Alien Spy: Archeology

Alien Spy: Archaeology is one of a series of edutainment games set in an Australia. The basic premise is that an alien spy, Schlock, has landed on Earth and in order to learn more about us he/she/it must learn a profession and blend in. In this game Schlock is an archaeologist, other professions in the series include: marine biologist, and forensic scientist.

There’s no actual archaeology in this game, no representation of a dig site, no photographs of famous finds – nothing that would normally be expected of a title that focuses on archaeology. This series of games focuses on literacy, imparting some themed knowledge along the way.

The main game menu is the alien training room in the centre of which is a large shimmering crystal. The menu options are the five points around the outside of the crystal, as the cursor passes over one of these a text box pops up flickering between Schlock’s native tongue and English, one of the options is ‘Quit’, the others are:* The Interro-Pod: this is a one or two player quiz. Each question has three possible answers. In the two player game player one ‘buzzes in’ with the ‘A’ key before answering while player two ‘buzzes in’ with the ‘B’ key.

The Krypto-Pod: this is a form of interactive text adventure. Each screen consists of a block of text read by someone who sounds like John Cleese, at the end of each block the player has two options. The object is to get to the end of the adventure alive, with the mystery solved and with the treasure.