Ludography
Alien (Avalon Hill) cover

1982 · Avalon Hill · Turn-based strategy

Alien (Avalon Hill)

Heavily inspired by the sci-fi movie "Alien", you task is the capture or the killing of the alien on board your ship or the activation of the self-destruct sequence. In order to accomplish that you have to assign your crew memeber different tasks like accessing to the computer system, build weapons etc.

Released
1982
Platforms
Apple IIFM-7PC-8800 Series
Genres
Turn-based strategy
Developers
Avalon Hill
Publishers
Avalon Hill
Perspective
Bird view / IsometricText
Themes
Science fiction
Country
United States
Languages
English

About

Alien (also known as The Alien) is a turn-based strategy game that was created by Avalon Hill in 1982. It borrows heavily from concepts in the 1979 film Alien.

›Story

Slowly the U.F.P. Research Vessel Thrasybulus breaks orbit. The planet below shows on the screens as a seething hostile mass of browns and greys. You relax as your crew starts the procedure to prepare the ship for the long voyage through interstellar space.

Suddenly an alarm rings. You quickly call the crew to the bridge, where Professor De Vries reports that the alien creature found on the planet below has escaped while she was running some tests on it. In the confusion of its escape, several of the lab animals also got away. It is important that the creature be recaptured, and you quickly give orders to search the ship.

A few short hours later your are crawling through the port ventilation shaft, searching. Engineer Benson whipped up some makeshift electric control prods to help recapture thee alien, and you are holding one in front of you as you move slowly forward. The sultry voice of your lieutenant, Rebecca Davis come over your headset.

"Commander, there are life form readings in your immediate vicinity. Be careful."

"Thanks, Becky. I'll watch out."

You continue cautiously on into a side passage. Then you see the cause of your apprehension - one of the lab cats. Grinning with relief, you pick it up and turn around to leave. Then, silently from behind some pipes, a dark form moves out to block your exit. As you poke at it ineffctually with your prod, your only thought is "How did it get so BIG?"

Fleet Lieutenant Davis stares blankly at the console as a faint shriek comes over the intercom. One of the lights showing life forms fades slowly to black.

Keywords

  • turn-based

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

The Alien is a game in which the crew of a ship must deal with a hostile alien species.

Gameplay proceeds in turns and requires an analogue joystick to play. Actions are selected through a series of menus which are only accessible by holding the controller in varying degrees between up, centre and down. Using a digital controller with only absolute up, centre and down positions will mean that only a few options are available.

Reception

Johnny Wilson reviewed the game for Computer Gaming World, and stated that "'The Alien' is an interesting strategy game which will take many hours of gaming to master. Variables in number and locations of aliens, rate of metamorphosis, and identity (or existence) of the android crew member offer the possibility of an above-average shelf life."

Releases by platformdates and regions as published

PlatformReleasedRegions
Apple II31 December 1982North America
PC-8800 Series1 July 1984Japan
FM-731 December 1984Japan

Games like this

Collections1 collection

Platform libraries

Description adapted from its source, CC BY-SA 4.0.