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After
the popular Lucasfilm series of Maniac Mansion
and Zak Mackracken came the game Habitat, whch existed
in cyberspace.
It
was a multi-player game to be used in conjunction with a BBS.
The game would have allowed almost all users to create new objects
and locations, these could then be used/stolen/destroyed by other
users.
Obviously
you needed a modem to play this game and considering the telephone
rates during the eighties Habitat was probably a very expensive
game.
Sources
reveil that Habitat was to be a freeware
game which you download from a BBS in the USA, and played it against
others via modem. The graphics were much similar to Labyrinth
and Maniac Mansion.
The
game had various shots scattered in magazines, some of which are
present on this website.
Recently a contributor emailed us with the following information:
"This site has some pictures of Habitat as well as a scan of the Habitat manual(!): http://www.dsgames.net/qlink /habitat/pictures1.htm
You might want to ask the webmaster if they still have the disk for it! Although it couldn't be used without the server, it would still be worth preserving for history's sake. I was a beta tester, too, but unfortunately all my Commodore disks are long gone. :( I'd love to dive into the Habitat code and see how it worked.
Unfortunately, the very ambitious Habitat beta was later replaced with a very slimmed-down and more limited for-pay system called Club Caribe, available through Quantum Link, an online service for Commodore 64/128 users. Club Caribe had improved graphics and added facial expressions, but it was a very small world with far fewer features and possibilities.
If you want to see Club Caribe: http://www.dsgames.net/qlink /caribe/pictures1.htm
Wikipedia also provides some information about Habitat's history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki /Habitat_(video_game)
Or if you want to read more about Habitat from the people who created it: http://www.fudco.com/chip /lessons.html "
Finally, Charles Haley recently emailed a scan of a competition involved with Q-Link and related to Habitat. And also part of an article which can be grabbed here.
A
huge game ahead of its time in terms of multiplayer...
Frank.
(Additional
source credits - Martin/Stadium64, Jogge, Tobias Hultman, Mike,
Dumbflag, Brendan Phoenix, Michael, Charels Haley)
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