''Robot City'' is a

graphic 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 ...

developed by Brooklyn Multimedia and published by Byron Preiss Multimedia. It was released on December 31, 1995 for

Macintosh Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh (apple), McIntosh apple. The current product lineup inclu ...

and

Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft and the first of its Windows 9x family of operating systems, released to manufacturing on July 14, 1995, and generally to retail on August 24, 1995. Windows 95 merged ...

. It 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 hypermedi ...

mystery game in which the player controls Derec, the

main character A protagonist () is the main character of a story. The protagonist makes key decisions that affect the plot, primarily influencing the story and propelling it forward, and is often the character who faces the most significant obstacles. If a ...

in Isaac Asimov's ''Robot City'' novels.

Gameplay

In the vein of ''

Myst ''Myst'' is a 1993 adventure video game developed by Cyan and published by Broderbund for Mac OS. In the game, the player travels via a special book to a mysterious island called Myst. The player interacts with objects and traverses the ...

'' and other graphic adventure games from the time, ''Robot City'' features a

first-person perspective A first-person narrative (also known as a first-person perspective, voice, point of view, etc.) is a mode of storytelling in which a storyteller recounts events from that storyteller's own personal point of view, using first-person grammar suc ...

. The player must click to move around ''Robot City'' and interact with the 3-D environment. Unlike ''Myst'', however, character interaction is an integral part of the game. A conversation system allows the reader to pick between a number of topics to talk about, and the player's choices can have significant in-game consequences. The game has multiple endings which also depend on the player's actions. The puzzles in the game are fairly straightforward, such as connecting the right wires and data chips to rebuild a robot. The real puzzles lie in choosing the right things to say in order to persuade other characters. This is where Asimov's

Three Laws of Robotics The Three Laws of Robotics (often shortened to The Three Laws or Asimov's Laws) are a set of rules devised by science fiction author Isaac Asimov, which were to be followed by robots in several of his stories. The rules were introduced in his 194 ...

really come into play. For example, a robot might block access to a certain area because it has been ordered to do so (it is following the second law). However, if you tell the robot that the real murderer is chasing you then the robot will let you enter; failure to do so would constitute allowing harm to come to a human through inaction, and the first law takes priority over the second in the game.

Story

The story of the game closely follows ''Robot City'', a series of novels inspired by Isaac Asimov's

Reception

Entertainment Weekly ''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American online magazine, digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, ...

'' gave the game a B−

References

External links

*{{MobyGames, id=/robot-city, name=Robot City 1995 video games Adventure games Brooklyn Multimedia games Byron Preiss Multimedia games Classic Mac OS games Single-player video games Video games about robots Video games developed in the United States Windows games