On August 31st, Defense Force released a new version of Encounter HD, version 1.2.3 alongside a new demo. The project saw its initial release in December of last year. But the story of Encounter itself goes back quite a bit farther than that. The graphic adventure game was originally released back in 1983 for Oric computers- a brand rarely seen outside of the European market. History has not been kind to Encounter, mostly because it shares its title, sans exclamation point, with the better-known shoot ’em up title from the same year on more widely used hardware.
But for longtime developer Mickael Pointier, the Scott Adams / Infocom style text adventure was near and dear to his heart, as it was the means by which he learned to speak English with dictionary in hand to make sense of the mysterious noir. The Severn Software title was likely doomed from the outset simply because the company developed their software for the Oric computer platform, which never became popular enough to see anything more ambitious than the simplest of interfaces. Pointier became determined to create the very best possible version of Encounter if only to answer the question, what if? What if the Oric hadn’t flopped? What if it had become as popular as the Sinclair Spectrum? What sort of text adventures could have been created with this 1mhz 6502 CPU, 64 KB of RAM, and 16 KB of ROM built off of Microsoft BASIC?
Although the more initial question is, what was it about Encounter that led Pointier to want to make an HD version in the first place? Well, the first, most obvious aspect is just the story. Unlike the magic or sci-fi adventures that tended to predominate at the time, Encounter is a mystery noir about trying to find and rescue a young girl who has been kidnapped by thugs within a time limit. The often-arbitrary deaths common from text games at the time aren’t present either. Whether from a mean dog or a man with a gun, mistakes could often be anticipated from real-world logic- making the game especially appealing to a then young man like Pointier with a limited English vocabulary but a genuine love for games.
Encounter HD seeks to make the game more visually interesting to a modern gamer who at least expects graphics in their gaming experience. The new demo released alongside version 1.2.3 triples the previous demo’s size and includes most of the features of the full game. The full game is available for purchase on Steam, at popular request, according to Mickael Pointier, because he received quite a bit of engagement and interest from people on social media platforms who found themselves reluctant to try and install a game from such obscure hardware themselves. Pointier includes a built-in emulator and launcher for the game to make it as user-friendly as possible for modern users.
But rest-assured, Oric fans- Encounter HD is still playable on an actual Oric computer if you have one. For those who really want to play the game the old school way, Pointer has made the source code for both Encounter itself as well as the launcher available on github with complete documentation of the localization, scripting system, and so on. The more accessible free demo version of Encounter as well the full version, costing $2.99, can be downloaded from the Defense Force website here.
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