From Out of a Dark Night Sky

From Out of a Dark Night Sky is a sci-fi text adventure from Zenobi Software.

The game starts with a kind of dream / flashback which makes sense as the game progresses and the player gets deeper into the story. In this game the player takes the role of Martin who, when we meet him, is in a good mood. He's just had a night out with friends, met a delightful young lady who he hopes to see again, and has had a good time. Now it's late and he's driving home across the moors listening to the radio.

It's a dark night so when the comet appears it stands out shining bright and red in the sky, then comes another and another and the car engine cuts out.

Naturally the comets aren't comets, they are alien pods and they are invading Earth. The object of the game is to find the fallen pods and to destroy them. Each pod is like a new puzzle element that needs to be solved and they get progressively more complex as the player progresses through the game. Some of the game elements are timed, i.e. they should be completed in the minimum number of moves.

This game was developed using QUILL. It supports the standard shortcuts such as N/S/E/W for North/South/East/West as well as I for Inventory, R for REDESCRIBE and L for Look. The game is scored in pods destroyed rather than points.

Official conversion of a ZX Spectrum game from 1988