''Amnesia'' is a

text adventure '' Interactive fiction, often abbreviated IF, is software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives, either in the ...

written by

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel univers ...

author Thomas M. Disch, programmed by Kevin Bentley, and published by

Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted th ...

in 1986 for

IBM PC compatible IBM PC compatible computers are similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT, all from computer giant IBM, that are able to use the same software and expansion cards. Such computers were referred to as PC clones, IBM clones or IBM PC clones. ...

s (as a

self-booting disk A self-booting disk is a floppy disk for home or personal computers that loads directly into a standalone application when the system is turned on, bypassing the operating system. This was common, even standard, on some computers in the late 1970 ...

) and

Apple II The Apple II (stylized as ) is an 8-bit home computer and one of the world's first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products. It was designed primarily by Steve Wozniak; Jerry Manock developed the design of Apple II's foam-mol ...

. A

Commodore 64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit computing, 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in ...

version was released in 1987. Disch's ironic, rich writing style, is in distinct contrast to the functional or tongue-in-cheek tone of most text adventures. Over half of Disch's novel-length manuscript had to be cut from the published version due to the storage limitations 5¼"

floppy disk A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, or a diskette) is an obsolescent type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined wi ...

Gameplay

The game begins as the player's character awakens in a midtown

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the List of counties in New York, origin ...

hotel room with absolutely no memory. He has no clothes and no money, and does not even remember what he looks like. The character soon discovers he is engaged to a woman he cannot remember, a strange man is trying to kill him, and the state of

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by b ...

wants him for murder. From here, the player must unravel the events in his life that led him to this point. In addition to being a text adventure, the game simulates life in

. Disch's model covered every block and street corner south of 110th Street. A hard-copy map of the streets and subways of Manhattan is included in the packaging. Players move from place to place on foot, and have to reach destinations at the correct time of day to initiate plot developments. Stores open and close at the correct times, street lights turn on, and other aspects of

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

life are simulated. Almost 4000 separate Manhattan locations, including 650 streets, are part of the game.

Development

Programmer Kevin Bentley implemented the game using the King Edward Adventure game authoring system, which was developed by James Terry. The game was acquired and produced by

Don Daglow Don Daglow (born circa 1953) is an American video game designer, programmer, and producer. He is best known for being the creator of early games from several different genres, including pioneering simulation game ''Utopia'' for Intellivision in 1 ...

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 ...

'' described the game as being "too much like a novel", giving as example the need to answer the phone in the hotel room. The review also noted the main character would collapse after an unrealistically short amount of time if he didn't eat or sleep frequently. Charles Ardai called ''Amnesia'' "a brilliant, witty, and intriguing story", however, and stated that "the text is so rich and the story so interesting that one hardly notices that this is probably the least interactive piece of interactive fiction ever made". ''

Compute! ''Compute!'' (), often stylized as ''COMPUTE!'', was an American home computer magazine that was published from 1979 to 1994. Its origins can be traced to 1978 in Len Lindsay's ''PET Gazette'', one of the first magazines for the Commodore PET ...

'' stated that the combination of Disch's writing and Electronic Arts' software "makes ''Amnesia'' a text adventure well worth exploring".

Legacy

One of the last major text-based games published by a major games company other than Infocom, ''Amnesia'' is also the only all-text adventure ever published by EA. Disch wrote a

screenplay ''ScreenPlay'' is a television drama anthology series broadcast on BBC2 between 9 July 1986 and 27 October 1993. Background After single-play anthology series went off the air, the BBC introduced several showcases for made-for-television, fe ...

based on the game's characters and story line and it was optioned to one of the major

Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywoo ...

studios, but the film was never made.

References

External links

*
Link to Disch's full manuscript for ''Amnesia''
at ascii.textfiles.com
''Amnesia'' packaging and artwork for Apple IIC
with a link to Disch's original manuscript * {{DEFAULTSORT:Amnesia (Video Game) 1986 video games 1980s interactive fiction Apple II games Commodore 64 games Electronic Arts games Video games set in New York City Video games set in the United States Video games about amnesia Works by Thomas M. Disch Single-player video games