Grandstand Leisure

Games for Spectrum, C64, Amstrad, Amiga, Apple ][ and the rest of the 8-bit and 16-bit platforms. Pleas for help, puzzles, bug reports etc.

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Strident
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Grandstand Leisure

#1 Post by Strident » Thu Aug 26, 2021 10:15 am

I'm going to look into these Grandstand Leisure games for the Sega SC-3000...
http://solutionarchive.com/list/company%2C1422/

...because one of them...

Mars Adventurer
http://solutionarchive.com/game/id%2C51 ... turer.html
Image

appears to be a port of one of the 1980 Aardvark games, Escape from Mars
http://solutionarchive.com/game/id%2C94 ... +Mars.html
Image

Looking at the other two...

Death Satellite
http://solutionarchive.com/game/id%2C51 ... llite.html
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...seems like yet another candidate for the Dog Star/Death Star adventure list.

So I'm guessing that...

Enterprise Escape
http://solutionarchive.com/game/id%2C51 ... scape.html

...may similarly have its route's elsewhere. Perhaps one of the early Trek-inspired adventures. Need to find out if the game itself is preserved/playable anywhere. (no screenshot currently)

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Re: Grandstand Leisure

#2 Post by Strident » Thu Aug 26, 2021 10:46 am

Ongoing research...

Enterprise Escape
Synopsis taken from Sega Computer (NZ) 1984-07
"An adventure game racing against time to escape from a striken starship."

Aha... a better synopsis for Enterprise Escape from Sega Computer 1984-11
"You are on the bridge of the deserted Starship Enterprise. The engines are out and the Enterprise in a decaying orbit. You must start the engines and save the ship, get off the ship, or die!"

That sounds a lot like... Save Our Ship (later "adapted" into Galaxy Trek #1)
http://solutionarchive.com/game/id%2C92 ... +Ship.html

So I can amalgamate those entries too.

Death Satellite
That issue also has a long synopsis for Death Satellite
"You are the pilot of a small spaceship out for a 'sunday drive'. Unfortunately you forgot to fill the tank before you left the earth's atmosphere and you are now desperately low on fuel. There are no nuclear filling stations anywhere in the near vicinity and it looks as though you are going to be marooned in space.

Your only hope of survival is reaching the old deserted satellite. You hand on [sic] the laste drop of fuel.

Your mission: To seek out the radioactive fuel pellet and use it to refuel your ship. The satellite is full of many perils and potential death traps."

That definitely sounds very familiar, like one of the BASIC adventures I've looked at fairly recently. (There are quite a lot of "refuel your spaceship and escape" ones to try and match against)
Last edited by Strident on Thu Aug 26, 2021 12:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Grandstand Leisure

#3 Post by Strident » Thu Aug 26, 2021 12:11 pm

Screenshots from Death Satellite
Image
Image
taken from: https://segaretro.org/Death_Satellite

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Re: Grandstand Leisure

#4 Post by Strident » Thu Aug 26, 2021 12:36 pm

Thinking about the Enterprise Escapes a bit more, it actually seems more likely it might be a rip-off of Bob Retelle's earlier Trek Adventure...
http://solutionarchive.com/game/id%2C10 ... nture.html

Especially given the similar synopsis...
"This one takes place aboard a familiar starship and is a must for Trekkies. The problem is a familiar one - the ship is in a "decaying orbit" (the Captain never could learn to park!) and the engines are out (you would think that in all those years, they would have learned to build some that didn't die once a week). Your options are to start the engine, save the ship, get off the ship, or die. Good luck."

I don't think I've got enough evidence, without seeing gameplay, to decide either way but it would probably be worth adding a note to the Enterprise Escapes page mentioning the possible origin. The two potential sources... Trek Adventure & Save Our Ship... have similar set-ups (the Enterprise is in a decaying orbit in both) but are quite different games, so if a copy of Enterprise Escapes can be located it should be fairly easy to check.

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Re: Grandstand Leisure

#5 Post by Strident » Wed Sep 01, 2021 7:21 am

Thanks to Garry's files, I can now verify that Enterprise Escape is actually a port of Bob Retelle's Trek Adventure.

Death Satellite seems familiar, but I can't spot anything that matches so perhaps, especially as it has an actual author name associated with it, it was an original game.

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