This engine's parser understood about 1200 words, almost twice as many as Infocom's 1980 game Zork, hence the name "Better Than Zork".
#BRICK BREAKER GAME RELEASED IN 1986 SOFTWARE#
Like its Synapse Software predecessors Brimstone, Essex, and Mindwheel, Breakers used the BTZ ("Better Than Zork ") engine, which had been developed in 1982 by Synapse programmers Cathryn Mataga and Steve Hales. Several games under development by Synapse remained unpublished. Following this, Broderbund decided to leave the “bookware” genre, and Synapse Software was closed. When Breakers was released in 1986, there was little media coverage of the game, and sales were disappointing. It also provided the copy protection for the game - at various points during the game, the player would be asked for a specific word from the novella. A booklet containing Smith's novella was included with the game, and served as an introduction to the game. Unlike other literary text adventures, Breakers was not based on the work of a well-known author, but on a 40-page novella written by Rodney Smith, an acquaintance of several Synapse employees. By 1986, with the trend already subsiding, Broderbund no longer used the term “electronic novel” when marketing Breakers. This synthesis of analog books and computer games reached its height of popularity between 19 with the release of numerous literary text adventures such as Amnesia, Dragonriders of Pern, and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Broderbund subsequently used Synapse to produce games for a short-lived trend called "Bookware". Successful independent game developer Synapse Software ran into financial difficulties in 1984 and was bought by Broderbund. The object of the game is to recover the ritual "elements", return to the planet Borg and successfully perform the ritual. The player also has to deal with the question of why United Mining Combine operates the space station in orbit at Borg, sometimes in high secrecy, even though all raw material deposits from the planet have already been depleted. The player must first become familiar with the social network of the residents of the space station, take sides in a dispute between enemy smugglers and uncover cases of drug and human trafficking. The other Breakers in the bar also consider the Lau one of their own. The Lau is considered a Breaker by the Gaks and is confined to a single bar on the space station. In the course of the fighting, the surviving seventh Lau - the character controlled by the player - loses consciousness and wakes up in orbit on the space station. The Breakers kill six of the seven Lau, but are then surprised by a squad of Gaks, the security forces of the United Mining Combine. The seven Lau who are supposed to perform the ritual are attacked on the surface of Borg by "Breakers" - intergalactic smugglers who conduct their business through an orbiting space station operated by the United Mining Combine. The planet's inhabitants, the Lau, will not survive the collision unless one of them performs a ritual requiring several artifacts called "elements". The planet Borg is threatened by a telepathic collision with a mysterious twin planet, a collision that cannot be proven using scientific methods.
Critics complimented the complex storyline, but found the game's parser had not kept pace with other game developers. The game was the last of Broderbund's "Electronic Novels" series, and was not a commercial success. It was released for the Apple II series, Atari ST, Commodore 64, and MS-DOS. Breakers is a science fiction-themed interactive fiction video game published in 1986 by Synapse Software, which was then a division of Broderbund.
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