Commodore Free 7/Commodore_Free_Issue_07_2007_Commodore_Computer_Club.d64/t.telarium sw

Text File | 2023-02-26 | 6KB | 185 lines

uTelarium forgotten software warehouse
By John Ingram

I have finally completed my
recollection of eight of the greatest
adventures from the greatest adventure
publisher this side of Infocom.
(Shadowkeep, Below the Root, Dragon-
world, Perry Mason & the Mander in
Murder, Fahrenheit 451, Amazon, Nine
Princes in Amber & Rendezvous with
Rama.)

Even amongst adventure gamers, Telarium
is barely known. This is a crime of
huge proportions & needs to be
rectified.

These games are celebrating their 21st
birthday (more or less) & in this
world of emulation really need to be
played by more people. When I think
of all the adulation Infocom has had
over the years & yet never mastered
person to person shenanigans like Nine
Princes in Amber. Never ever managed
any real life situations anything like
as well as the court case in Perry
Mason & the Mandarin Murder, & never
created a totally true to the original
follow on story for a great novel of
our time like Telarium did with
Fahrenheit 451, that is as masterful as
the original book & is the only
computer game in existence that can
proudly sit alongside a classic story
held in such high esteem. It is so sad
that these games are so ignored today,
so sad they don't have 1/100th the
comments of much lesser games on the
various C64 websites.

No. They did not release dozens of
titles like Activision or Firebird. No,
they did not market their titles as
well as they could have at the time.
But to release eight titles of such
consistent high quality within it's
genre, to bring these titles to market
with the care & attention to packaging
they did & to put the effort & time
(& no doubt money) to make sure these
titles would stand up in every way to
the famous books they were based on &
the writers of such calibre of Earl
Stanley Gardner, Ray Bradbury, Michael
Crichton & Arthur C. Clarke. Telarium
knew it was taking on a huge challenge
to produce works of very high quality
to stand alongside well loved books &
author's - & it succeeded.

With no other titles bought or D64's
downloaded have I ever thought, like I
did with these Telarium titles that I
would have been so much happier giving
my money to the programmers, etc. for
these titles than to the owners of the
games now. Never ever did I think so
hard as when downloading Telarium D64's
that those D64's would not be enough.
That I would want & need the originals,
that would be my way of supporting
these titles that should have been
showered with awards at the time &
should be held in reverence as much as
any Elite or Alter Ego or Deadline or
Enchantment.

So I say two thumbs way up for a brave
software publisher that took a huge
chance & failed, but nevertheless left
behind these great software titles to
us & to history. They deserve to be
remembered amongst the great software
houses of the day & their titles should
be up there with the best of inter-
active fiction & gaming in general.

History
Up to 1984, the company was called
Trillium & produced the big 10x8 fold
over folio packages. Then it became
Telarium & went over to a regular box

Packaging. Then it was taken over by
Spinnaker Software. Telarium also
wrote for Wyndham Classics that were
designed for younger people. Dragon-
world was also written for younger
teens, although I enjoy it as an adult
& see nothing really childish in it
other than the puzzles are easier.
There are rumors that titles were
dumbed down from Trillium to Telarium,
but I haven't seen it. I think it just
confusing because there are no age
ranges on the packages, you are just
supposed to know from the writers/books
they are associated with. So Dragon-
world for younger people, but Fahren-
heit 451 absolutely for adults. Amazon
for a wider range of ages, but Rend-
ezvous with Rama probably for a more
adult market.

All I can say is I played Perry Mason
Trillium version way back when, & I am
playing the Telarium version now & I am
seeing absolutely no differences that
make my mind go "that ain't right!"

Also Shadowkeep is just not out there
anywhere that I have found. Not sure it
was ever on C64, although some sites
say it was. I found a Apple II version
and downloaded an Apple II emulator
for it. Only game for that emulator I
want - so far! But don't forget Shadow-
keep is an RPG rather than typical
Telarium adventure. Also forgot to say
I am searching for Scoop to round out
my Telarium titles, although not
generally known as a Telarium game but
rather a Spinnaker one, so didn't
include it in my "Tribute".

Telarium went defunct sometime before
1989, but some of the games continued
to be marketed by Spinnaker a while
after that. Their excellent games &
their beautiful packages make TELARIUM-
products worth collecting.

"Welcome to Telarium"
By C. David Seuss, President of
Telarium, Fall 1984

"I've been a game player for years, &
as you might expect, I've been
interested in computer adventure games
for just about as long as the computer
has been around. Ever since the
original Adventure, I've eagerly tried
every new game that's come along. And
I've always been frustrated. It's no
fun when the "story" suffers from a
distinct lack of plot & character
development. I wanted real character
interaction, a chance to encounter new
worlds, deal with new situations.
Instead, I often spent hours playing
"guess what word the parser is looking
for" & solving trivial puzzles.

Puzzles are fine, but lots of meaning-
less puzzles & the frustration of
getting terminally stuck just don't do
it for me. In each TELARIUM game, you
are the main character. All the puzzles
you encounter are ones that would be
encountered if you were really there.
TELARIUM is the expression of a would-
be adventure game player. We've worked
hard to produce games that aren't
filled with the frustrations that have
plagued so many other games, & to build
in real plots & characters. We're not
all the way there yet. But we're
trying. Let me know what you think."

Links
http://www.if-legends.org/{$de}adventure/
Telarium_Corporation.html