Amazon

• Title — Amazon • Developer — Telarium • Publisher — Telarium • Programmer — Stephen Warady • Artist — David Durand • Writer — Michael Crichton • Released — 1984 • Genre — Interactive fiction • Modes — Single-player • Platforms — Apple II, Atari ST, Commodore 64, MS-DOS, Mac, MSX

Best-selling novelist and director Michael Crichton was a computer hobbyist who taught himself the programming language BASIC. In the early 1980s he, programmer Stephen Warady, and artist David Durand began developing an Apple II graphic adventure game based on Crichton's novel Congo; he sometimes programmed game sequences which Warady converted into much faster assembly language. They worked on the project for 18 months and, before Crichton found a publisher, Spinnaker Software approached him about adapting his novels for its Telarium division's new "bookware" games. The author revealed the game, amazing Spinnaker, and signed a contract in late 1983. Crichton did not realize, however, that he had already sold all adaptation rights to Congo to another party. The team revised the game (renamed Amazon), moving the setting from Africa to South America and changing a diamond mine to an emerald mine; the novel's Amy the talking gorilla became Paco the talking parrot. Because the game was mostly complete, Telarium was able to port it to the Commodore 64 before Amazons release. Crichton later said that he was disappointed with the game due to technological limitations at the time of its development.