Stationfall
Platform: Commodore 64
Gametype: Undefined
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Stationfall is a text adventure game and a sequel to Planetfall, featuring the same protagonist who has been promoted from Ensign Seventh Class to Lieutenant First Class. However, the current work in the Stellar Patrol seems to be less satisfying than before, as the Lieutenant has to deal with boring paperwork. One day the Lieutenant receives an assignment that involves accompanying a spacetruck to a space station and picking up a load of "Request for Stellar Patrol Issue Regulation Black Form Binders Request Form Forms". The Lieutenant travels to the space station with his robotic side-kick Floyd. Once they arrive, they find it deserted, with only an ostrich and an Arcturian balloon creature left untouched. The two must investigate the station and find out what happened.

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(From Infocom Home Page site)

After the fall of the Second Galactic Union in 1716 GY, a ten-thousand-year dark age settled upon the galaxy. Interstellar travel was nonexistent, and many star systems descended into a near-barbaric state, buring coal and gas for energy, and growing food directly from exposed topsoil. In 11,203 GY, a treaty between the Empires of Tremain and Galium formed the Third Galactic Union. Ships of the Stellar Patrol (a pseudo-military wing of the Union government on Tremain) began exploring the galaxy, searching for the human civilizations that are the remnants of the Second Galactic Union. You are a native of the planet Gallium, one of the most politically powerful but culturally barren worlds in the Union. Your great-great-grandfather was a founding officer of the Stellar Patrol, and for five generations, your family has served in the Patrol. It was always taken for granted that you would sign up as soon as you came of age. Once in the Patrol, you discovered that the exciting career promised in all the Patrol recruitment brochures was nonsense. Your life was drudgery and demerits. The one time you got to see an exotic planet was right after a big parade, when they needed a detail to sweep up all the confetti. Then came your big moment: shipwrecked on a seemingly deserted world, you met an exuberant robotic companion named Floyd. Together, the two of you discovered the secret of that mysterious planet, Resida, and saved it from near destruction. As a result of your heroics, you were offered, and quickly accepted, a juicy promotion. Good-bye Ensign Seventh Class -- hello Lieutenant First Class! No more scrubwork! No more bathroom details! No more cleaning groth cages! Finally, your life in the Stellar Patrol would be as exciting as those brochures had promised! Oh, how naive you'd been. Your daily routine simply replaced tedious scrubwork with tedious paperwork. Since your planetfall on Resida, five long years have dragged by, without a single event worthy of note. Why, just look at today's "thrilling" assignment: scooting over to Space Station Gamma Delta Gamma 777-G 59/59 Sector Alpha-Mu-79 to pick up a supply of Request for Stellar Patrol Issue Regulation Black Form Binders Request Form Forms...

Alternate Titles
"Stationfall: Floyd is back in the Boffoid Sequel to Planetfall." -- Tag-lined title
"Stationfall - a science fiction story" -- Tag-lined title

Trivia

A novelisation (perhaps better termed a cross-promotional tie-in loosely related to the original property) of the game was produced by Byron Preiss (with a grey-striped cover design emulating Infocom game packaging), published by Avon Books. It was written by Arthur Byron Cover and first published in December of 1989. Its ISBN is 0-380-75387-1 and the rear cover blurb reads as follows:

"Arthur Byron Cover combines the antic sense of Robert Sheckley, the far travelling of A. E. Van Vogt, the deadly serious wry whimsy of Kurt Vonnegut... with a fresh, invigorating talent all his own." - Harlan Ellison

THE STELLAR PATROL WANTS YOU!

Homer Hunter escaped from the planet where he was stranded. He escaped right into a war on the space station Aurelian, a war that involved terrorists, vampires, and 00pi, the most famous spy in the history of the Third Galactic Empire.

Things were not going Homer's way.

Even Oliver, his faithful robot sidekick, was getting a little erratic. But Homer could still depend on the advice of the ghost of his beloved robot Floyd. "Use the Farce," Floyd told him. Now he just had to figure out what The Farce was...

In addition to this novelisation, the Infocom books schedule showed a third title, "Futurefall" (also to be written by Arthur Byron Cover), planned for publication... but it never turned up, nor the game it was presumably tied into.

(From Infocom Home Page site)

It contained space station blueprints (envelope, 9 blueprints, 1 legend page), three forms (QX-17-T, JZ-59-G, HB-56-V), and a Stellar Patrol patch (Lieutenant First Class).


http://www.mobygames.com/game/c64/stationfall
