The Tracer Sanction

External Links

	Play online MS-DOS version Defaults - All Systems Application
	Play online Commodore 64 version Defaults - All Systems Application
	Story file Apple II version Apple II Application (Compressed with ZIP. Free Unzip tools are available for most systems at www.info-zip.org.)

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The Tracer Sanction
by Rebecca Heineman

Science Fiction
1984

(based on 1 rating)
1 review

About the Story

Dossier: The Wing
We'd like to describe the gentleman you're pursuing. Except we can't. No one can. Your adversary is a virtual legend when it comes to maintaining a low profile. He never leaves a trail. Except for red herrings. He never makes a mistake. Ever.

Distant worlds, dark alleys & home computers
The Wing is an interplanetary criminal. Your adversary. The Condor is a mysterious, legendary bird. Your ally. Before you lies an entire galaxy. You must capture The Wing. But you haven't a clue where to begin looking. The Tracer Sanction offers an intricate collage of challenges. Chapters of intrigue...

Back cover credits: "Game produced by Interplay, Creative assistance by V. David Watkins."

Game Details

Language: English (en)
Current Version: Unknown
License: Commercial (Out of Print)
Development System: ADVENT
IFID: Unknown
TUID: 37iulxy1n3ho1e2n

Member Reviews

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Number of Reviews: 1
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

Overlooked younger sibling of Mindshadow, June 23, 2020

by jcompton

This is not a great game but it is one of the best of its genre, the split-screen graphics/text adventure of the 1980s. The story unfolds with actual beats and although it's possible to miss the choice you're asked to make, the story does branch in a meaningful way that's unusual for the period.

The graphics, while imperfect, are evocative and have a sense of style to them, and have at least surpassed the extraordinarily low bar set by some of Sierra's worst abuses. Similarly, although the game can be laughably small in scope if you're uncharitable (you hop from planet to planet, but each "planet" is really just a modest-sized map near a spaceport), there isn't a ton of padding masquerading as game content.

Mindshadow is routinely hailed by everyone up to and including Interplay itself as the better game. Interplay always passed this game up in favor of Mindshadow in its retrospectives. I am here to stridently disagree. On a five-star scale I only put one star between them, but it's the difference between "I never need to play Mindshadow again" and "a pleasant afternoon revisiting The Tracer Sanction sounds nice."

Unfortunately, from here Interplay (and others) started making bad and misguided choices, including the totally mistaken idea that what 8-bit text/graphic adventures needed most was a GUI. That was the last thing they needed, and subsequent games like Borrowed Time and Tass Times In Tonetown would have benefited if they had simply stuck with the formula and focused on using more of that precious real estate for art.