''Borrowed Time'' is a interactive fiction game about a detective, who tries to rescue his kidnapped wife. The game was developed by Interplay and published by

Activision Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one ...

in 1985.

Mastertronic Mastertronic was originally a publisher and distributor of low-cost computer game software founded in 1983. Their first games were distributed in mid-1984. At its peak the label was one of the largest software publishers in the UK, achieved by ...

republished it as a budget title under the name ''Time to Die''.

Plot

The plot in the style of a detective story of the noir crime genre is set in the USA of the 1930s. The player takes a role of a private detective, Sam Harlow. His ex-wife Rita Sweeney has been kidnapped, and he tries to free her. In the process, he is pursued by gangsters who are after his life.

Gameplay

''Borrowed Time'' is a text adventure with a complementary graphical user interface. Control is via the keyboard, alternatively, many commands and objects can be selected from a graphical menu with a joystick or a mouse. Moving around is done in the same way - a selection window with cardinal directions is available. The player must interrogate suspects and collect evidence at the various locations in order to achieve the game goal. Some game actions have a time limit for problem-solving.

Development

''Borrowed Time'' was produced by Interplay for Activision and was part of a $100,000 contract that included a total of three adventure games.Rusel DeMaria, Johnny L. Wilson: ''High Score.'' McGraw-Hill/Osborne: Emeryville, California, 2004. Page 209. ISBN 0-07-223172-6 Interplay founder Fargo already had experience in the adventure genre: his first game was the adventure The Demon's Forge, released for Apple II in 1981. The parser used by Interplay was developed by Fargo and a collaborator, and at one stage of development had a dictionary of 250 nouns, 200 verbs, and could evaluate input with prepositions and indirect objects. The same engine had been used in the previous games Mindshadow and The Tracer Sanction. The writing and much of the game design were done by Subway Software, a company founded by game journalist Bill Kunkel specifically for ''Borrowed Time''. Fargo outsourced the writing because he felt that no one at Interplay could produce quality prose.

Reception

Info Info is shorthand for "information". It may also refer to: Computing * .info, a generic top-level domain * info:, a URI scheme for information assets with identifiers in public namespaces * info (Unix), a command used to view documentation produc ...

'' rated ''Borrowed Time'' four stars out of five, describing it as "a big step forward in the realm of 'interactive entertainment' ... a tonic to jaded adventurers", and praising the game's graphics, parser, and humor. ''

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 ...

'' wrote that "Activision has created a delightful game environment with the look and feel of those classic hardboiled detective movies and novels". '' Computer Gaming World''s Charles Ardai called ''Borrowed Time'' "a superbly cinematic graphic adventure" that was too brief and deserved a sequel. A German reviewer recognized the challenging storyline, the detailed graphics and the comfortable gameplay. He gave Borrowed Time 82 out of 100.Heinrich Lenhardt: ''Tatort Computer'', ''Happy Computer'' 4/1986, p.150f. (german)

References

External links

* * {{IFDB, id=a6s8n66vllgv3bdj 1980s interactive fiction 1985 video games Activision games Amiga games Apple II games Atari ST games Classic Mac OS games Commodore 64 games Detective video games Interplay Entertainment games Mastertronic games Single-player video games Subway Software games Video games developed in the United States Video games set in the 1930s Video games set in the United States