventure title, the critically acclaimed Maniac Mansion.
An unrelated game based on the same movie, Labyrinth: Maō no Meikyū ("Maze of the Goblin King"), was released in Japan for the Famicom and MSX in 1987, developed by Atlus and published by Tokuma Shoten.
Overview
A goblin guard corners the player character. The "word wheels" and gray "radar" bar appear in the bottom section of the screen. On the wheels, the player has combined the verb "ask" with the noun "wall", resulting in a comedic message at the top of the screen.
Labyrinth: The Computer Game is a graphic adventure game in which the player maneuvers a character through a maze while solving puzzles and evading dangers.[3] It is an adaptation of the 1986 film Labyrinth, many of whose events and characters are reproduced in the game.[4][5] However, it does not follow the plot of the film.[6] At the beginning, the player enters their name, sex and favorite color: the last two fields determine the appearance of the player character.[6][7] Afterward, a short text-based adventure sequence unfolds, wherein the player enters a movie theater to watch the film Labyrinth. The game then changes to a graphic adventure format. Jareth, the main antagonist, appears on the projection screen and transports the protagonist to a labyrinthine prison.[7][8]
The player's goal is to locate and destroy Jareth within 13 real-time hours; otherwise, the protagonist will be trapped in the maze forever.[7][8] While traveling the maze, the player passes through a series of scrolling hallways that contain doors, enemies and other things.[7] A "radar" bar on the screen allows the player to see each hallway in miniature form: the locations of all doorways, items and characters in a given hallway are displayed.[7][9] Unlike other adventure games of the period, Labyrinth does not feature a command-line interface. Instead of typing commands, the player selects them from two scrolling "word wheels", one for verbs and one for nouns.[1][6][10] For example, the verb "congratulate" may be selected in one wheel, and the noun "Jareth" in the other: this inputs the command "congratulate Jareth".[1] Based on the player's items and location, the available verbs and nouns change context-sensitively.[6]
Development
Lucasfilm Games began to design Labyrinth: The Computer Game in 1985.[11] Company head George Lucas had requested a tie-in video game for the movie of the same name, which was under production at Lucasfilm.[10] As was common with Lucasfilm Games projects, Lucas himself provided very little direction to the team.[12]Labyrinth was the first licensed game developed by the company: earlier products, such as Rescue on Fractalus! and The Eidolon, had been original intellectual properties. According to project leader David Fox, working with a license "frees you up in some ways and restricts you, too".[13] With their adaptation, the team was not pressured to reuse events and characters from the Labyrinth film, but they "felt obligated" to follow the source material.[5][14] Because they saw the film as an adventure story, they chose to set their adaptation in the adventure game genre. Fox conversely disliked the genre's then-reliance on text parsers and syntax guessing, and so he created the word wheel menus as a replacement. They were meant to supply "a limited set of words that still let you do a lot of things", in order to streamline the game without hampering the player's freedom.[5] The game's visual design was shared by Lucasfilm's Habitat, a massively multiplayer online game under production at the time.[12][15]
Douglas really liked the word "adumbrate", meaning "to prefigure indistinctly or foreshadow", so it ended up on the verb list[.] ... You had to "adumbrate the elephant" when you were stuck in a prison, and an elephant would come and break a hole in the wall, freeing you. Definitely one of those things that was far funnier in the brainstorming session than in the game.
