NeoZeedeater
07-23-2006, 09:21 PM
Like many great game makers of the past, Brian Moriarty seems to have faded into obscurity in recent years. This thread is devoted to his games and for discussing anything else related to them.
Moriarty's first job in the video game industry was as a technical editor for Atari's A.N.A.L.O.G. computing magazine in 1982. There he wrote a couple text adventures for the magazine called Adventure in the 5th Dimension and Crash Drive!.
The magazine showed the reader the lines of code and he could type it in manually to play the game at home(I used to do this sometimes with my Vic 20 as a kid and it was the ultimate pain in the ass typing it all in and making sure there were no errors).
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/hosted/neozeedeater/analog5th.jpg
In 1984 he was hired by Infocom, the leading developer/publisher in the text adventure genre. His first task was to help with the programming on Seastalker.
The first game of his own at Infocom was the 1985 release Wishbringer. In a genre generally known for its high difficulty, Wishbringer was designed to attract newcomers to the genre including younger gamers with its fairy tale inspired theme. You play as a postal worker drawn into a world of magic and evil.
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/hosted/neozeedeater/wishbringer%20box.jpg
An interesting aspect of its design was its multiple solutions to problems. If you couldn't figure out which objects to use where you could use wishes. It's not cheating though as you only can use each type of wish once in the game.
Although it wasn't as successful as Wishbringer, Moriarty's 1986 adventure Trinity is considered by many to be his best game. Like Steve Meretzky's excellent Infocom adventure A Mind Forever Voyaging before it, Trinity was one of the few games that dealt with a serious and thought provoking topic.
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/hosted/neozeedeater/trinity%20box.jpg
You start the game as a tourist in London, shortly before a nuclear attack and the beginning of World War III. A portal takes you to various places and points in the history of nuclear weapons(some fictional, some based on real places) giving you the chance to change the course of events.
While I have a lot of respect for this game and I love its writing and locations I found it too frustrating to play to the end. There are too many places where you can screw yourself over without knowing it and so you have to save often and remember exactly where you are at each save. It's not a game I would recommend for newcomers to the genre although more experienced text adventure fans should try it.
Trinity is also significant for being the first game released for the Commodore 128 computer(not including backwards compatibility with the Commodore 64, of course). Like the other text adventures mentioned in this thread it was released on several computer formats.
His last game at Infocom was Beyond Zork: The Coconut of Quendor in 1987. It was a bit of a departure for the then seven year old series as it added RPG elements such as stats and combat.
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/hosted/neozeedeater/beyond%20zork.jpg
The days of commercial pure text adventures were coming to an end. Activision had owned Infocom since 1986 and they shut them down in 1989. Activision did later re-release Infocom games in compilations.
Moriarty then joined Lucasfilm Games and began writing a new graphic adventure with a team of artists and musicians. Released in 1990, Loom became Moriarty's best known work.
I never played much of the game back in the day but recently I played through it and loved it. There really isn't another game like it. It's one of the few graphic adventures to have no inventory; all puzzles are solved by using various spells done with musical notes(similar to how Wonder Boy in Monster World and The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time later did musical spells, for examples).
The atmosphere and fantasy world was impressive. Moriarty cites Disney's Sleeping Beauty as an influence and I can see it. The look and use of classical music have a old Disney vibe to them. The 1992 CD-ROM version added voice actors. In addition to the usual Western computer releases, Loom was ported to FM Towns and TurboGrafx CD.
EGA version
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/hosted/neozeedeater/Loom%20EGA.png
VGA version
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/hosted/neozeedeater/Loom%20VGA.png
The LucasArts adventure The Dig was originally a Moriarty project although he left the company early in its development and says none of his writing is in the final release.
Next he joined Rocket Science Games and was a designer on the 1994 FMV shooter Loadstar: The Legend of Tully Bodine for Sega CD and PC. It was a rail shooter with live action cut-scenes(starring Ned Beatty) similar in design to stuff like Sewer Shark. I remember thinking it was decent when I rented it but it's generally a weak sub-genre anyway.
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/hosted/neozeedeater/Loadstar.jpg
After that, Moriarty returned to the type of games he enjoys making most, text based ones. He joined Skotos Tech around 2000, a company devoted to online text based games, both MUDs(Multi-user dungeons) and MUSHes(Multi-user Shared Hallucinations). MUDs are a form of RPG while MUSHes are more for storytelling.
Skotos charged subscription fees for their games. I haven't played them myself and I'm surprised they even attempted charging fees for such text based genres in the 21st century but they're still around. From what I read Moriarty's role was managerial at Skotos and he didn't write individual games himself.
