Breakers (1986 video game)
A telepathic collision threatens a planet in this text adventure.
Breakers is a science fiction interactive fiction video game published in 1986 by Synapse Software, then a division of Broderbund. It was the final entry in Broderbund's Electronic Novels series and was released for the Apple II, Atari ST, Commodore 64, and MS-DOS. The game was not a commercial success, and critics noted that its parser had not kept pace with other developers.
Quick Facts
- Developer
- Synapse Software
- Publisher
- Broderbund
- Writer
- Rodney Smith
- Programmer
- Joe Vierra, Cathryn Mataga
- Release
- 1986
- Platforms
- Apple II
- Atari ST
- Commodore 64
- MS-DOS
- Engine
- BTZ
- Genre
- Interactive fiction
Facts from the source article.
Plot
The planet Borg faces destruction from a telepathic collision with a mysterious twin planet, a threat unprovable by science. Its inhabitants, the Lau, can only survive if one performs a ritual requiring several artifacts called elements. Seven Lau tasked with the ritual are attacked on Borg's surface by Breakers, intergalactic smugglers operating from an orbiting space station run by the United Mining Combine. The Gaks, the Combine's security forces, mistake the surviving Lau for a Breaker and confine them to a bar, where other Breakers also accept them as one of their own. The player must navigate the station's social network, take sides in a smuggler dispute, and uncover drug and human trafficking, while investigating why the Combine secretly maintains the station despite Borg's depleted resources. The goal is to recover the ritual elements, return to Borg, and perform the ritual.
Development
Synapse Software, a successful independent developer, faced financial trouble in 1984 and was acquired by Broderbund. Broderbund used Synapse to produce games for the Bookware trend, a synthesis of analog books and computer games that peaked between 1984 and 1986 with titles such as Amnesia, Dragonriders of Pern, and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. By 1986 the trend was subsiding, and Broderbund no longer marketed Breakers as an electronic novel. Unlike other literary text adventures, Breakers was not based on a well-known author's work but on a 40-page novella by Rodney Smith, an acquaintance of Synapse employees. A booklet containing the novella was included with the game, serving as an introduction and as copy protection: players were periodically asked for a specific word from the novella. Breakers used the BTZ (Better Than Zork) engine, developed in 1982 by Synapse programmers Cathryn Mataga and Steve Hales, which understood about 1200 words. By 1986, Infocom had improved its parser to over 2100 words, while Synapse had not updated BTZ, leaving it outmoded. Poor sales led Broderbund to exit the bookware genre and close Synapse, leaving several unpublished games.
Reception
Computist magazine described the game's labyrinthine plot as very puzzling and difficult at the opening, but found it enjoyable due to the advanced parser, communicative NPCs, and a writing style clearer than previous games, giving it an average rating of 7 out of 10. In Questbusters, Shay Adams praised the story and Rodney Smith's humorous writing as a successful mix of object and communication puzzles, but criticized the BTZ parser for requiring precise inputs without improvement over two years, and called the frequent copy protection queries annoying. Neil Randall, an English professor at the University of Waterloo, analyzed the literary content and viewed the 40-page printed introduction as an allusive, thought-provoking invitation to science fiction myth formation that gave immersive insight into a fictional people's myths. Graham Nelson, inventor of the Inform programming language, called Breakers a story about identity work and said its NPC communication technique resembled interrogations.
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