Parsec Man 3D

Parsec Man 3D

Release type: Shareware
Release date: May 7, 1994
Levels: 10
Author: Mark Hadley
Website: Parsec Productions
Registration bonus: Any available updates or other games
Registration price: $7-15
Related games: none

Parsec Man is possibly the most complete game ever designed with Game-Maker. Mark Hadley did the visuals, the design, even the music. It all ties together without straining its boundaries or giving away the engine. And he did it with a typical left-field conceptual twist.

The game has a very simple, clean, almost Colecovision-esque presentation. You play as a little spaceman with a jetpack, avoiding monsters and collecting letters. It’s somewhat nonlinear, in that you can choose your level from an array of planets. It’s all in black and white, with cyan and magenta highlights to pull the experience into red/blue 3-D glasses territory.

You rarely see Game-Maker users brave enough to pull back and, rather than trying to push the engine as far as it will go, actually stripping down the design to its basics. That’s what Hadley does here, and with none of the typical edges showing the result barely feels like a Game-Maker game. Instead you get a simple, elegant experience enhanced by a novel 3D effect — all the better to create an original space.

Parsec Man feels like a modern indie game, made ten or fifteen years ahead of its time. It's a striking example of the power of simplicity.

Story

Defying the second dimension in Parsec Man 3D

Somewhere in the system of XON (pronounced "zon"), there is a power crystal which gives the bearer ultimate power. Not many have ever dared to try to find it, however, because a dangerous race of creatures, called the OCTAXON, live there. The OCTAXON are creature who can live anywhere, including space, because they need no oxygen. Hence, anywhere one travels in the system, they are attacked.

PARSEC, however, is a very daring adventurer, out to capture the crystal. PARSEC wears a jetpack suit armed with a powerful energy bolt emmitter that can instantly vaporize one of the OCTAXON. He also has a plasma bolt emmitter, which must be fed power to work.

PARSEC quickly checked a description of the four planets of XON:

XON-1 *** Point of interest: Orbital Asteroids. XON-1 has a dense asteroid belt which no ship can pass through. Readings of a powerful energy source have been found there, as well as the remains of an alien starbase.

XON-2 *** Point of interest: Surface. XON-2's surface has the remains of an old alien town. A crystal may be found there.

XON-3 *** Point of interest: Oribital Station. A starbase was set up to find the power crystal. A crystal was said to be found, but then all life was destroyed in the station and the station fell apart.

A maze of foreground and background

XON-4 *** Point of interest: Caves. A cave was discovered which had zero gravity. The face that the planet is Zero-G indicates the presence of a power source.

PARSEC knew that there are three duplicate crystals that must be found. These crystals are the only way to unlock a mechanism which is said to keep THE power crystal from being taken.

He was all set. He quickly took off in his jetpack suit to the system of XON, in search of glory...

Instructions

The four planets of XON, in Parsec-Man 3D

To control PARSEC, the hero of this game, use the numeric keypad to move him up, down, left, or right. Pressing the space bar will fire an energy bolt. Collecting blocks with a "P" on them gives you ammo for your plasma rifle. Pressing 'a' will fire a plasma bolt. (Plasma bolts travel faster and further.)

On gravity levels, the top three buttons on the control pad jump in the specified direction, while left and right move accordingly. The firing buttons remain the same. (Note: On gravity levels, you can't shoot down.)

Blocks that appear behind your character can be passed through, while blocks appearing on the same level or above your character are solid. Take careful note of this, expecially on gravity levels.

XON-1 is the only planet in which you'll find plasma blocks to give you plasma bolts.

On the planet XON-2, spikes will instantly kill you, and beware of collapsing bridges.

On XON-3, there are blocks that retract into the wall. Beware of these, as you cannot stand on them once they retract. (You can stand on them while they are retracting, though.)

The many perspectives of XON

On XON-4, don't worry about the stalagmites in the beginning. They're harmless.

To grab a power crystal, touch it.

One of the power crystals cannot be taken unless you have collected the others. That one is THE power crystal, the one that you must find.

GOOD LUCK

Credits

Created by.........Mark Hadley

Edited by..........Mark Hadley

Idea by............Mark Hadley

Graphics by........Mark Hadley

This program was created with the help of Game-Maker by Recreational Software Designs

Background

Mark Hadley:

It's weird to me that the game still exists out there. Internet, huh? That game was among some of the first music I had ever written. I had a program called Musicator (I think 1.0 at the time) that could export in the format Game-Maker uses. I got it as notation software while learning to write music. I don't remember if Musicator exported straight to .CMF or if I had a converter. Either way, it wasn't an easy process.

Availability

This game is distributed in the shareware directory of the Game-Maker 3.0 CD-ROM.

Archive history

Parsec Man 3D was introduced to the archive with the upgrade to Game-Maker 3.0 in late 1994.

Links

Interviews / Articles

• Mark Hadley (DIYGamer)
• The Game-Maker Story: Infoboxes (Gamasutra)

Listings

• MobyGames entry
• archive.org entry
• demu.org entry
• Chomikuj.pl entry

Social Media / Discussion

• Games We Care About blurb (Twitter)
• Complete soundtrack (YouTube)
• Older gameplay video (YouTube)

Misc. Links

• Play Parsec Man 3D online

Downloads

• Parsec Man 3D (159.0 kB)
• Star Map (6.2 kB)
• Xon 1-1 (? kB)
  • Xon 1-2 (38.3 kB)
  • Xon 1-3 (17.7 kB)
  • Xon 1-4 (63.8 kB)
• Xon 2-1 (42.4 kB)
  • Xon 2-1 (28.2 kB)
• Xon 3 (74.3 kB)
• Xon 4-1 (? kB)
• Xon 4-2 (? kB)