Empire of the Over-Mind

1981 video game


Publisher(s)	Avalon Hill
Designer(s)	Gary Bedrosian^[2]
Platform(s)	Apple II, Atari 8-bit, DOS, TRS-80
Release	1981: Apple, TRS-80 1982: Atari ^[1] 1986: DOS ^[2]
Genre(s)	Interactive fiction

Empire of the Over-Mind (sometimes Empire of the Overmind) is an interactive fiction game written by Gary Bedrosian and published by Avalon Hill for the Apple II, Atari 8-bit, and TRS-80 in 1981.^[3] A version with an enhanced display for DOS by Bedrosian was published in 1986.^[2]

Empire of the Over-Mind is a text only adventure game in which the player must free a magical kingdom from the control of the evil computer Over-Mind.^[4] The game is accompanied by a poem, "The Rhyme of the Over-Mind," which provides necessary clues for the gameplay.^[5]

Reception

In a 1984 COMPUTE! piece on adventure games, Selby Bateman wrote: "One very popular game for Avalon Hill has been its all-text adventure, Empire of the OverMind [sic] for Apple II and Atari computers, which is still selling well, notes Jack Dodd, Avalon Hill's director of marketing."^[6]

The price of the game was a point of contention. Anthony Hughes wrote for Page 6 that it was "twice the price of the U.K. produced Adventures but still represents very good value."^[5] Bill Seligman's review in The Space Gamer No. 49 concluded that "For the price of this primitive program, one could buy two-and-a-half Scott Adams all-text adventures or one full-color graphics adventure from On-Line. Not recommended."^[4]

Another criticism of the game was its lengthy load and processing times.^[5]

References

^ "Empire of the Over-Mind". Atari Mania.
^ ^a ^b ^c Dyer, 1Jason (June 9, 2017). "Empire of the Over-Mind". Renga in Blue: Interactive fiction and the All the Adventures project.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
^ "Empire of the Over-Mind Manual". archive.org. Avalon Hill. 1981.
^ ^a ^b Seligman, Bill (March 1982). "Capsule Reviews". The Space Gamer (49). Steve Jackson Games: 34.
^ ^a ^b ^c Hughes, Anthony (1984). "Empire of the Overmind". Page 6 (10).
^ Bateman, Selby (October 1984). "Is a Picture Worth a Thousand Words?". Compute! (54): 42.

External links

Electronic Games review
1984 Software Encyclopedia from Electronic Games
Review in The Addison Wesley Book Of Atari Software 1984
Another review in Electronic Games
Review in Compute!'s Guide to Adventure Games
Empire of the Over-Mind in the Interactive Fiction Database

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