It seems Moriarty has left the video game industry since then. What are your thoughts on his games or anything related?
Moriarty's first job in the video game industry was as a technical editor for Atari's A.N.A.L.O.G. computing magazine in 1982. There he wrote a couple text adventures for the magazine called Adventure in the 5th Dimension and Crash Drive!.
The magazine showed the reader the lines of code and he could type it in manually to play the game at home(I used to do this sometimes with my Vic 20 as a kid and it was the ultimate pain in the ass typing it all in and making sure there were no errors).
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/hosted/neozeedeater/analog5th.jpg
In 1984 he was hired by Infocom, the leading developer/publisher in the text adventure genre. His first task was to help with the programming on Seastalker.
The first game of his own at Infocom was the 1985 release Wishbringer. In a genre generally known for its high difficulty, Wishbringer was designed to attract newcomers to the genre including younger gamers with its fairy tale inspired theme. You play as a postal worker drawn into a world of magic and evil.
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/hosted/neozeedeater/wishbringer%20box.jpg
An interesting aspect of its design was its multiple solutions to problems. If you couldn't figure out which objects to use where you could use wishes. It's not cheating though as you only can use each type of wish once in the game.
Although it wasn't as successful as Wishbringer, Moriarty's 1986 adventure Trinity is considered by many to be his best game. Like Steve Meretzky's excellent Infocom adventure A Mind Forever Voyaging before it, Trinity was one of the few games that dealt with a serious and thought provoking topic.
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/hosted/neozeedeater/trinity%20box.jpg
You start the game as a tourist in London, shortly before a nuclear attack and the beginning of World War III. A portal takes you to various places and points in the history of nuclear weapons(some fictional, some based on real places) giving you the chance to change the course of events.
While I have a lot of respect for this game and I love its writing and locations I found it too frustrating to play to the end. There are too many places where you can screw yourself over without knowing it and so you have to save often and remember exactly where you are at each save. It's not a game I would recommend for newcomers to the genre although more experienced text adventure fans should try it.
Trinity is also significant for being the first game released for the Commodore 128 computer(not including backwards compatibility with the Commodore 64, of course). Like the other text adventures mentioned in this thread it was released on several computer formats.
His last game at Infocom was Beyond Zork: The Coconut of Quendor in 1987. It was a bit of a departure for the then seven year old series as it added RPG elements such as stats and combat.
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/hosted/neozeedeater/beyond%20zork.jpg
The days of commercial pure text adventures were coming to an end. Activision had owned Infocom since 1986 and they shut them down in 1989. Activision did later re-release Infocom games in compilations.
Moriarty then joined Lucasfilm Games and began writing a new graphic adventure with a team of artists and musicians. Released in 1990, Loom became Moriarty's best known work.
I never played much of the game back in the day but recently I played through it and loved it. There really isn't another game like it. It's one of the few graphic adventures to have no inventory; all puzzles are solved by using various spells done with musical notes(similar to how Wonder Boy in Monster World and The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time later did musical spells, for examples).
The atmosphere and fantasy world was impressive. Moriarty cites Disney's Sleeping Beauty as an influence and I can see it. The look and use of classical music have a old Disney vibe to them. The 1992 CD-ROM version added voice actors. In addition to the usual Western computer releases, Loom was ported to FM Towns and TurboGrafx CD.
EGA version
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/hosted/neozeedeater/Loom%20EGA.png
VGA version
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/hosted/neozeedeater/Loom%20VGA.png
The LucasArts adventure The Dig was originally a Moriarty project although he left the company early in its development and says none of his writing is in the final release.
Next he joined Rocket Science Games and was a designer on the 1994 FMV shooter Loadstar: The Legend of Tully Bodine for Sega CD and PC. It was a rail shooter with live action cut-scenes(starring Ned Beatty) similar in design to stuff like Sewer Shark. I remember thinking it was decent when I rented it but it's generally a weak sub-genre anyway.
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/hosted/neozeedeater/Loadstar.jpg
After that, Moriarty returned to the type of games he enjoys making most, text based ones. He joined Skotos Tech around 2000, a company devoted to online text based games, both MUDs(Multi-user dungeons) and MUSHes(Multi-user Shared Hallucinations). MUDs are a form of RPG while MUSHes are more for storytelling.
Skotos charged subscription fees for their games. I haven't played them myself and I'm surprised they even attempted charging fees for such text based genres in the 21st century but they're still around. From what I read Moriarty's role was managerial at Skotos and he didn't write individual games himself.
It seems Moriarty has left the video game industry since then. What are your thoughts on his games or anything related?