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Wasteland (computer game)
Encyclopedia
Wasteland is a post-apocalyptic computer role-playing game first released in 1988. The game was designed by Alan Pavlish, Brian Fargo
, Michael A. Stackpole
and Ken St. Andre
, programmed by Pavlish, and produced by David Albert for Interplay Productions, and published by Electronic Arts
.
between the United States
and the Soviet Union
. Parts of Earth
have been turned into a "wasteland" where survival is the paramount objective. Players control a party of Desert Rangers, a remnant of the United States Army
based in the deserts of the Southwestern U.S. that survived the nuclear holocaust, and are assigned to investigate a series of disturbances in the desert
. The party begins with four characters, and through the course of the game can hold as many as seven characters by recruiting certain citizens and creatures of the wasteland to the player's cause. Throughout the game, the player explores the remaining enclaves of human civilization, including a post-apocalyptic Las Vegas
.
and Mercenaries, Spies and Private Eyes
created by St. Andre and Stackpole. Characters in Wasteland consequently have various statistics
(strength
, intelligence
and luck
among others) that allow them to use different skills and weapon
s. Experience is gained through battle and through use of skills. The game would generally let players advance with a variety of tactics: to get through a locked gate, a player could use his Picklock skill, his Climb skill, or his Strength attribute; or he could force the gate with a crowbar - or a LAW rocket
.
Wasteland was one of the first RPGs in which all the characters in the party were not mere puppets for the player to control. The initial band of Desert Rangers encountered a number of NPCs
as the game progressed who could be recruited into the party. Unlike those of other computer RPGs of the time, these NPCs might temporarily refuse to give up an item or perform an action if ordered to do so.
The game was also one of the first games featuring a persistent world
. Changes to the game world were stored and kept. Returning to areas later in the game, one would find them in the state one left them in, instead of being reset to their original state, as was common for games of the time. Since hardrives were still rare in homecomputers in 1988, this meant the original game discs had to be copied first, as the manual instructed one to do.
One of the other features of this game was the inclusion of a printed collection of paragraphs which the game would instruct the player to read at the appropriate times. These paragraphs described encounters and conversations, contained clues, and added to the overall texture of the game. Such paragraph books were a common feature of computer role-playing games of the period. Because programming space was at a premium, it saved on resources to have most of the game's story printed out in a separate manual rather than store it within the game's code itself. The paragraph books also served as a rudimentary form of copy protection
, as someone playing a copied version of the game would miss out on much of the story as well as clues necessary to progress. Additionally, the paragraphs included a dummy story line about a mission to Mars
intended to mislead those who read the paragraphs when not instructed to, and a false set of passwords that would trip up cheaters with results that ranged from character sex changes to detonating a bomb.
The game was also known for such combat prose as "Rabbit is reduced to a thin red paste" and "Thug explodes like a blood sausage", which prompted an unofficial PG-13 sticker on the game packaging in the United States
. Also, the video game Fallout: New Vegas pays homage to these references with a Perk called Them's Good Eatin', which causes some slain enemies to drop consumable items called Thin Red Paste or Blood Sausages.
and ported to the Commodore 64
and IBM platforms in 1988 - it is often (and erroneously) listed as being published in 1987, because that year appears on the title screen of the Apple version. Wasteland was rereleased as part of Interplay's 10 Year Anthology: Classic Collection in 1995, and also included in the 1998 Ultimate RPG Archives through Interplay's DragonPlay label. These later bundled releases were missing the original setup program, which allowed the game's maps to be reset, while retaining your original team of rangers. Jeremy Reaban wrote an unofficial (and unsupported) program that emulated this functionality. http://wasteland.rockdud.net/wlreset.html While all versions were nearly identical in terms of gameplay, the EGA PC port had upgraded graphics, although the C64 boasted the best sound. The IBM version differed by having an additional skill called "Combat Shooting" which could be bought only when a character was first created.
