D/Generation


 * For other uses, see; D Generation (disambiguation)



D/Generation is an arcade adventure computer game with puzzle elements, published for the PC, Amiga and Atari ST by Mindscape in 1991. It was later ported to the Amiga CD32 in 1993, the new version largely based upon the Amiga version but allowing use of the 6-button CD32 gamepad.

The game takes place in a slightly cyberpunk futuristic setting. A French company called Genoq has developed a series of new genetically engineered bioweapons, which have run out of control and taken over Genoq's Singapore lab. The main character is a courier delivering a package to one of Genoq's top researchers, Jean-Paul Derrida, and who is happily oblivious of the carnage until the lab's doors lock behind him. His customer is ten floors away, all of them crawling with bioweapons.

D/Generation's plot begins in Singapore on June 27, 2021 and is told in a "late to the party" fashion: the player starts off completely lost at sea, a picture of the past events is gradually built by examining computer terminals and talking to surviving employees.

Gameplay
Each floor is made up interconnected rooms that can require brains, brawn or both. All bioweapons present in a room must be killed and all air duct vents that they enter through sealed before proceeding further. The building's paranoid security system has predictably gone haywire, leaving rotating grenade launchers, land mines, electrified floors and laser fences targeting humans. Less hostile puzzle elements are doors, the switches and computers that control them, keycards, infrared beams and teleporters.

The courier is soon armed with a laser gun that holds unlimited ammunition and a great puzzle value: its shots bounce off walls, trip switches and travel in teleporters. Finally, surviving Genoq employees and some special items are scattered around the floors. Rescuing a survivor by clearing a room of bioweapons and getting him/her to its entry point in one piece earns an extra life. Grenades are the most prominent item; they can blast through doors and destroy some hazards, making them a kind of a "get out of puzzle free" coupon.

The number of lives is limited. Losing one restarts the room if any are left, the floor if not. Saving is available, loading returns to the start of the floor.

In a sense, D/Generation can be described as a precursor to the survival horror genre.

Bioweapons

 * A/Generation : A red ball that bounces randomly around the room. Attacks on contact by assimilating its target and exploding. The process is not instantaneous, making it possible for a lucky laser rebound to save the courier.
 * B/Generation : A blue cylinder that bounces around the room, and will pounce rapidly upon any human it gets close to. Can hide in the floor.
 * C/Generation : A shapechanging humanoid that masquerades as a human or inanimate object. When the courier comes too close, it sheds its disguise and tries to decapitate him. Immune to lasers and can travel between rooms.
 * D/Generation : The boss bioweapon, the only one of its kind. Creates an alternate world in which the courier is tied down, and subsequently crushed by a large weight. Immune to all conventional weapons.

Sequel
Howard Kistler, of DreamCodex, created an unofficial sequel titled rE/Generation, in the 2004 Retro Remakes Competition.