Mines of Titan

Mines of Titan is a single-player role-playing video game, developed by Westwood Associates (later Westwood Studios), and released by Infocom in 1989 for PC, MS-DOS and Apple ][.

Mines of Titan is a remake, or update, of the more primitive Commodore 64 game Mars Saga. Mines of Titan is lengthier, with some new storylines, a few more creatures and a few details like colors are different. And of course the game's location is moved from Mars to Titan. Still the cities and maps looks the same.

This is a role playing adventure, set in the year 2261, long after mankind has colonized the inner Solar System. The game takes place entirely on a barely-terraformed Titan, the largest moon of the gas giant Saturn, at the edge of frontier space.

You are charismatic 22-year old astronaut Tom Jetland, who has crashed on Titan after bullet-sized rocks from the Rings of Saturn pierced your ship's hull, and were forced to eject your payload and now have no means of transport off the world. In order to raise money, Jetland (or whatever you choose to name him; Tom Jetland is merely the default name for the protagonist) must search for, recruit, create and control a party of characters ready for exploration and combat. You develop yourself and your characters by improving their natural attributes and by adding and training in over twenty new skills which will aid in both your central quest and various side missions.

Success depends upon competence in battle with various creatures and human foes alike; exploration of underground colonies and mining settlements; using your characters' skills to their best advantage; utilising a wide array of weaponry and aid acquired from merchants; and most importantly tracking down the the clues to solve the mysteries of Titan. For only by uncovering a vast conspiracy and learning the fate of the disappeared Proscenium Colony will you be able to raise enough credits to pay for safe passage off Titan.

Infocom often released their games with merchandise referred to as feelies. Mines of Titan originally came on floppy disc format which was provided in a secret agent-style packaging, which also contained a thirty-seven page manual and various paraphernalia, such as a "command reference card"; supposedly secret classified military and scientific documents; weapons schematics; illustrations of alien lifeforms; and hidden maps, all connected with the game. The more expensive game packages had small figurines. These box sets are now extremely rare.

Online game emulators now distributing the game, which is classed as abandonware and therefore free for download, are often marred by a corrupted file that crashes the game at the end of the last battle. This makes it impossible to complete the game and prevents the end sequence which occurs after the final quest is done. In order to complete the game it may be neccesarry to obtain an original version of the game on the floppy disc format of the game, although they are rare (even on ebay.)

• Mars Saga at MobyGames

• Mars Saga

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