1988 · Westwood Studios · Role-playing

Mars Saga

Mars Saga is a role-playing video game developed by Westwood Associates and published by Electronic Arts for the Commodore Commodore 64 in 1988. Following a legal battle against Electronic Arts for rights on the franchise, Westwood turned to Infocom to publish the Apple II and MS-DOS ports.

Released: 1988
Platforms: Apple II Commodore 64 Commodore C64/128/MAX MS-DOS
Genres: Role-playing
Developers: Westwood Studios
Publishers: Electronic Arts
Modes: Single-player
Perspective: Text
Themes: Science fiction
Country: United States

About

Mars Saga is a role-playing video game developed by Westwood Associates and published by Electronic Arts for the Commodore 64 in 1988.

Following a legal battle regarding the franchise's intellectual property, Westwood contracted Infocom to publish the Apple II and MS-DOS ports.

›Story

The player takes the role of Tom Jetland, a down-on-his-luck space traveller trapped on Mars after crashing his ship. While searching for jobs to make enough money to get back off the planet, he discovers a conspiracy hiding contact with what seems to be alien life.

The player visits the four Martian cities of Primus, Progeny, Parallax, and Proscenium, as well as traversing the Martian surface and visiting abandoned mines.

The combat system features a bird's eye view of the battlefield. The player queues instructions for the characters of his or her party to perform in real time.

Keywords

physical copy protection

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Story

The player visits the four Martian cities of Primus, Progeny, Parallax, and Proscenium, traverses the Martian surface, and visits abandoned mines.

Reception

Computer Gaming World described the game as accessible to newcomers to the genre, including features like auto-mapping, allowing the player to save without switching disks, and allowing the computer to control the player's characters during combat.