Early in development, the game's team was screened a rough cut of the film. Afterward, they were sent to London by Lucasfilm management for a one-week brainstorming session with Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.[5][11] Adams had worked previously with Infocom, during the development of his book's 1984 video game adaptation.[16] Also present at the meetings were writer Christopher Cerf (a friend of the film's director, Jim Henson) and Brenda Laurel of Activision, the game's publisher.[13] The team worked extensively with Adams during this period. Laurel later wrote: "Every day a fresh blast of his wild and intelligent humor stoked up the creativity of the team". In her view, the pinnacle of the meetings was Adams' idea for the opening sequence.[11] He suggested a reference to The Wizard of Oz's famous transition from black-and-white to color: a transition from a text-based format to a graphical one.[13]
Fox was given the job of taking notes during the trip. Although he had hoped for a complete design to emerge from the meetings, he returned from London with only "sheets and sheets of ideas", through which he sifted to find usable concepts.[5] All of the material influenced the game, and many of Adams' suggestions were used.[5][16] Retrospectively, Fox felt that the opening sequence was a mistake: he called it "tedious" and believed that it alienated potential fans.[13]Labyrinth was released in 1986 for the Commodore 64, Apple II and MSX.[1][3]
In the United States, Labyrinth was more commercially successful than the film upon which it was based.[11]Commodore Magazine's Mark Cotone lauded the game's puzzle design, detailed graphics and newcomer-friendly interface. He believed that experienced players would enjoy its depth and challenging puzzles.[8] Keith Campbell of Commodore User praised its animation and dubbed it "a superb game"—which he found unusual, given its status as a tie-in product. Nevertheless, Campbell hesitated to call it an adventure game, and he wrote that the word wheels were "rather tedious" for genre veterans.[17] Roy Wagner of Computer Gaming World summarized Labyrinth as a "very well done [game] with an excellent user interface".[15]
Writing for Computer & Video Games, Matthew Woodley praised the game's variety and interface. While he disliked its long loading times, he believed that they were "a small price to pay for such a brilliant game".[6] However, Labyrinth was criticized by the three reviewers of Zzap!64. Although he praised its visuals, co-reviewer Paul Sumner called the game too slow-paced for an action title and too simplistic for an adventure. Co-reviewer Julian Rignall considered it to be boring and "a real disappointment", given Lucasfilm's strong track record.[9]
Legacy
Labyrinth was the first adventure game produced by Lucasfilm, which became a critically acclaimed and commercially successful developer in the genre.[3][4] The game's technology and mechanics influenced the company's subsequent title Maniac Mansion, whose "SCUMM" engine was reused in many Lucasfilm adventure games.[12][18] The word wheels were a predecessor to that game's point-and-click interface.[4][12]Gary Winnick, an artist for Labyrinth, went on to lead the production of Maniac Mansion with Ron Gilbert.[19] Fox contributed to Maniac Mansion as well, and he later directed Lucasfilm's Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders.[5] A retrospective feature by Australian video game talk show Good Game regarded Labyrinth as a solid first attempt, but as inferior to "the real classics" made afterward by Lucasfilm.[3]
Day of the Tentacle, also known as Maniac Mansion II: Day of the Tentacle, is a 1993 graphic adventure game developed and published by LucasArts. It is the sequel to the 1987 game Maniac Mansion. The plot follows Bernard Bernoulli and his friends Hoagie and Laverne as they attempt to stop the evil Purple Tentacle - a sentient, disembodied tentacle - from taking over the world. The player takes control of the trio and solves puzzles while using time travel to explore different periods of history.
Lucasfilm Games is an American video game licensor and a subsidiary of Lucasfilm. It was founded in May 1982 by George Lucas as a video game development group alongside his film company; as part of a larger 1990 reorganization of the Lucasfilm divisions, the video game development division was grouped and rebranded as part of LucasArts. LucasArts became known for its line of adventure games based on its SCUMM engine in the 1990s, including Maniac Mansion, the Monkey Island series, and several Indiana Jones titles. A number of influential game developers were alumni of LucasArts from this period, including Brian Moriarty, Tim Schafer, Ron Gilbert, and Dave Grossman. Later, as Lucasfilm regained control over its licensing over the Star Wars franchise, LucasArts produced numerous action-based Star Wars titles in the late 1990s and early 2000s, while dropping adventure game development due to waning interest in the genre.
Maniac Mansion is a 1987 graphic adventure video game developed and published by Lucasfilm Games. It follows teenage protagonist Dave Miller as he attempts to rescue his girlfriend Sandy Pantz from a mad scientist, whose mind has been enslaved by a sentient meteor. The player uses a point-and-click interface to guide Dave and two of his six playable friends through the scientist's mansion while solving puzzles and avoiding dangers. Gameplay is non-linear, and the game must be completed in different ways based on the player's choice of characters. Initially released for the Commodore 64 and Apple II, Maniac Mansion was Lucasfilm Games' first self-published product.
Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion (SCUMM) is a video game engine developed at Lucasfilm Games, later renamed LucasArts, to ease development on their graphic adventure game Maniac Mansion (1987). It was subsequently used as the engine for later LucasArts adventure games and Humongous Entertainment games.
Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders is a 1988 graphic adventure game by Lucasfilm Games. It was the second game to use the SCUMM engine, after Maniac Mansion. The project was led by David Fox, with Matthew Alan Kane as the co-designer and co-programmer.
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure is a graphic adventure game, released in 1989 by Lucasfilm Games, coinciding with the release of the film of the same name. It was the third game to use the SCUMM engine.
The Secret of Monkey Island is a 1990 point-and-click graphic adventure game developed and published by Lucasfilm Games. It takes place in a fictional version of the Caribbean during the age of piracy. The player assumes the role of Guybrush Threepwood, a young man who dreams of becoming a pirate, and explores fictional islands while solving puzzles.
From the late 1980s to the early 2000s, LucasArts was well known for their point-and-click graphic adventure games, nearly all of which received high scoring reviews at the time of their release. Their style tended towards the humorous, often irreverent or slapstick humor, with the exceptions of Loom and The Dig. Their game design philosophy was that the player should never die or reach a complete dead-end, although there were exceptions.
Rescue On Fractalus! is a space combat simulator video game created by Lucasfilm Games. It was originally released in 1985 for the Atari 8-bit computers and Atari 5200 console, then ported to the Apple II, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Tandy Color Computer 3, and Commodore 64. The player flies a space fighter near the surface of a planet, with the goal of rescuing downed pilots. The terrain is generated via fractals, from which the eponymous planet and game title are taken.
Ron Gilbert is an American video-game designer, programmer, and producer. His games are generally focused on interactive story-telling, and he is arguably best known for his work on several LucasArts adventure games, including Maniac Mansion and the first two Monkey Island games. In 2009, he was chosen by IGN as one of the top 100 game creators of all time.
H.E.R.O. is a video game designed by John Van Ryzin and published by Activision for the Atari 2600 in March 1984. The game has players control Roderick Hero who traverses a mineshaft avoiding enemies and hazards to rescue trapped miners. He travels through the mines equipped with a hoverpack that allows him to traverse the game levels as well as bombs and laser that let him destroy walls and defeat enemies respectively.
David Fox is an American multimedia producer who designed and programmed numerous early LucasArts games. He and his wife, Annie Fox, now work on educational software, web design, emotional intelligence content, online communities, emerging technologies, and writing books for children and teens.
The Eidolon is one of two games that were part of Lucasfilm Games' second wave in December 1985. The other was Koronis Rift. Both took advantage of the fractal technology developed for Rescue on Fractalus!, further enhancing it. In The Eidolon, Rescue's fractal mountains were turned upside down and became the inside of a cave.
Koronis Rift is a video game from Lucasfilm Games, produced and designed by Noah Falstein. Originally developed for the Atari 8-bit computers and the Commodore 64, Koronis Rift was published in 1984. It was ported to the Amstrad CPC, Apple II, MSX2, Tandy Color Computer 3, and ZX Spectrum.
Spindizzy is an isometric video game released for several 8-bit home computers in 1986 by Electric Dreams Software. It combines action and puzzle video game elements. Players must navigate a series of screens to explore a landscape suspended in a three-dimensional space. Development was headed by Paul Shirley, who drew inspiration from Ultimate Play the Game games that feature an isometric projection.
Julian "Jaz" Rignall is a writer and editor. He has also produced content for corporate websites such as GamePro Media, publisher of GamePro magazine and GamePro.com, marketing collateral and advertising campaigns.
Aliens: The Computer Game is a 1986 video game developed by Software Studios and published by Electric Dreams Software initially for Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum. It is based on the film of the same title. Ports for the Commodore 16 and MSX were developed by Mr. Micro and published in 1987.
Gary Winnick is an American computer game designer, writer, artist, and animator who was the first artist hired by Lucasfilm Games. He co-designed Maniac Mansion, alongside Ron Gilbert, and created the comic book Bad Dreams.
Doriath is a side-view action-adventure platform game released for the Commodore 64 in 1985.
Zig Zag is a shoot 'em up video game developed by Zig Zag Software and published by Mirrorsoft for the Commodore 64 in 1987. It was designed by Antony Crowther. Spectrum Holobyte published the game in North America in 1988, part of the company's International Series brand.
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