I have a special spot in my heart for It Came From The Desert. I played it on some system that Walrustitty had. I can't remember exactly what. Let me re-read the thread.

... OK, it was definitely his Turbo Grafx 16.

I can't say ICFTD was a "great" game or anything, but I played it at a time in my life that I can remember. It filled me with these implanted memories of what the American southwest might be like. (I am not sure if ICFTD actually takes place in the southwest or wha-- wait, the desert. Yes, of course it did. Nevermind.)

God, where was I going with this.

Let me start over.

***

I played this game once. I remember that there was a scene with a drive-in theater. I remember that it presented the quiet, serene life of the southwest that I have been chasing ever since I moved out of New York. I remember that it had this kind of gameplay that wasn't cinematic, but was instead entertainingly easy. And I remember playing it during the season of "spring" back home at my friend's house, a friend I never see in person any more and miss terribly.

That game was It Came From The Desert and it just struck a chord with me. I don't have the words to describe experiencing media that resonates with you on a level [i]other[/i] than "being awesome."

Oh yeah, [b]Cinema[/b]ware [i]definitely[/i] lived up to their name. According to Wikipedia, they released the following titles:

Defender of the Crown (swashbuckling movies; 1986, Apple IIGS, Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, NES, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, DOS, Macintosh)
S.D.I. (Cold war era space drama; 1986, Amiga, Atari ST, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, DOS, Macintosh)
The King of Chicago (inspired by mob movies; 1987, Apple IIGS, Amiga, Atari ST, DOS, Macintosh)
Sinbad and the Throne of the Falcon (Sinbad and Arabian nights movies; 1987, Apple IIGS, Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, DOS)
The Three Stooges (The Three Stooges movies; 1987, Apple IIGS, Amiga, Commodore 64, DOS, NES)
Rocket Ranger (1950s science fiction serials; 1988, Apple IIGS, Amiga, Commodore 64, DOS, NES)
TV Sports: Football (1988, Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, DOS)
Lords of the Rising Sun (Japanese Samurai movies; 1988, Amiga, Atari ST, DOS)
It Came from the Desert (1950s science fiction/monster movies; 1989, Amiga, Atari ST, Mega Drive, Turbo Grafx 16, DOS)
The Kristal (1989, Amiga, Atari ST, DOS)
TV Sports: Baseball (1989, Amiga)
TV Sports: Basketball (1990, Amiga, DOS)
Antheads: It Came from the Desert 2 (1990, Amiga)
Wings (World War I movies; 1990, Amiga)
TV Sports: Boxing (1991, Amiga, DOS)

There are several on that list that don't ring a bell with me at all (most of the non-C64 releases, other than "It Came From the Desert" which I played on our PC). I don't remember any of the TV Sports releases, or Wings (which appears to have been for the Amiga only).

One thing the modern versions of these games have hopefully alleviated is the loading times. The Three Stooges for the Commodore spanned many floppy disks, and I remember it taking somewhere like 10 minutes before you actually made it to any of the mini-games. I think their style of story telling may have been a little too advanced for some of the older 8-bit machines. In Defender of the Crown, the vast majority of your time was spend waiting on the drive to load. And, unfortunately, the copy protection on most Commodore Cinemaware titles was incompatible with the fast loading cartridges of the time.

In a way, some of those games were not unlike Interactive Fiction -- not just in the way you mentioned (marketing), but in how there was a story, then you performed some action, and then the story continued based on your action. The obvious difference being, instead of typing in PERFORM BADLY AT JOUSTING, I got to actually do that with the joystick.

Just within the last week, I was reminiscing about when, some years ago (early to mid-2000s), some people rebought the Cinemaware IP and started rereleasing the games (in particular, they released the 3 Stooges game for the GBA). One of the nice things they did is they hosted free emulator images to play the games on the original systems. I was happy to check them out as I had never played the originals.

Anyhow, yeah, I was wondering if their site was still around but did not actually care enough to look, but hey, look at this. Good news!

Trying the games out those years ago, I found that Defender of the Crown was too tough for me, but I'd like to revisit "It Came From the Desert!" sometime and see if I can beat it.

I don't know if the games should be considered classics, but I have an appreciation for them in that, in a way, they are not so different than Infocom, in making narrative genre games and selling them with a bit of fanfare. Even though Cinemaware games are just a bunch of action minigames strung together, they emphasized the [i]feeling[/i] of story at a time when story was largely not a big priority in games.

Defender of the Crown was released for iOS this week. I am going to snag it tonight and write up a review for Caltrops, because I know how they love that stuff.