2010: The Graphic Action Game is a puzzle/maze game with elements from 2010: Odyssey Two where the player must save the Discovery from crashing onto the surface of Jupiter's volcanic moon, Io. The player must choose one of about five circuits to work on in one of the ship's critical systems: Engine, Power, Communications, Life Support, and the HAL 9000. Successful power routing of a circuit makes each system slowly come on-line. It takes three powered circuits for minimum function, but four provides more leeway for success. On-Line engines and power can be activated for an orbital boost, but too long a burn will damage circuit components. HAL 9000 can power undamaged circuits you assign to him, although at a much slower pace than the player. Communications allow a powered HAL 9000 to inform you of success/failure at powering a circuit assigned to him. Life Support gives more protection against EMPs damaging powered circuits, which require repair and repowering.
The principal designer was Coleco staffer Thomas Fulton. The HAL circuit portion of the game was designed by Rob Harris, a programmer at Coleco at the time.
The game features randomized circuit board patterns that are generated when the game is played. This makes it virtually impossible to memorize circuit patterns to win. HAL circuits are a logic puzzle instead of a pathway puzzle.
A poster of the Discovery One was included in the original packaging, with signatures of the design team appearing as engineers.
Famous quotes containing the words graphic, action and/or game:
“Speed is scarcely the noblest virtue of graphic composition, but it has its curious rewards. There is a sense of getting somewhere fast, which satisfies a native American urge.”
—James Thurber (1894–1961)
“I feel like a white granular mass of amorphous crystals—my formula appears to be isomeric with Spasmotoxin. My aurochloride precipitates into beautiful prismatic needles. My Platinochloride develops octohedron crystals,—with a fine blue florescence. My physiological action is not indifferent. One millionth of a grain injected under the skin of a frog produced instantaneous death accompanied by an orange blossom odor.”
—Lafcadio Hearn (1850–1904)
“The family environment in which your children are growing up is different from that in which you grew up. The decisions our parents made and the strategies they used were developed in a different context from what we face today, even if the “content” of the problem is the same. It is a mistake to think that our own experience as children and adolescents will give us all we need to help our children. The rules of the game have changed.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)