''Graphic Adventure Creator'' (often shortened to ''GAC'') is a game creation system/programming language for

adventure games An adventure game is a video game genre in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story, driven by exploration and/or puzzle-solving. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based m ...

published by Incentive Software, originally written on the

Amstrad CPC The Amstrad CPC (short for "Colour Personal Computer") is a series of 8-bit home computers produced by Amstrad between 1984 and 1990. It was designed to compete in the mid-1980s home computer market dominated by the Commodore 64 and the ZX Spec ...

by Sean Ellis, and then ported to other platforms by, amongst others, Brendan Kelly (Spectrum), Dave Kirby (BBC, Electron) and "The Kid" (Malcolm Hellon) (C64). The pictures in the demo adventure, ''Ransom'', were made by Pete James and the box cover art by Pete Carter. GAC was released in 1985 for the

and in 1986 for the

ZX Spectrum The ZX Spectrum () is an 8-bit computing, 8-bit home computer developed and marketed by Sinclair Research. One of the most influential computers ever made and one of the all-time bestselling British computers, over five million units were sold. ...

Commodore 64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit computing, 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in ...

and

BBC Micro The BBC Microcomputer System, or BBC Micro, is a family of microcomputers developed and manufactured by Acorn Computers in the early 1980s as part of the BBC's Computer Literacy Project. Launched in December 1981, it was showcased across severa ...

. A simplified version without graphics, called just the ''Adventure Creator'', was also released for the

Acorn Electron The Acorn Electron (nicknamed the Elk inside Acorn and beyond) was introduced as a lower-cost alternative to the BBC Micro educational/home computer, also developed by Acorn Computers, to provide many of the features of that more expensive mach ...

in 1987. GAC was ported to the

Atari ST Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the company's Atari 8-bit computers, 8-bit computers. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985, and was widely available i ...

in 1988 as ''ST Adventure Creator'' (STAC) by the original author. GAC had a more advanced

parser Parsing, syntax analysis, or syntactic analysis is a process of analyzing a string of symbols, either in natural language, computer languages or data structures, conforming to the rules of a formal grammar by breaking it into parts. The term '' ...

than '' The Quill'', allowing commands like GET THE LAMP THEN LIGHT IT, and a built-in graphics editor. Over 300 titles were written using GAC. It also came with a built in text compressor.

Reception

GAC was well received, earning a Zzap! Gold Medal Award and a Crash Smash.https://worldofspectrum.org//pub/sinclair/games-adverts/g/GraphicAdventureCreatorThe_3.jpg Your Sinclair reviewed the ZX Spectrum version giving it a 9/10 score. The ST version reached number 18 on the bestsellers chart in August 1988.

References

External links

* * {{Incentive Software 1985 software Interactive fiction engines Graphic Adventure Creator, The ZX Spectrum software BBC Micro and Acorn Electron software

Reception

See also

References

External links