Spaceship Warlock

Last updated
Spaceship Warlock
SpaceshipWarlock cover.jpg
Developer(s) Mike Saenz, Joe Sparks
Publisher(s) Reactor, Inc.
Engine MacroMind Director
Platform(s) Macintosh, Windows
Release1991 (Mac), 1994 (Windows)
Genre(s) Adventure game
Mode(s) Single-player

Spaceship Warlock is an adventure game created by Mike Saenz and Joe Sparks. The game was released in 1991 for the Macintosh and in 1994 for Windows.

Contents

The game was a first person adventure set in a sci-fi future. The player explores and interacts the game universe by clicking. Limited manipulation of objects is needed and there are several optional locations and things the player can explore or discover besides following the linear narrative. Dialogues involve typing a topic to a character such as "whiskey", "Terra" or "pirates". Some arcade sequences enrich the gameplay.

Spaceship Warlock was one of the earliest and best-known multimedia CD-ROM games to combine all original animation, story, music, and game play. The game menu refers to itself as a movie. Graphically ahead of its time and acquired a cult following. Spaceship Warlock is widely considered a pioneering work, and it received many awards and honors, including the "Game of the Year" award from Macworld magazine.

Some of the game's outer space scenes are reminiscent of the art of Chesley Bonestell.

Plot

The game is set after the end of the "Terran Empire". Terra has lost a millennial war against the Kroll, who then used a planetary technology to move Terra out of its orbit and move the planet to an unknown location deep in Kroll space. Humans now have no homeworld and some have ended up as space pirates.

The game features an unnamed protagonist starting in a dark alley in Stambul city. No details are given about the player character other that he is a "Terrie" (human). At first, the player can explore some streets of Stambul City but there not much to do as the player character has no money. However, after incapacitating an alien mugger, he is awarded several thousand credits by the police force, with which he can buy a ticket out of Stambul.

The player can afford a ticket to the luxurious cruise spaceship Belshazzar . As the player interacts with "Captain Starbird" and his daughter "Stella" the ship is attacked by the "Spaceship Warlock". The pirates led by Captain Hammer, an eyepatch-wearing space pirate and revolutionary leader (aesthetically a blatant nod to Nick Fury) board the ship and apprehend the passengers. In the brig, Hammer invites the player to his crew.

The player then goes on to battle and ultimately overthrow the evil Kroll empire and restore freedom to the galaxy.

Lawsuit

The game's creators were involved in a legal dispute over the copyright:

Two leading multimedia developers, Michael Saenz and Joe Sparks, have been in court since the fall of 1993 in a dispute about the ownership of the copyright in their successful game, Spaceship Warlock. The dispute focuses on whether Joe was an employee or independent contractor of Reactor, Inc. (Mike Saenz's company) when they developed the game. If Joe is right in claiming that he was an independent contractor, he is co-owner of the copyright and has a right to half of the profits from the game. These profits could be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. [1]

Reception

Spaceship Warlock was a commercial success on the Mac. [2] [3] Inside Mac Games reported in April 1993, "Warlock has sold over 20,000 copies and is currently the best-selling CD-ROM title on the Macintosh." [3]

Computer Gaming World in 1992 reported that the game's "interactive movie experience is close enough that we hear credible reports of Macintosh users buying CD-ROM players just to be able to run Warlock". The magazine praised the game's graphics and sound, stating that "there is a good reason why [it] is among the top-selling CD-ROM titles of any genre". While noting the long load times and "spongy, wobbly" combat interface, it wrote that "The richly rendered scenes, objects and character that one searches, opens, pilots, converses with or fights against ... can convey the sensation of another reality". [2] In 1993 the magazine called it "still one of the best" Macintosh CD-ROM products. [4]

Related Research Articles

<i>Might and Magic</i> Video game series

Might and Magic is a series of role-playing video games from New World Computing, which in 1996 became a subsidiary of The 3DO Company. The original Might and Magic series ended with the closure of the 3DO Company. The rights to the Might and Magic name were purchased for US$1.3 million by Ubisoft, who "rebooted" the franchise with a new series with no apparent connection to the previous continuity, starting with the games Heroes of Might and Magic V and Dark Messiah of Might and Magic.

