Doing the Impossible with Epyx Impossible Mission
Jumping back earlier in Epyx history, and perhaps building on their experience with the Jumpman platform games, Epyx releases Impossible Mission in 1984, quite possibly the greatest platform game ever created. Brought into Epyx via the Starpath acquisition, designer Dennis Caswell is inspired by the hit movie WarGames while making the game over a ten month development cycle. It charges the player with running around a huge underground complex in the guise of an acrobatic secret agent, attempting to put a halt to evil Professor Elvin Atombender’s plans for worldwide nuclear destruction. While traveling up and down elevators searching the various pieces equipment scattered about the place, our hero must avoid the deadly robots populating the rooms who are out to fry him.
Cassette version of Impossible Mission on C64, so go watch an entire James Bond movie while it loads
The robots are all amusingly different in attitude and competence, with about 90 different personality patterns and varying abilities all randomized in various combinations each time the game is loaded. Some of the mechanical guards race at you instantly firing electric death, some see you but lack the ability to fire and/or move, while still others can barely get their heads out of their RS-232 ports to notice you’re even there. Computer consoles are scattered about, which when accessed can disable the robots for a few short moments, or reset the elevators in a room. The game gives you a real-time countdown of six hours to collect the hidden puzzle pieces and put them together with your pocket computer, and every time the on-screen agent dies 10 minutes is deducted from the clock. If time runs out, Elvin dispatches the world with an evil cackle. There are also two rooms where the player can engage in a Simon-type game, following a pattern of colours and sounds to earn more lift inits or robot snooze codes.
Every aspect of this game gels amazingly: the unprecedented character animation of the lead character as he runs and does flying flips over his adversaries, the diabolical construction of the various rooms, the various traits of the killer (or not so much) robots, and the atmospheric sound effects. Caswell is responsible for nearly every aspect of the game, from design to programming, graphics and sound… although one particular aural piece of the program is not his: the standout speech synthesis done for the game is handled by Electronic Speech Systems of Berkeley, California. The quality of the voices heard in the game doesn’t quite live up to Caswell’s expectations. However, it still has an amazing effect on the overall feel of the game, with the mad Professor issuing the now-famous ominous welcome at the start of the game, “Another visitor. Stay awhile…..staaaaay forever!”, as well as an occasional command to his metal pants army, “Destroy him, my robots”. And of course, our hero’s agonizing scream of terror when he falls down a shaft, which makes me jump out of my chair the first time I hear it.
The only problem is that Impossible Mission truly lives up to its name, with the puzzle component generally regarded as the hardest bit of gaming ever devised. There are dozens of randomized pieces of the puzzle to be found, all of which must be arranged in order by getting flipped horizontally or vertically, making for a huge amount of possibilities. A call can be made to headquarters for help, but only at the expense of two minutes of clock time. Due to time and memory constraints, some planned aspects of the game have to be jettisoned… such as the idea of the player having the ability to reprogram the robots to help his cause, and a final puzzle when Atombender’s control room is breached, which when solved would initiate the ending animation ultimately shown.
Ever searching in Impossible Mission II, C64
The steep difficulty of the game and its puzzle aspect might go some way of explaining why Impossible Mission isn’t as huge a hit as expected by Epyx in the U.S., only selling around 40,000 units. The game fares much better overseas, where it wins multiple Game of the Year awards. An inferior sequel, Impossible Mission II, follows in 1988 featuring an easier puzzle component but messier graphics. Impossible Mission 2025 is made in 1994 by Microprose’s MPS labs in the UK, for the Commodore Amiga and CD-32 platforms. While you’re STILL dealing with evil Atombender, and he’s STILL ensconced in a well-fortified complex guarded by lethal robots, and you’re STILL trying to find pieces of a puzzle you have to assemble to defeat him, the game does feature a twist in that you can choose between different characters to play as: a robot, a gymnast named Tasha, or soldier Felix Fly. Also included in the game is the complete version of the original. Owners of the Nintendo Switch console users get an updated version of the game (with original C64 version, and re-skinned version thereof) when Impossible Mission infiltrates their system in 2019, made by System 3 Software.
Impossible Mission 2025 for Amiga. By 1994, you really have to bring more than just spruced up graphics
Synapse and Epyx. The two best game publishers for the Atari 8 bit home computers in my opinion. I got my hands on every title I could that they put out with my limited chore/paper route money in the early 80’s.
For sure, they made some of the best games. I played them all on my C64.
Purple Saturn Day a game by EPYX sold here at an Alco Department Store was on Floppy disk for PC.
The year was 1999 I think ?
Interesting. I’ll assume that you mean “1989”, the same year that Epyx went into bankruptcy.
It sounds really interesting. Kind of a “Summer Games” in space. Or just “Space Games”, maybe. 😉
Thanks for reading and posting.