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The game's major innovation was that in addition to being a text
adventure it was also a sim game: the action took place in a model of the streets
of Disch's Manhattan that covered every block and street corner south of 110th
Street. Players moved from place to place on foot, and had to reach destinations
at the correct time of day to initiate plot developments. Stores opened and closed
at the correct times, street lights went on, and other aspects of New York life
were simulated. Disch is the only major writer to create an entirely original
feature-length piece of interactive fiction. Sadly, over half of the original text
Disch created for the game had to be cut from the published version due to the
storage limitations of the then-current 5.25" floppy disk technology. One of the
last major text-based games published by a major games company other than Infocom,
Amnesia is also the only text adventure ever published by EA. Although highly
praised upon its release for its writing style, the game was only a moderate success. |
