''Accolade's Comics'' (or ''Accolade Comics'' in the game) is an

adventure game An adventure game is a video game genre in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and/or Puzzle video game, puzzle-solving. The Video game genres, genre's focus on story allows it to draw ...

released in

1987 File:1987 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes after leaving the Port of Zeebrugge in Belgium, killing 193; Northwest Airlines Flight 255 crashes after takeoff from Detroit Metropolitan Airport, k ...

. Published by

Accolade The accolade (also known as dubbing or adoubement) ( la, benedictio militis) was the central act in the rite of passage ceremonies conferring knighthood in the Middle Ages. From about 1852, the term ''accolade'' was used much more generally to ...

and developed by

Distinctive Software Distinctive Software Inc. (''DSI'') was a Canadian video game developer established in Burnaby, British Columbia, by Don Mattrick and Jeff Sember after their success with the game ''Evolution''. Mattrick (age 17) and Jeff Sember approached Sydney ...

, the game intersperses arcade-style games into its plot.

Production history

This game was created by the co-founders of the Canadian firm Distinctive Software, Don Mattrick and

Jeff Sember Jeff is a masculine name, often a short form (hypocorism) of the English given name Jefferson or Jeffrey, which comes from a medieval variant of Geoffrey. Music * DJ Jazzy Jeff, American DJ/turntablist record producer Jeffrey Allen Townes * ...

, who sold it to Accolade.

Game play

The protagonist of the game is wisecracking secret agent Steve Keene. In the first scene, Keene is summoned to headquarters by his chief, who sends him on one of two missions. Game play involves multiple adventures in two arenas: panels of a comic book page where dialogue and actions are selected for Steve that may or may not determine what will happen on the next panel (similar to the Choose Your Own Adventure book format); and traditional scrolling action boards where Steve is a moving character doing the physical task necessary (e.g. swimming, jumping, shooting) to advance through the stage. Steve can lose a life inside the comic page portions as well as the motion portions. If this happens, the game "rewinds" a few panels, forcing the player to re-do these panels until the crisis point is reached again.

Reception

In the June 1987 edition of ''Questbusters'', Shay Addams admired the "dynamic artwork" with "sophisticated spot animation" that was "presented in an inventive manner". But he found the internal arcade mini-games were "way too slow to have any fun." He concluded by calling ''Comics'' "lightweight entertainment that you may want to check out just to see the innovative illustration scheme. But don't plan on completing it unless you love playing rather flimsy videogames. In the June-July 1987 edition of ''

Computer Gaming World ''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American computer game magazine published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 1993. It expanded greatly through ...

'', Jasper Sylvester admired the game's satirical tone and writing, but criticized the repetitive arcade sequences. In the November 1987 edition of '' Compute!'', Robert Bixby thought that ''Comics'' represented "the new wave in adventure software ..brightly lit and humorous, and sophisticated enough to poke fun at itself and its genre." Sylvester noted that the graphics-intensive program required a "a lot of disk swapping", and that load times were slow. He criticized the program for forcing the player to re-do some of the storyline each time the character died. However, these issues were minor, and Bixby concluded "With features that will appeal to children and adults, videogame addicts, and adventure aficionados, ''Comics'' is a winner from beginning to end. Or as close to the end as I was able to get after several days of trying. I'm still trying."

References

External links

*{{lemon64 game, id=41, name=Accolade's Comics 1987 video games Accolade (company) games Apple II games Commodore 64 games Video games developed in Canada Distinctive Software games