Genre: Role-playing (RPG), Simulation
Perspective: 1st-person
Setting: Sci-fi / futuristic
Narrative: Survival
Published by: Silmarils
Developed by: Silmarils
Released: 1994
Platforms: DOS, 3DO Interactive Multiplayer
Ah, this romance of distant wanderings! Admit it, you, too, from time to time felt the desire to visit new worlds, to experience what no one knew before you, to see what is beyond the horizon ... Now imagine that your dream has come true. Moreover, what you could only think about longingly before has become the meaning of life, a reality that brings money, honor and respect. You - one of the few who passed the strictest selection and passed all the tests - were selected for the role of Robinson - an explorer of other planets and a master of their preparation for colonization. In the entire galaxy, there is no profession more honorable and desirable for those who do not back down in the face of danger and love to take risks. But five years of work under the contract have expired, and very soon you will again see the old woman-Earth, accept the due honors, plunge into the already forgotten luxury... Only one last mission separates you from a well-deserved rest. To analyze another small planet called Zarathustra - do you, an experienced space wolf and an unbending scout, be afraid of this? ...Standing by the cliff and watching the smoke rising from the pile of debris left from your starship, you begin to understand that this accident was not accidental. An ordinary task has suddenly taken a completely different turn, and now your life depends more than ever on what you have learned over the past five years. Welcome to Zarathustra, young Robinson. Take a good look around - this place may very soon become your grave.
The situation in which our hero unwittingly finds himself is hopeless in all respects. Zarathustra is not mentioned in any galactic database and you have no information about her. All equipment was lost along with the ship, except for the standard light overalls and the Sesame laptop computer. And very soon it turns out that you are not the first Robinson to fall into this devil's trap. And if you think that your comrades in the craft will help you, I'm afraid you will be severely disappointed - here it's every man for himself. Well... Let's put aside the panic and think about what can be done.
First of all, you need to learn that the main task of the player in Robinson's Requiem is precisely to maintain his own life. By any means. The number of dangers even in the first, most favorable area of the tropical jungle exceeds all conceivable limits. After five minutes of the game, you will warmly thank God for being in a zone where the air is suitable for breathing, and after fifteen minutes, you will love local animals with all your heart, and not at all because with their claws, fangs and spikes they seek to bring your an inglorious end, but because their meat is edible and nutritious enough to somehow survive, and their skins make excellent clothes - warm and waterproof. But even if the problem with food has been resolved, this will only lead to new complications, and this time much more serious. See that delicious white pear on that tree? After all, she beckons you to pick it, bite it, enjoy the exotic juice ... Once you do this, and you will die. "Poisoning," the computer states bleakly. If you try to climb a rock to see the area, you will break your leg and bleed to death. Get wet in the rain - get pneumonia and not even last a few hours. Go deep into the swamps - catch malaria and go to the grave without batting an eyelid. Get a minor scratch - and writhing in agony from blood poisoning ...
The situation will be slightly improved by the presence of a first-aid kit (assuming, of course, that you get to it at all) and your own common sense. Given that the supply of medicines, to put it mildly, is meager, one has to learn how to avoid dangers as much as possible. And if you still manage to adapt, you will very soon notice those small, but vital tricks, on which your future fate will depend. By cutting a few large leaves from a nearby tree, you can make yourself a sun hat and increase your chances of surviving in hot desert regions. By boiling water from the nearest lake, you will avoid the danger of earning an upset stomach. You don’t want to get involved with deadly tigers and triceraptors for the sake of a piece of meat - what the hell is not joking, try to build an antediluvian fishing rod, dig up worms and go fishing. And there, you see, you can hold out the night, and you will even be able to make contact with the small local population ...
And yet you would stretch your legs after two or three days on Zarathustra, if it were not for the small "Sesame", which at any time provides complete information about the state of health of the owner. Knowing your own pulse, temperature, weight, fluid and energy reserves of the body, it is already easier to fight back most diseases. Yes, and your electronic friend can conduct a complete analysis of internal organs and the skeleton, so dilemmas like “amputate a suspiciously swollen limb or wait another hour” will disappear by themselves. And Sesame automatically draws a map of the explored territories. Given the copious number of intricate cold caves, this function can hardly be overestimated.
Robinson's Requiem is one of the few "true" survival sims out there, and includes all the little things that one would encounter in real life if such a situation were possible. It may not be easy to believe, but the most difficult conditions in which the main character was placed, those huge efforts that have to be made every second, just to increase their negligible chances of salvation by a tiny fraction, make us treat the game with a very special feeling. Few projects can boast such a complex and at the same time insanely addictive gameplay. Will you have the courage to rise to the challenge of this hostile planet and turn the aggressive conditions to your advantage? Will you be able to defeat those who are much stronger, faster, more enduring than you? Often, very often, numerous traps and dangers will arrange a memorial service for you, and only in one lucky case out of a thousand wrong attempts will you hear the very long-awaited requiem - a requiem for your misadventures, performed by the grateful and joyful inhabitants of the Earth after the return of their hero- Robinson.