| B.A.T. | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Computer's Dream |
| Publisher(s) | Ubisoft |
| Designer(s) | Hervé Lange and Olivier Cordoléani |
| Platform(s) | Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64, DOS |
| Release date(s) | 1990 1991 (C64) |
| Genre(s) | Adventure, role-playing video game |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
| Rating(s) | N/A |
| Media/distribution | Cassette, Floppy disk |
B.A.T. (expanded: Bureau of Astral Troubleshooters) is a futuristic point and click adventure game with some role-playing video game elements. It was released in 1990 and available on several home computer platforms. It was developed by Computer's Dream and published by Ubisoft. A sequel, The Koshan Conspiracy, was released in 1992.
The Atari ST version was notable in the fact that it shipped with a dongle purporting to be a 16-channel sound card. This was required to play the game, but resulted in no sound being transmitted to the attached monitor or television, and to get any sound at all the user was forced to either play the game wearing headphones plugged into the dongle, or purchase external speakers. It is also dubious whether the dongle produced higher quality sound, since the music did not feature any more channels than regular sound-chip music.
The card actually contained a 12-bit DAC, giving the dynamic range for 16 simultaneous 8-bits samples at the expense of the CPU given the lack of DMA. The game audio itself only used up to 4 simultaneous samples.