Biosys

The game is a combination of mystery, puzzle, survival, and simulation genres.

Pressing Tab will show the health/energy status of the player, which show if the player is hungry, thirsty, tired, hot, sick, or has other physical conditions. This information is used when players plan trips through the complex – longer trips use up more resources. The game consists of 360° rotational screens, and predefined pathways for the player to follow. The game is presented from the subjective first-person point of view.

At the height of his career, celebrated ecologist and environmental campaigner Professor Alan Russell announced a Biosphere 4 project in 1990 in the Ecuadorian slopes of Mount Chimborazo as a follow-up to the Arizonian Biosphere 2. According to Russell, it would be an "enormous sealed environment, capable of identifying current research into the processes of our ecosystem". As lead of the Russell Group, he soon announced that he aimed to use the facility to develop a new type of vegetation called Bio-Engineered Synthetic Hybrids (Synths) that would combat the rising levels of CO2. Russell's outlandish statements were ridiculed by the press, and to the world the plans were shelved when in 1992 Russell pulled the plug and abruptly resigned in order to avoid his public commitments and instead work on "the one key issue we now face".

The Russell Group was in the process of pushing Sanctuary Initiative legislation to save the oceans, but, to the world at large, it seemed that without their leader the group lost influence and momentum. By abandoning and sabotaging the project, Russell caused a scandal. In actuality, Russell had retreated to Mt. Chimborazo and began to commence work on the biodomes, and lobbied the government to aid this project.

Aaron Witkin, the game's executive producer, had preceded this title with the 1994 CD-ROM The Dead Sea Scrolls Revealed, along with Pixel Multimedia and under license from the Israel Antiquities Authority. This game bears a similarity to the "scientific experiment Biosphère 2 that had plunged a few men and women into a giant sphere to determine if they could preserve the ecosystem and live in total self-sufficiency".

The game was announced in PC Games issue 74, which noted that Take 2 was working on a render adventure in the style of Myst, which would include puzzles while also conveying biological connections. Originally meant to be released in October 1998, then November 13, 1998, but it was eventually delayed for the following year. In January 1999, Arcade reported the game would be released later that month. By February 1999, the game was due to be released in Germany during the First Quarter of that year. It was eventually released in Germany on March 3.

The game drew many comparisons with the adventure Myst and the survival game Robinson's Requiem, and critics often wrote about the game's difficulty or repetitiveness, though the audiovisuals were often praised.

In November 1998, PC Zone summarised the upcoming release as: "Cyborg things do battle. Very probably in the future". The following month, PC Zone noted that the word 'biosys' is short for biological systems, so assumed the game was about "cyborgs having a fight". This implies that by December 1998 (two months before its release), major magazines hadn't yet received playable demos or critic copies.