<i>Escape Velocity</i> (video game) 1996 video game

Escape Velocity is a single-player role-playing space trading and combat video game series first introduced in 1996 by Ambrosia Software for the Apple Macintosh. Two other similar games based on the original, EV Override and EV Nova, followed in 1998 and 2002 respectively, the latter of which is also available on Microsoft Windows. In addition there is a trading card game available based on the storyline of the EV Nova universe.

<i>Star Trek: 25th Anniversary</i> (computer game) 1992 video game

Star Trek: 25th Anniversary is an adventure video game developed and published by Interplay Productions in 1992, based on the Star Trek universe. The game chronicles various missions of James T. Kirk and his crew of the USS Enterprise. Its 1993 sequel, Star Trek: Judgment Rites, continues and concludes this two-game series, which together may be seen as the final two years of the USS Enterprise's five-year mission.

<i>Myst</i> 1993 video game

Myst is a graphic adventure/puzzle video game designed by the Miller brothers, Robyn and Rand. It was developed by Cyan, Inc., published by Broderbund, and initially released for the Macintosh in 1993. In the game, the player's character travels via a special book to the island of Myst. From there, solving puzzles allows the player to travel to four other worlds which reveal the backstory of the game's characters, one of which the player must eventually choose to aid.

<i>The Lost Treasures of Infocom</i> 1991 video game

The Lost Treasures of Infocom is a 1991 compilation of 20 previously-released interactive fiction games developed by Infocom. It was published by Activision for MS-DOS, Macintosh, Amiga, and Apple IIGS versions. It was later re-released on CD-ROM, and in 2012 on iOS.

<i>Space Ace</i> LaserDisc based videogame

Space Ace is a LaserDisc video game produced by Bluth Group, Cinematronics and Advanced Microcomputer Systems. It was unveiled in October 1983, just four months after the Dragon's Lair game, followed by a limited release in December 1983 and then a wide release in Spring 1984. Like its predecessor, it featured film-quality animation played back from a LaserDisc.

<i>Descent II</i> 1996 video game

Descent II is a 1996 first-person shooter game developed by Parallax Software and first published for DOS by Interplay Productions. For the PlayStation, it is known as Descent Maximum. It is the second installment in the Descent video game series and the sequel to Descent. The base of the gameplay remaining the same, the player controls a spaceship from the pilot's perspective and must navigate extrasolar underground mines to locate and destroy their reactors and escape being caught in their self-destructions, while engaging and surviving infected robots, which will attempt to destroy the ship. Unlike other first-person shooters, its six-degrees-of-freedom scheme allows the player to move and rotate in any three-dimensional space and direction.

<i>The Daedalus Encounter</i> 1995 video game

The Daedalus Encounter is a 1995 interactive movie puzzle adventure game developed by Mechadeus and published by Virgin Interactive for Windows. The game was ported to the 3DO by Lifelike Productions and published by Panasonic. The premise of the game is that there are three space marines who have fought as part of an interstellar war. One of them, Casey, has been brought back to life by his partners after a space accident and he is now a brain grafted in a life-support system. In order to save themselves, the three characters and the player solve all sorts of puzzles.

<i>Star Wars: X-Wing</i> (video game) 1993 video game

Star Wars: X-Wing is a space simulation video game, the first of the X-Wing combat flight simulation games series. The player's character flies starfighters, including the eponymous X-wing, for the Rebel Alliance as part of a narrative that precedes and parallels the events of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.

Troubled Souls is a puzzle game developed by Randy Reddig and released by Varcon Systems, Inc. on September 1, 1994, for the Macintosh. It was distributed by MacSoft. Troubled Souls is compatible with System Software 6 and later.

Inside Mac Games (IMG) started in 1993 as an electronic magazine about Apple Macintosh computer gaming distributed by floppy disk, eventually becoming a website.

