The list of tried and true adventure games put on the market in the past thirty years seems almost endless. Every subject has been tagged, and there have been such an interesting group of protagonists. There have been numerous different user interfaces, ranging from the classic point and click mouse driven games, to the age-old parsers where the user got to enter in commands and hoped that the game could understand his wishes. For every classic adventure gamer who ever thought “This game is driving me nuts. I could do better than this,” the Adventure Construction Set by Electronic Arts, Incorporated is definitely the answer. This game was a novel idea when it was released in the late eighties and it is part of a great construction series. The game can have medieval themes, science fiction themes, fantasy themes, or futuristic programming. Regardless, the game will play out from the top down perspective and can feature elements of a role playing game. Whatever this game becomes is completely defined by the user.
This entire series began with the Pinball Construction Set, released in 1983, that allowed the gamers to build their own pinball table. From there, the makers branched out into numerous genre, including war games and this adventure game kit. The main draw of the game is the graphical editor and the in-game tool kits that can be used to add spy capabilities and other fun themes to a game of the user’s making. Of course, it does feature its own stand alone game called the Rivers of Light, which is based on the fables of Gilgamesh. (Land of Adventuria was another stand alone offering that came with the game, but was much smaller and less interesting than the one hundred and forty rooms in the Sumeric adventure.) While this offering of classical mythology makes for a nice little adventure game in itself, the point is to build your own and see your own creativity bear fruit in the form of a custom made game. Several fanmade games were chosen from many that were created using the Adventure Construction Set and were submitted in competition. There was a prize awarded for the best game in the categories of fantasy, science fiction and contemporary game. This is a great example of the broad scope and ability of this construction set.
Overall, this is a game limited only by the user’s creative streak. It has a great replay level, especially due to the fact that it has templates from so many different themes. This is a great play for those adventure gamers who have always wanted to program their own game in hopes of improving on the frustrating elements of the games they already own.
Written by:
~Shannon
