''Plan 9 from Outer Space'' is a

point and click Point and click are one of the actions of a computer user moving a pointer to a certain location on a screen (''pointing'') and then pressing a button on a mouse or other pointing device (''click''). An example of point and click is in hypermed ...

adventure game 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 ...

adaptation of the film of the same name. It was developed at the Irish office of

Gremlin Graphics Gremlin Graphics Software Limited, later Gremlin Interactive Limited and ultimately Infogrames Studios Limited, was a British software house based in Sheffield, working mostly in the home computer market. Like many software houses established i ...

for the

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers produced by Commodore International, Commodore from 1985 until the company's bankruptcy in 1994, with production by others afterward. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16-b ...

and

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 ...

, and was released in 1992. The game was published by Gremlin in Europe and by

Konami , commonly known as Konami, , is a Japanese multinational entertainment company and video game developer and video game publisher, publisher headquartered in Chūō, Tokyo, Chūō, Tokyo. The company also produces and distributes trading card ...

in the United States. A

DOS DOS (, ) is a family of disk-based operating systems for IBM PC compatible computers. The DOS family primarily consists of IBM PC DOS and a rebranded version, Microsoft's MS-DOS, both of which were introduced in 1981. Later compatible syste ...

version was also developed, though only released in the US and Europe. Two editions of the game were made available at retail; the more common version was packaged with a

VHS VHS (Video Home System) is a discontinued standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes, introduced in 1976 by JVC. It was the dominant home video format throughout the tape media period of the 1980s and 1990s. Ma ...

copy of the film, while a rarer version contained only the game.

Background

The game is inspired by the 1957

Z-movie Zmovies (or grade-Zmovies) are low-budget films with production qualities lower than Bmovies. History and terminology The term "Zmovie" arose in the mid-1960s as an informal description of certain unequivocally non-A films. It was soon adopted ...

Plan 9 from Outer Space ''Plan 9 from Outer Space'' is a 1957 American Independent film, independent science fiction film, science fiction-horror film produced, written, directed, and edited by Ed Wood. The film was shot in black-and-white in November 1956 and had ...

''.

Plot

The game starts when the producer notices that the film has been stolen by

Bela Lugosi Blaskó Béla Ferenc Dezső (; October 20, 1882 – August 16, 1956), better known by the stage name Bela Lugosi ( ; ), was a Hungarian–American actor. He was best remembered for portraying Count Dracula in the horror film classic Dracula (19 ...

's double. The player must carry out an epic search of the locations where ''Plan 9 from Outer Space'' was filmed to find the six missing

reel A reel is a tool used to store elongated and flexible objects (e.g. yarns/ cords, ribbons, cables, hoses, etc.) by wrapping the material around a cylindrical core known as a '' spool''. Many reels also have flanges (known as the ''rims'') arou ...

s. From the back of the DOS version box: :Plan 9. The critics hated it. Bela Lugosi died during it. And his double has stolen it. :Lugosi's replacement is still bitter after 33 years from critics' reviews dubbing his only movie "The Worst Film of All-Time". Even though he remained faceless, he intends to bring glory to the cult classic using more footage of himself and ... colorizing it. As the studio's Private Eye you'll search over 70 locations, find the 6 reels and screen the film, frame-by-frame, to ensure that the warped actor did not cut Bela from the flick. Using actual digitized film footage, you'll sweat each scene, examining Plan 9 with slow motion, freeze frame, fast forward and rewind. It's up to you to preserve its original awfulness.

Reception

Computer Gaming World ''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American Video game journalism, computer game magazine that was published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 199 ...

''s

Charles Ardai Charles Ardai is an American businessman, and writer of crime fiction and mysteries. He is co-founder and editor of Hard Case Crime, a line of pulp-style paperback crime novels. He was also an early employee of D. E. Shaw & Co. and a managing di ...

criticized the game's "cheap" user interface and mediocre graphics and sound, which made him uncertain whether various continuity errors were accidental or intended to satirize the film. Ardai stated that "''Plan 9'' is a genuinely, intentionally funny piece of work, which puts it several notches above the movie (in my opinion) ... thoroughly enjoyable", and funnier than ''

Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders ''Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders'' is a 1988 graphic adventure game by Lucasfilm Games. It was the second game to use the SCUMM engine, after '' Maniac Mansion''. The project was led by David Fox, with Matthew Alan Kane as the co-desi ...

''. He added, however, that as "a licensed product, parasitic on an original work ... its smirking digs at this rather pathetic relic of a movie ... sometimes has the tone of a schoolyard bully taking cheap shots at a defenseless victim". Without the sincerity and "guilelessness" of Wood's film: "In this respect, the game attains a degree of cheapness that even the movie didn't reach, which is quite an accomplishment". The game was reviewed in 1993 in ''

Dragon A dragon is a Magic (supernatural), magical legendary creature that appears in the folklore of multiple cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but European dragon, dragons in Western cultures since the Hi ...

'' #190 by Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser in "The Role of Computers" column. The reviewers gave the game 2 out of 5 stars.

Reviews

* ''

Amiga Action ''Amiga Action'' was a monthly magazine about Amiga video games. It was published in the United Kingdom by Europress (later IDG Media) and ran for 89 full issues, from October 1989 to December 1996. After its closure, it was merged into sister ...

'' (May 1992) * ''

Zero 0 (zero) is a number representing an empty quantity. Adding (or subtracting) 0 to any number leaves that number unchanged; in mathematical terminology, 0 is the additive identity of the integers, rational numbers, real numbers, and compl ...

'' (June 1992) * ''Joker Verlag präsentiert: Sonderheft'' (1993) * ''Amiga Joker'' (May 1992) * ''

Amiga Computing ''Amiga Computing'' is a discontinued monthly computer magazine Computer magazines are about computers and related subjects, such as networking and the Internet. Most computer magazines offer (or offered) advice, some offer programming ...

'' (October 1992) * ''

CU Amiga ''Commodore User'', (also referred to as ''CU'') later renamed to ''CU Amiga'', is a British magazine initially published by Paradox Group before being acquired by EMAP. Timeline ''Commodore User'' was launched in October 1983 with an initial pr ...

'' (May 1992) * ''

ST Format ''ST Format'' was a computer magazine in the UK covering the Atari ST during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Like other members of the Future plc Format stable - PC Format and Amiga Format, for instance, it combined software and hardware revie ...

'' (November 1992) * ''

Amiga Format ''Amiga Format'' was a British monthly computer magazine for Amiga computers, published by Future Publishing. The magazine lasted 136 issues from 1989 to 2000. The magazine was formed when Future split '' ST/Amiga Format'' into two separate pub ...

'' (October 1992) * ''

Amiga Power ''Amiga Power'' (''AP'') was a monthly magazine about Amiga video games. It was published in the United Kingdom by Future Publishing and ran for 65 issues, from May 1991 to September 1996. History The first issue of ''Amiga Power'' was publi ...

'' (October 1992)https://archive.org/stream/Amiga_Power_Issue_18_1992-10_Future_Publishing_GB#page/n29/mode/2up

References

External links

* {{moby game, id=/plan-9-from-outer-space, name=''Plan 9 from Outer Space''
''Plan 9 from Outer Space'' review from
Zzap! 1992 video games Adventure games Amiga games Atari ST games DOS games Gremlin Interactive games Konami games Point-and-click adventure games Video games based on films Video games developed in Ireland Ed Wood Single-player video games