Between The Lines

1997 Dreamworlds Development

Platform: Commodore Amiga

Back in 1997, Amiga users with a PowerPC processor card (and 32MB RAM) were looking forward to an ambitious new game called Between The Lines, a real-time first person action RPG, created by Thomas Schulze.

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At the time, there was no solid story set for the game, though the only thing the developer was certain of was that there was no brave chosen warrior, no big bad guy and no happy ending. The aims of the game were dependant on your actions in the game overall and you could choose the type of person you wanted to be to play throughout a series of tasks and stories.

The game was set in the past, where the behaviour of the characters in the game that you would encounter would depend on your actions. In most cases you would need other characters in the game to help you fight and defeat certain creatures and complete tasks.

Your main character would be able to walk, run, crawl and climb around the environment, fighting monsters along the way who get in your way. Everything would be controlled using the mouse and just a few keys on the keyboard.  Opening a door would be as simple as grabbing the door handle and dragging it, a lever would be grabbed and dragged downwards for example.

Physics were also a key element, where sharpness, weight or range of your weapons would affect the speed and effect that the weapon in question would have.

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Another dream of the developer was to have multiplayer features, where you could play online with other players, solve quests together or be a member of a guild for example. However, the game never got far enough for multiplayer to be ever started or considered.

Thomas created a provisional 3D engine using Warp3D and RtgMaster which looked good, as well as an editor to help create the world itself. But it seems this is as far as it ever got. The game was mostly a set of ideas, and was likely cancelled when realising just how long it would take to complete and where the Amiga market was heading.

With thanks to Grzegorz Antosiewicz for highlighting this title.

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