Magazine awarded it the Adventure Game of the Year award in 1988, and eight years later in 1996, it named Wasteland the #9 computer game of all time. In its review, it cited "its ease of play, richness of plot, problem solving requirements, skill and task system, and graphic display" as elements of its excellence. Wasteland was named #24 on IGN
's 2000 "Top 25 PC Games of All Time" list.
Wasteland was followed in 1990 by a less-successful intended sequel, Fountain of Dreams
, set in post-war Florida
. Electronic Arts got cold feet at the last moment, and did not advertise it as a sequel to Wasteland; in fact, none of the creative cast from Wasteland worked on Fountain of Dreams. Interplay has described its game Fallout
as the spiritual successor to Wasteland (as evidenced by the similar setting and that an NPC
in Fallout 2
frequently recites combat messages from Wasteland).
Interplay also worked on a game called Meantime
for a while, which was based on the Wasteland "game engine
" but was not a continuation of the story. Coding of Meantime was nearly finished and a beta version was produced, but full production of the game was canceled when the 8-bit computer game market went into decline.
In 2003, InXile
(founded by Wasteland's producer, Brian Fargo
) acquired the rights to Wasteland from EA http://wasteland.rockdud.net/wasteland.html.
On June 21, 2007, Brian Fargo said, "I am indeed looking into bringing back the game that spawned the Fallout series. Stay tuned...." in an interview with fan site Duck and Cover.
On November 3, 2007, Duck and Cover also reported on possible concept images from Wasteland 2 displayed in the main header of the Inxile Entertainment website.
Brian Fargo
Brian Fargo is an American video game designer, developer, producer and executive probably best known for his company Interplay Entertainment.-Career Overview:...
, Michael A. Stackpole
Michael A. Stackpole
Michael A. Stackpole is a science fiction and fantasy author best known for his Star Wars and Battletech books. He was born in Wausau, Wisconsin, but raised in Vermont...
and Ken St. Andre
Ken St. Andre
Kenneth Eugene St. Andre is a retired public librarian, fantasy author, and game designer, best known for his work with Tunnels & Trolls. He has been an active member of The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America since 1989.-General information:St. Andre was born in Ogden, Utah. He lives...
, programmed by Pavlish, and produced by David Albert for Interplay Productions, and published by Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts, Inc. is a major American developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers...
.
Overview
The game is set in the middle of the 21st century, following a nuclear warNuclear warfare
Nuclear warfare, or atomic warfare, is a military conflict or political strategy in which nuclear weaponry is detonated on an opponent. Compared to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare can be vastly more destructive in range and extent of damage...
between the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. Parts of Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
have been turned into a "wasteland" where survival is the paramount objective. Players control a party of Desert Rangers, a remnant of the United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
based in the deserts of the Southwestern U.S. that survived the nuclear holocaust, and are assigned to investigate a series of disturbances in the desert
Desert
A desert is a landscape or region that receives an extremely low amount of precipitation, less than enough to support growth of most plants. Most deserts have an average annual precipitation of less than...
. The party begins with four characters, and through the course of the game can hold as many as seven characters by recruiting certain citizens and creatures of the wasteland to the player's cause. Throughout the game, the player explores the remaining enclaves of human civilization, including a post-apocalyptic Las Vegas
Las Vegas, Nevada
Las Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and is also the county seat of Clark County, Nevada. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, and fine dining. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, and is famous...
.
Gameplay
The game mechanics were based directly on those used in the role-playing games Tunnels and TrollsTunnels and Trolls
Tunnels & Trolls is a fantasy role-playing game designed by Ken St. Andre and first published in 1975 by Flying Buffalo. The second modern role-playing game published, it was written by Ken St...
and Mercenaries, Spies and Private Eyes
Mercenaries, Spies and Private Eyes
Mercenaries, Spies and Private Eyes is a role-playing game designed and written by Michael A. Stackpole and first published in April 1983 by Blade, a division of Flying Buffalo, Inc. A second edition was later published by Sleuth Publications, but Flying Buffalo continues to distribute the game...
created by St. Andre and Stackpole. Characters in Wasteland consequently have various statistics
Statistic (role-playing games)
A statistic in role-playing games is a piece of data which represents a particular aspect of a fictional character. That piece of data is usually a integer or, in some cases, a set of dice....
