''Altered Destiny'' is a

graphic 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 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 ...

in 1990 for

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...

compatible operating systems and in 1991 for

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and significantly improved graphi ...

. The game was designed by

Michael Berlyn Michael Berlyn (born 1949) is an American video game designer and writer. He is best known as an implementer at Infocom, part of the text adventure game design team. Brainwave Creations was a small game programming company started by Michael Ber ...

and it uses a

text parser {{Refimprove, date=August 2007 In adventure games, a text parser takes typed input (a command) from the player and simplifies it to something the game can understand. Usually, words with the same meaning are turned into the same word (e.g. "take" a ...

interface Interface or interfacing may refer to: Academic journals * ''Interface'' (journal), by the Electrochemical Society * ''Interface, Journal of Applied Linguistics'', now merged with ''ITL International Journal of Applied Linguistics'' * '' Inte ...

. It is the second adventure game from Accolade and it uses the same

engine An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power gen ...

as the first one, '' Les Manley in: Search for the King''.

Plot

The player assumes the role of a normal middle-class man named P.J. Barrett. After a mixup in the local repair shop, he accidentally brings home a TV set that belongs to a barbarian warrior. When he switches on the TV he is unexpectedly sucked through the screen into the planet Daltere where he finds out that an alien named Helmar has stolen "the jewel of light" and that this world is in danger. Thus he is forced to take on a mission to free it from tyranny and to save the galaxy.

Reception

Scorpia 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 ...

'' wrote that ''Altered Destiny'' "leaves me with mixed feelings". She stated that the graphics were merely "okay" and the

pathing Pathfinding or pathing is the plotting, by a computer application, of the shortest route between two points. It is a more practical variant on solving mazes. This field of research is based heavily on Dijkstra's algorithm for finding the sh ...

was "ridiculous and frustrating", but concluded that it was "still a game worth playing" because of its difficulty level, "bizarre and alien" setting, "tough but fair" puzzles, and humor. Allgame described the game as similar to King's Quest and Space Quest but without the charm.

References

External links

*
''Altered Destiny''
at Hall of Light Amiga database * {{Internet Archive game, msdos_Altered_Destiny_1990 1990 video games Accolade (company) games Adventure games Amiga games DOS games Video games developed in the United States