''Shamus'' is a

flip-screen This list includes terms used in video games and the video game industry, as well as slang used by players. 0–9 A ...

shooter with light

action-adventure game The action-adventure genre is a video game hybrid genre that combines core elements from both the action game and adventure game genres. Typically, pure adventure games have situational problems for the player to solve to complete a story ...

elements written by

Cathryn Mataga Cathryn Mataga (born William Mataga) is a game programmer and founder of independent video game company Junglevision. Under the name William, she wrote Atari 8-bit family games for Synapse Software in the early to mid 1980s, including '' Shamus'', ...

(credited as William Mataga) and published by Synapse Software. The original

Atari 8-bit family The Atari 8-bit family is a series of 8-bit home computers introduced by Atari, Inc. in 1979 as the Atari 400 and Atari 800. The series was successively upgraded to Atari 1200XL , Atari 600XL, Atari 800XL, Atari 65XE, Atari 130XE, Atari 800XE, ...

version is 16K in size and was released on disk and tape in 1982. The game was ported to the

Apple II The Apple II (stylized as ) is an 8-bit home computer and one of the world's first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products. It was designed primarily by Steve Wozniak; Jerry Manock developed the design of Apple II's foam-m ...

, VIC-20,

Commodore 64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 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 the Guinness ...

, TRS-80 Color Computer, TI-99/4A, and

IBM PC The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible de facto standard. Released on August 12, 1981, it was created by a team ...

. Several of these were published by Atarisoft. It was later sold on cartridge by Atari Corporation following the launch of the Atari XEGS in 1987. "

Funeral March of a Marionette Funeral March of a Marionette (French: ) is a short piece by Charles Gounod. It was originally written for solo piano in 1872 and orchestrated in 1879. It is perhaps best known as the theme music for the television program ''Alfred Hitchcock Presen ...

", the theme song from ''

Alfred Hitchcock Presents ''Alfred Hitchcock Presents'' is an American television anthology series created, hosted and produced by Alfred Hitchcock, aired on CBS and NBC between 1955 and 1965. It features dramas, thrillers and mysteries. Between 1962 and 1965 it was ren ...

'', plays on the title screen. According to Ihor Wolosenko, co-founder of Synapse, ''Shamus'' made the company famous by giving it a reputation for quality. It was followed by a sequel, '' Shamus: Case II'', with the same characters but different gameplay. In 1999, Mataga released a

remake A remake is a film, television series, video game, song or similar form of entertainment that is based upon and retells the story of an earlier production in the same medium—e.g., a "new version of an existing film". A remake tells the same ...

for the

Game Boy Color The (commonly abbreviated as GBC) is a handheld game console, manufactured by Nintendo, which was released in Japan on October 21, 1998 and to international markets that November. It is the successor to the Game Boy and is part of the Game ...

, and later, both ''Shamus'' and ''Shamus: Case II'' for iOS.

Gameplay

Inspired by the arcade game '' Berzerk'', the objective of the game is to navigate the eponymous robotic detective through a 4-skill level, 128-room maze of electrified walls. The ultimate goal at the end of this journey is "The Shadow's Lair". ''Shamus'' differs from ''Berzerk'' in having a persistent world instead of rooms that are randomly generated each time they are entered. There are also items to collect: bottles containing extra lives, mystery question marks, and keys which open exits. Opposing the player are a number of robotic adversaries, including spiral drones, robo droids and snap jumpers. Shamus is armed with "Ion SHIVs", SHIV being an acronym for Short High Intensity Vaporizer, and is able to hurl up to two at a time at his enemies. Like many other games in this genre, touching an electrified wall results in instantaneous death. Upon the completion of each level, the gameplay speeds up, increasing the chances of running into a wall. The main gameplay involves clearing the room of all enemies, picking up special items on the way and then leaving through an exit. Upon returning to the room, the enemies are regenerated and returned to their original positions. In exactly the same way as ''Berzerk'', the player will be attacked if they spend too much time in one room. In this case, the Shadow himself emerges from off-screen and hops directly at Shamus, unhindered by the walls. If shot, the Shadow briefly freezes in place. The combination of locks and keys requires the player to complete each of its four levels in a particular order. To complete the game in its entirety would take several hours, which combined with the lack of a pause function (except on the IBM version), the necessity of remembering the location of dozens of rooms and keys, and the frenetic gameplay, meant that this was extremely difficult to accomplish. Each maze layout is named after a famous fictional detective or secret agent.

Ports

The VIC-20 port is 8K and contains only 32 levels, unlike the 128 in every other version.

Reception

'' Softline'' in 1983 stated that "''Shamus'' is the best cross between arcade and adventure games currently on the Atari market ... To know it is to love it, play it constantly, and not get enough of it". That year ''Softlines readers named the game seventh on the magazine's Top Thirty list of Atari 8-bit programs by popularity, and in 1984 they named ''Shamus'' in tenth place for 1983. '' Electronic Fun'' gave the Atari version a 3 out of 5 review, calling the graphics "superb" and saying "this doesn't look like it could ever get boring." ''ROM Magazine'' gave the Atari version a 9.4 out of 10 rating, and ''Creative Computing'' suggested "Make sure you have no pressing appointments before becoming involved in a round of ''Shamus''. Once you get going, you won't want to stop for a while." '' Ahoy!'' wrote in 1984 that ''Shamus'' for the Commodore 64 "is a thoroughly enjoyable game with all the action and suspense that both novices and sophisticated gamers will demand". In 1982, ''

Computer Gaming World ''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American computer game magazine 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 1993. It expanded greatly through ...

'' reviewed the Atari original, praising the animation and the "vastly superior graphics" over ''Berzerk'', but complaining of the inability to pause the action and of a bug in the speed control. ''Shamus'' was considered "the most addictive" of the four games reviewed. Matthew J. Costello reviewed ''Shamus'' in '' Space Gamer'' No. 68. Costello commented that "''Shamus'' is not easy, but the folks at Synapse are giving Atari owners their money's worth." The game sold 60,000 copies.

References

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External links

Mazes of Shamus (Feature about Atari 8-bit version)
1982 video games 1999 video games Atari 8-bit family games Commodore 64 games VIC-20 games Detective video games Game Boy Color games Synapse Software games TI-99/4A games TRS-80 Color Computer games Video games developed in the United States Single-player video games