(strength
Physical strength
Physical strength is the ability of a person or animal to exert force on physical objects using muscles. Increasing physical strength is the goal of strength training.-Overview:...
, intelligence
Intelligence
Intelligence has been defined in different ways, including the abilities for abstract thought, understanding, communication, reasoning, learning, planning, emotional intelligence and problem solving....
and luck
Luck
Luck or fortuity is good fortune which occurs beyond one's control, without regard to one's will, intention, or desired result. There are at least two senses people usually mean when they use the term, the prescriptive sense and the descriptive sense...
among others) that allow them to use different skills and weapon
Weapon
A weapon, arm, or armament is a tool or instrument used with the aim of causing damage or harm to living beings or artificial structures or systems...
s. Experience is gained through battle and through use of skills. The game would generally let players advance with a variety of tactics: to get through a locked gate, a player could use his Picklock skill, his Climb skill, or his Strength attribute; or he could force the gate with a crowbar - or a LAW rocket
M72 LAW
The M72 LAW is a portable one-shot 66 mm unguided anti-tank weapon, designed in the United States by Paul V. Choate, Charles B. Weeks, and Frank A. Spinale et al...
.
Wasteland was one of the first RPGs in which all the characters in the party were not mere puppets for the player to control. The initial band of Desert Rangers encountered a number of NPCs
Non-player character
A non-player character , sometimes known as a non-person character or non-playable character, in a game is any fictional character not controlled by a player. In electronic games, this usually means a character controlled by the computer through artificial intelligence...
as the game progressed who could be recruited into the party. Unlike those of other computer RPGs of the time, these NPCs might temporarily refuse to give up an item or perform an action if ordered to do so.
The game was also one of the first games featuring a persistent world
Persistent world
A persistent world is a virtual world that continues to exist even after a user exits the world and that user-made changes to its state are, to some extent, permanent...
. Changes to the game world were stored and kept. Returning to areas later in the game, one would find them in the state one left them in, instead of being reset to their original state, as was common for games of the time. Since hardrives were still rare in homecomputers in 1988, this meant the original game discs had to be copied first, as the manual instructed one to do.
Copy protection
Copy protection, also known as content protection, copy obstruction, copy prevention and copy restriction, refer to techniques used for preventing the reproduction of software, films, music, and other media, usually for copyright reasons.- Terminology :Media corporations have always used the term...
, as someone playing a copied version of the game would miss out on much of the story as well as clues necessary to progress. Additionally, the paragraphs included a dummy story line about a mission to Mars
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...
intended to mislead those who read the paragraphs when not instructed to, and a false set of passwords that would trip up cheaters with results that ranged from character sex changes to detonating a bomb.
The game was also known for such combat prose as "Rabbit is reduced to a thin red paste" and "Thug explodes like a blood sausage", which prompted an unofficial PG-13 sticker on the game packaging in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Also, the video game Fallout: New Vegas pays homage to these references with a Perk called Them's Good Eatin', which causes some slain enemies to drop consumable items called Thin Red Paste or Blood Sausages.
Platforms
Wasteland was first distributed for the Apple IIApple II
The Apple II is an 8-bit home computer, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primarily by Steve Wozniak, manufactured by Apple Computer and introduced in 1977...
and ported to the Commodore 64
Commodore 64
The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...
and IBM platforms in 1988 - it is often (and erroneously) listed as being published in 1987, because that year appears on the title screen of the Apple version. Wasteland was rereleased as part of Interplay's 10 Year Anthology: Classic Collection in 1995, and also included in the 1998 Ultimate RPG Archives through Interplay's DragonPlay label. These later bundled releases were missing the original setup program, which allowed the game's maps to be reset, while retaining your original team of rangers. Jeremy Reaban wrote an unofficial (and unsupported) program that emulated this functionality. http://wasteland.rockdud.net/wlreset.html While all versions were nearly identical in terms of gameplay, the EGA PC port had upgraded graphics, although the C64 boasted the best sound. The IBM version differed by having an additional skill called "Combat Shooting" which could be bought only when a character was first created.
