D/Generation

For other uses, see; D Generation (disambiguation)

D/Generation
Developer(s)	Robert Cook, James Brown
Publisher(s)	Mindscape
Designer(s)	Robert Cook
Platform(s)	PC, Amiga, Amiga CD32, Atari ST
Release date(s)	1991
Genre(s)	arcade adventure
Mode(s)	Single player
Distribution	Compact disc, disk

D/Generation is an arcade adventure computer game with puzzle elements, published for the PC, Amiga and Atari ST by Mindscape in 1991. It was later ported to the Amiga CD32 in 1993, the new version largely based upon the Amiga version but allowing use of the 6-button CD32 gamepad.

The game takes place in a slightly cyberpunk futuristic setting in 2021. A French company called Genoq has developed a series of new genetically engineered bioweapons, which have run out of control and taken over Genoq's Singapore lab. The main character is a courier making an emergency delivery by jetpack of an important package to one of Genoq's top researchers, Jean-Paul Derrida (a name likely inspired by the philosopher Jacques Derrida), and who is happily oblivious to the carnage until the lab's doors lock behind him. His customer is ten floors away, all of them crawling with bioweapons.

D/Generation's plot begins in Singapore on June 27, 2021 and is told in a "late to the party" fashion: the player starts off completely lost at sea, a picture of the past events is gradually built by examining computer terminals and talking to surviving employees.

Gameplay

The game presents an isometric point of view of different interconnected, maze-like rooms that the player passes through floor by floor. Each room can require brains, brawn or both. All bioweapons present in a room must be killed and all air duct vents that they enter through sealed before proceeding further. The building's paranoid security system has predictably gone haywire, leaving rotating grenade launcher turrets, land mines, electrified floors and laser fences targeting humans. Less hostile puzzle elements are doors, the switches and computers that control them, keycards, infrared electric eyes and teleporters.

The courier is soon armed with a laser gun that holds unlimited ammunition and a great puzzle value: its shots bounce off walls, trip switches and travel in teleporters. Finally, surviving Genoq employees and some special items are scattered around the floors. Rescuing a survivor by clearing a room of bioweapons and getting him/her to its entry point in one piece earns an extra life. Bombs are the most prominent item; they can blast through doors and destroy some hazards, making them a kind of a "get out of puzzle free" coupon.

The number of lives is limited. Losing one restarts the room if any are left, the floor if not. Saving is available, loading returns to the start of the floor.

The game was ranked the 40th best game of all time by Amiga Power.^[1]

The Neogens (Bioweapons)

A/Generation 

A red ball that bounces randomly around the room. Attacks on contact by assimilating its target and exploding. The process is not instantaneous, making it possible for a lucky laser rebound to destroy the A/Generation and save the courier.

B/Generation 

A blue cylinder that bounces around the room, and will pounce rapidly upon and crush any human it gets close to. Can hide in the floor.

C/Generation 

A shapechanging humanoid that masquerades as a human or inanimate object. When the courier comes too close, it sheds its disguise and tries to decapitate him. Immune to lasers, but can be killed by grenades, and can travel between rooms pursuing the player.

D/Generation 

The boss bioweapon, the only one of its kind. If it catches the player, it creates an alternate world in which the courier is tied down, and subsequently crushed by a large weight. Immune to all conventional weapons.

References

External links

• D/Generation at MobyGames
• A 2004 unofficial sequel