Abandoned Places: A Time for Heroes

Abandoned Places: A Time for Heroes is a 1992 Hungarian RPG game developed by ArtGame and published by International Computer Entertainment for Amiga and DOS platforms.

Abandoned Places: A Time for Heroes
Developer(s)ArtGame
Publisher(s)International Computer Entertainment
SeriesAbandoned Places 
Platform(s)Amiga
DOS 
Release
Genre(s)Role-playing video game 
Mode(s)Single-player 

Development

Abandoned Places was developed by the founders of Hungarian video game development company ArtGame, István Fábián and Ferenc Staengler, alongside witch musican György Dragon, who joined them in 1989. The game was inspired by Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and Dungeon Master tabletop role-playing games. Starting in spring 1990 the company pitched the game to several publishers, including Electronic Arts, but they were finalizing the publishing deal for a similiar game, Raven Software's Black Crypt just a week before, so they rejected the game. The game was finished and tested by January 1992, a month before its release.[1] The developers received little to no compensation for their work on the game, they were even banned from the game's Hungarian launch event.[2]

Plot and gameplay

The narrative sees a band of four heroes from the land of Kalynthia, to save their homeland from the clutches of the evil arch mage Bronagh.

During dungeon crawls the game switches to a 3D view and plays similar to Dungeon Master.

Reception
Reception
Review scores
PublicationScore
Amiga Computing93% (Amiga)[3]
Amiga Mania90% (Amiga)[4]
CU Amiga83% (Amiga)[5]
Amiga Action82% (Amiga)[6]
Amiga Power80% (Amiga)[7]
Amiga Format80% (Amiga)[8]
Amiga Joker75% (Amiga)[9]

Amiga Power gave the Amiga version of Abandoned Places an overall score of 80%, praising the size of the game world, and expressed that Abandoned Places' leverage over other similar RPGs is that it has extensive above-ground locations in addition to its subterranean dungeons, furthermore stating that "what you do above ground is every bit as important as your endeavours below." Amiga Power also praises Abandoned Places' level of difficulty, but criticises its "poor" graphics, calling its animations "lackluster" and almost '8-bit' looking in combat, expressing that "when so much effort has been put into every other aspect of something as huge as Abandoned Places, it seems a shame that it's so completely outgunned in such a very important area."[7]

References
  1. "Previews: Abandoned Places". Amiga Format. No. 30. Future Publishing. January 1992. p. 71.
  2. Beregi, Tamás (November 2010). "A számítógépes játékok aranykora" [The Golden Age of Computer Games]. In Judit Borus (ed.). Pixelhősök: A számítógépes játékok első ötven éve [Pixel Heroes: The First Fifty Years of Computer Games] (in Hungarian). Vince Kiadó. p. 300. ISBN 978-963-303-023-3.
  3. Evans, Darren (April 1992). "Gamer - Abandoned Places". Amiga Computing. No. 47. Europress Publications. pp. 12–13.
  4. Cotter-Cairns, Ashley (March 1992). "Abandoned Places: Why do you Hate Mondays?". Amiga Mania. MC Publications Ltd. pp. 46–48.
  5. Patterson, Mark (March 1992). "Screen Scene: Abandoned Places". CU Amiga. No. 25. EMAP.
  6. Simmons, Jason (March 1992). "Abandoned Places". Amiga Action. No. 30. Europress Interactive. pp. 68–69.
  7. Foster, Karl (March 1992). "Abandoned Places Review". Amiga Power. No. 11. Future Publishing. pp. 38–39.
  8. Webb, Trenton (February 1992). "Screenplay: Abandoned Places". Amiga Format. No. 31. Future Publishing. pp. 92–93.
  9. Nettelbeck, Joachim (December 1991). "Abandoned Places". Amiga Joker. Joker Verlag. p. 12.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.