Leather Goddesses of Phobos

Did You Know?

• A sequel subtitled Gas Pump Girls Meet the Pulsating Inconvenience from Planet X! was published by Activision in 1992.
• In the 2015 film The Martian, Leather Goddesses of Phobos is referenced as being loaded on astronaut Beth Johanssen's laptop alongside Zork II.
• Sierra Online parodied the game as Space Quest X: Latex Babes of Estros in Space Quest IV.

Gameplay

At the start, the player chooses a gender, which determines the sidekick: a male player meets Trent, a burly but dim-witted man; a female player meets Tiffany, an attractive but somewhat ditzy woman. Gameplay differences exist between the two sexes. The game has 75 locations, including the catacombs maze, Mars, Venus, outer space, and a single-location Cleveland with one building and two exits.

Development

The title originated as a joke Steve Meretzky wrote on a chalkboard listing Infocom games in release. Joel Berez erased it, but the name persisted as a running joke. In 1985, Meretzky began developing it as a 1930s science fiction pulp story, which Marc Blank and other staff instantly accepted. Upper management, particularly CEO Al Vezza, was less enthused. After Activision acquired Infocom in 1986, president Jim Levy was excited and insisted the title not be changed. Marketing director Mike Dornbrook described the game as Hitchhiker's Guide with sex. Meretzky stated the title was conceived more than four years before release, cited pulpy space opera as inspiration, and noted that the lack of controversy over A Mind Forever Voyaging led him to write something with sex. The naughtiness levels were based on film ratings: tame, suggestive, and lewd corresponding to G, PG, and R.

Release

Instead of copy protection, the game included a scratch-and-sniff card with seven numbered scents, a 3-D comic book called The Adventures of Lane Mastodon with glasses, and a double-sided catacomb map. This packaging won a 1987 Codie award for Best Software Packaging.

Reception

Leather Goddesses of Phobos was Infocom's best-selling game in 1986 with 53,543 copies sold, over 50% more than Trinity. Total sales reached about 130,000 copies, three times as many as any other game after Activision's purchase. It was Infocom's last game to sell over 100,000 copies and its sixth best-selling overall. Macworld reviewed the Macintosh version as an excellent example of text-only interactive fiction, noting respect for female players and humor that punctures fantasy adventure pretensions, while criticizing the inability to scroll back. .Info gave the Commodore 64 version four stars out of five, calling it fun but less challenging than other standard-level Infocom games. Tom Clancy named it one of his favorite computer games in 1988.