Legacy
Wasteland was a successful game, and has been included on numerous "best game" and "hall of fame" lists. Computer Gaming WorldComputer Gaming World
Computer Gaming World was a computer game magazine founded in 1981 by Russell Sipe as a bimonthly publication. Early issues were typically 40-50 pages in length, written in a newsletter style, including submissions by game designers such as Joel Billings , Dan Bunten , and Chris Crawford...
Magazine awarded it the Adventure Game of the Year award in 1988, and eight years later in 1996, it named Wasteland the #9 computer game of all time. In its review, it cited "its ease of play, richness of plot, problem solving requirements, skill and task system, and graphic display" as elements of its excellence. Wasteland was named #24 on IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
's 2000 "Top 25 PC Games of All Time" list.
Wasteland was followed in 1990 by a less-successful intended sequel, Fountain of Dreams
Fountain of Dreams
Fountain of Dreams is a 1990 role-playing video game developed and published by Electronic Arts. It was originally intended as a follow-up to Wasteland, but neither Interplay nor any of the creative team that created Wasteland worked on it, the game engine is similar but actually created from a...
, set in post-war Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
. Electronic Arts got cold feet at the last moment, and did not advertise it as a sequel to Wasteland; in fact, none of the creative cast from Wasteland worked on Fountain of Dreams. Interplay has described its game Fallout
Fallout (computer game)
Fallout is a computer role-playing game produced by Tim Cain, developed and published by Interplay in 1997. The game has a post-apocalyptic and retro-futuristic setting in the mid-22nd century, featuring an alternate history which deviates some time after World War II, where technology, politics...
as the spiritual successor to Wasteland (as evidenced by the similar setting and that an NPC
Non-player character
A non-player character , sometimes known as a non-person character or non-playable character, in a game is any fictional character not controlled by a player. In electronic games, this usually means a character controlled by the computer through artificial intelligence...
in Fallout 2
Fallout 2
Fallout 2 is a computer role-playing game developed by Black Isle Studios and published by Interplay in 1998. The game's story takes place in 2241, 80 years after the events of Fallout...
frequently recites combat messages from Wasteland).
Interplay also worked on a game called Meantime
Meantime (video game)
Meantime is a canceled follow-up to 1988's Wasteland, produced by Interplay, using the same engine as Wasteland. A role-playing game originally intended for Apple II , Brian Fargo halted development for this platform, in part due to the falling 8-bit computer market...
for a while, which was based on the Wasteland "game engine
Game engine
A game engine is a system designed for the creation and development of video games. There are many game engines that are designed to work on video game consoles and personal computers...
" but was not a continuation of the story. Coding of Meantime was nearly finished and a beta version was produced, but full production of the game was canceled when the 8-bit computer game market went into decline.
In 2003, InXile
InXile Entertainment
inXile Entertainment is a video game developer formed in late 2002 by Brian Fargo, a founder of Interplay Productions...
(founded by Wasteland's producer, Brian Fargo
Brian Fargo
Brian Fargo is an American video game designer, developer, producer and executive probably best known for his company Interplay Entertainment.-Career Overview:...
) acquired the rights to Wasteland from EA http://wasteland.rockdud.net/wasteland.html.
On June 21, 2007, Brian Fargo said, "I am indeed looking into bringing back the game that spawned the Fallout series. Stay tuned...." in an interview with fan site Duck and Cover.
On November 3, 2007, Duck and Cover also reported on possible concept images from Wasteland 2 displayed in the main header of the Inxile Entertainment website.