▲ Recommended
1 hrs
Oil Strike '75 is a, err, it's a strange beast. It's presented as a collection of mini-games that all feature oil rig settings. You've got Donkey Kong, Choplifter and something I can't pin down that's a bit like Missile Command.
Derrickman is your Donkey Kong clone - platforming against the clock as the screen scrolls up, dodging barrels and other hazards.
Helicopter Run has you pickup a payload with your winch and flying it to the rig whilst avoiding storms, birds, etc.
Seismic Survery presents you with a survery ship, targets on the seabed, and depth charges that will reflect back a sonar. Both the charge and the reflected sonar will be influenced by currents and blocked by sealife.
There's a few levels of each, rewarding you with progressively deeper drilling depth for your rig.
The real star of the show is the interface, which is presented as a terminal of some kind. It's unfamiliar, and a lot of incidental tech gibberish scrolls by on the left of the screen. The top part of the screen features various filters and commands set in the kind of pseudo-wood effect plastic common on consoles at the time. The main screen doesn't tell you much of anything about how to navigate, where your cursor is, or what you are selecting; like old tech, if you know you know, if you don't you'll figure it out.
***Spoilers ahead***
At around the 1 hour mark...
You'll probably have worked your way through the fifteen levels and your rigs' drill has burrowed deep into the seabed; you'll be treated to a great bait and switch. The terminal experiences corruption and is booted to a back-end teletext system called SeaFax. The BBC, gawd bless the Queen, may she rest in peace, tea and crumpits with the poodles, etc., came up with Ceefax as the first teletext system in the 70s. Ceefax used to host all manner of news and used to devote a good few pages to a quiz called Bamboozle! that played like a choose-your-own-adventure title.
It's clear that someone on Oil Strike '75 had a great fondness for Ceefax or is a damned good researcher, as the in-game SeaFax is pitch perfect both in how teletext was presented, but also the many corruptions that would occur when poor weather affected signal strength.
In these corruptions are puzzles, the solutions to which form the last half of this game as you decipher the... well, you'll work it out.
Oil Strike '75 feels like someone took a few ideas that wouldn't stand on their own, but through a little careful curation made something quite special.
Derrickman is your Donkey Kong clone - platforming against the clock as the screen scrolls up, dodging barrels and other hazards.
Helicopter Run has you pickup a payload with your winch and flying it to the rig whilst avoiding storms, birds, etc.
Seismic Survery presents you with a survery ship, targets on the seabed, and depth charges that will reflect back a sonar. Both the charge and the reflected sonar will be influenced by currents and blocked by sealife.
There's a few levels of each, rewarding you with progressively deeper drilling depth for your rig.
The real star of the show is the interface, which is presented as a terminal of some kind. It's unfamiliar, and a lot of incidental tech gibberish scrolls by on the left of the screen. The top part of the screen features various filters and commands set in the kind of pseudo-wood effect plastic common on consoles at the time. The main screen doesn't tell you much of anything about how to navigate, where your cursor is, or what you are selecting; like old tech, if you know you know, if you don't you'll figure it out.
***Spoilers ahead***
At around the 1 hour mark...
You'll probably have worked your way through the fifteen levels and your rigs' drill has burrowed deep into the seabed; you'll be treated to a great bait and switch. The terminal experiences corruption and is booted to a back-end teletext system called SeaFax. The BBC, gawd bless the Queen, may she rest in peace, tea and crumpits with the poodles, etc., came up with Ceefax as the first teletext system in the 70s. Ceefax used to host all manner of news and used to devote a good few pages to a quiz called Bamboozle! that played like a choose-your-own-adventure title.
It's clear that someone on Oil Strike '75 had a great fondness for Ceefax or is a damned good researcher, as the in-game SeaFax is pitch perfect both in how teletext was presented, but also the many corruptions that would occur when poor weather affected signal strength.
In these corruptions are puzzles, the solutions to which form the last half of this game as you decipher the... well, you'll work it out.
Oil Strike '75 feels like someone took a few ideas that wouldn't stand on their own, but through a little careful curation made something quite special.
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