Apple II

Wasteland

Trivia

Interplay wanted to make a sequel to Wasteland, but Electronic Arts held rights to the title. The game evolved into what we know today as Fallout, a spiritual succesor to Wasteland that, except for some minor references, is set in a different universe.

Wasteland was named #9 overall among the “150 Best Games of All Time” by Computer Gaming World Magazine (15th Anniversary Issue--November 1996).

Contributed by PCGamer77 (3025) on May 01, 2008.

Since the Black Isle Studios web site is gone, the Fallout Bible can be difficult to locate of the No Mutants Allowed site and ApTyp's direct link to the Fallout Bible is broken (gives a "Not found" message), here are two other links: Fallout Bible number 8, Meantime question reply at The Vault, a Fallout wiki and Fallout Bible Updeight, Meantime question reply at the Fallout fan page "Duck and Cover".

Contributed by LepricahnsGold (42716) on Oct 19, 2007.

"You'll shoot your eye out kid!" - A Christmas Story, 1983

The makers of Wasteland hid their own version of the Red Ryder 200-shot Carbine Action Air Rifle in the town of Highpool. You can "seek out" and battle (and kill the disappointingly weak) Red Ryder and claim his Red Ryder Gun for your very own.

The original version of this game, for the Apple ][, used a clever technical trick, effectively virtualizing the huge game world onto four disk sides. Only the part of the world the player was currently capable of interacting with was actually in memory at any given time, and the rest was stored on disk. The division across disks corresponded to geographical boundaries on the world map, so there was no problem with data straddling disk boundaries.

The game shipped on both sides of two disks, completely write-protected. To play, you copied all four disk sides to your own writable floppies, and then booted off of the copy of disk 1.

Interplay had planned a sequel called Meantime that was due in 1989 for the Apple II. Source code was virtually completed but when the Apple II market died. It was then deamed too expensive to re-write the code to the IBM.

The sequel involved the idea of time-travel and recruiting various important historic figures (think Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure). For more information on Meantime, read "Fallout Bible issue 8" interview with Bill Dugan.

This game was rated the ninth best game of all time in the 150th issue of Computer Gaming World.

This game is a member of Computer Gaming World's Hall of Fame.

One of the main NPCs, Faran Brygo, shares his name (sort of) with one of the lead developers of Wasteland - Bryan Fargo.

The game engine used for Wasteland was also used in the pseudo-sequel, Fountain of Dreams.

Wasteland was released with a book of text paragraphs. Specific encounters would refer players to a paragraph number for a verbose description of what was occurring. To keep players from scanning the book for clues, there were two full versions of the major story. One was the actual plot of the game and the other was a decoy involving the major settings and characters but with an entirely different explanation for the events. After completing the game, you could skim through the book and get a second (albeit cheesy) story.

Some of the mappers on Wasteland were brought on as summertime employees for Interplay and now have careers in the game industry.

Contributed by rstevenson (813) on Jun 23, 2000.

Wasteland originally came out in the classic album-square EA box for the C-64 - later versions were in the more traditional small box packaging

Contributed by rstevenson (813) on Jun 23, 2000.

There are references to the game designers and their previous games in Wasteland. The two most common are the obvious spell references to Bard's Tale in the occult shop in Needles, and the character Faran Brygo in Vegas (obviously taken from Brian Fargo). Another obvious one is an arm patch worn by a 'Pistolero' -- it's the old Interplay logo. Finally, the room in Vegas with the Proton Ax has the initials "A.P." (for the developer Alan Pavlish) as a wall design.

Wasteland was in many Top 100 Games lists for many years; some years, it never dropped below the top ten. It is widely and universally regarded as one of the very best role-playing games ever created.

The credits listed in this entry are a hybrid; the IBM credits have been added and overlaid on the Apple credits to make a complete MobyGames IBM PC entry.

The original packaging contained a photo of the seven main developers dressed in "Wasteland" gear. This photo, in silohette, is on the cover of the manual and Survival Guide. (see Box Covers).

Wasteland was re-released for the PC four times in last decade:

• As part of the Interplay 10th Year Anniversary collection in 1993;


• As part of the Ultimate RPG Archives (can still be ordered from Interplay as of 1999);


• On Computer Gaming World CDROMs, once in 1996 and the other in 1997.

Contributed by Trixter (8866) on Oct 09, 1999.