LEVEL 9'S HUGE ADVENTURES

BEST KNOWN FOR TEXT ADVENTURES THROUGHOUT THE EIGHTIES, LEVEL 9 COMPUTING CHANGED DIRECTION AT THE START OF THE NEXT DECADE, CRAFTING A NEW VERSATILE GRAPHICAL GAME ENGINE AND ALSO CHALLENGING PLAYERS TO SOLVE PUZZLES ACROSS TIME ZONES IN A VERY FAMILIAR MAZE

- RICHARD HEWISON

Level 9 Computing was a family run software developer and publisher which had become text adventure specialists, creating a succession of popular games for a wide variety of home computers in the early Eighties.

However, text adventures were one of the few game genres that became less commercial as home computers became more powerful, so in 1988 Level 9’s Mike Austin turned his attention to the future of the company. He began laying the groundwork for the system that would become known as HUGE (Wholey Universal Game Engine). “We thought that a very graphical interface was really interesting,” explains Mike. “The way we were heading was very much like the way things were being taken forward by Sierra On-Line in America.”

Sierra produced point-and-click graphical adventures including King’s Quest, Police Quest, and the adult-themed