<i>Pax Imperia</i> 1992 video game

Pax Imperia is a 4X game for the Apple Macintosh, released in 1992. The game won praise for its complex gameplay, real-time mode and ability for up to 16 players to join a single game using AppleTalk.

<i>Marathon</i> (video game) 1994 video game

Marathon is a first-person shooter video game developed and published by Bungie, and released in December 1994 for the Apple Macintosh. The game takes place several centuries into the future in outer space and sets the player as a security officer attempting to stop an alien invasion aboard a colony ship named the Marathon.

<i>TaskMaker</i> 1989 video game

TaskMaker is a role-playing video game for the Macintosh developed by American software company Storm Impact. Originally published in 1989 by XOR Corporation, it was upgraded and re-released as shareware in 1993 by Storm Impact, featuring color graphics and compatibility with newer versions of the classic Mac OS. The player controls a protagonist who is under the mentorship of the eponymous TaskMaker, a ruler who assigns ten different quests. Completing these quests involves solving various gameplay puzzles, along with battling monsters, and the final task involves a battle against the TaskMaker himself. TaskMaker received mixed reception regarding its overall storyline and gameplay.

Mac gaming refers to the use of video games on Macintosh personal computers. In the 1990s, Apple computers did not attract the same level of video game development as Microsoft Windows computers due to the high popularity of Microsoft Windows and, for 3D gaming, Microsoft's DirectX technology. In recent years, the introduction of Mac OS X and support for Intel processors has eased porting of many games, including 3D games through use of OpenGL and more recently Apple's own Metal API. Virtualization technology and Boot Camp also permit the use of Windows and its games on Macintosh computers. Today, a growing number of popular games run natively on macOS, though as of early 2019, a majority still require the use of Microsoft Windows.

<i>Wing Commander: Privateer</i> 1993 video game

Wing Commander: Privateer is an adventure space trading and combat simulator computer game released by Origin Systems in September 1993. Privateer and its storyline is part of the Wing Commander series. The player takes the role of Grayson Burrows, a "privateer" who travels through the Gemini Sector, one of many sectors in the Wing Commander universe. Unlike Wing Commander, the player is no longer a navy pilot, but a freelancer who can choose to be a pirate, a merchant, a mercenary or any of the above in some combination. The player may follow the built-in plot but is free to adventure on his own, even after the plot has been completed.

Mike Saenz is an American comic book artist and software designer. He is the creator of Shatter, as well as an early adult video game, MacPlaymate. Saenz was also the founder of Reactor Inc., a defunct interactive game company.

<i>Star Wars: TIE Fighter</i> 1994 video game

Star Wars: TIE Fighter is a 1994 Star Wars space flight simulator and space combat video game, a sequel in the Star Wars: X-Wing series. It places the player in the role of an Imperial starfighter pilot during events that occur between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.

<i>Virtual Murder</i> (video game series) Mystery-adventure video game series

Virtual Murder is a four-part murder mystery adventure video game series developed by Creative Multimedia Corporation. The games were released in 1993 and 1994 for Macintosh and Windows PCs.

<i>F/A-18 Hornet 3.0</i> 1997 combat flight simulator video game

F/A-18 Hornet 3.0 is a video game developed and published by Graphic Simulations for the Macintosh and Windows in 1997.

References

  1. ↑ IP Law Primer (1994)
  2. 1 2 Reveaux, Tony (August 1992). "Reactor's "Spaceship Warlock"". Computer Gaming World. No. 97. pp. 38–39. Retrieved 3 July 2014.
  3. 1 2 http://discmaster.textfiles.com/view/2769/TricksOfTheMacGameProgrammingGurus.iso/Information/Inside%20Mac%20Games/9304%20(April%201993)/IMG%E2%84%A2%20April%201993/IMG%E2%84%A2%20April%201993.rsrc/bin.rsrc_styl_135.rtf
  4. ↑ "Forging Ahead or Fit to be Smashed?". Computer Gaming World. April 1993. p. 24. Retrieved 6 July 2014.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.