Rescue at Rigel

Rescue at Rigel is a 1980 science fiction computer role-playing game written and published by Automated Simulations (later known as Epyx), and later branded as part of the Starquest series. The game was released for the Apple II, DOS, as a PC Booter, TRS-80, VIC-20, and Atari 8-bit. .

Players take on the role of adventurer Sudden Smith. Smith must try to rescue captives from the interior of an asteroid orbiting the star Rigel. Players have 60 minutes to rescue 10 human captives from the alien moon base. They must first find the captives before delivering them to the rescue ship (via a transport beam). Players must defeat or avoid the enemies wandering the base: the alien Tollahs, two types of armed robots, a six-legged "cerbanth", and a huge amoebic slug. As players forge deeper into the alien stronghold, they have the opportunity to acquire better weapons.

The playfield is presented as a top-down view of the room in which the hero is located. The game is turn-based, with the player given a certain number of "points" to spend on various actions, completing their turn when the points ran out. Rescue at Rigel shares many similarities with its inspiration, Temple of Apshai, a popular dungeon crawl by Epyx and part of their "Dunjonquest" series.

Rescue at Rigel used the concept of providing room descriptions similar to those used in some Dunjonquest games, but instead of having numerous unique descriptions assigne to numbered rooms, the game had multiple rooms labeled "Sanctum", for example, and a detailed description of what typical Sanctums contained was provided in the manual. There are twelve different room types described in the manual.

Source: Wikipedia, "Rescue at Rigel", available under the CC-BY-SA License.

Back of Box

The trouble started when a renegade High Tollah sought sanctuary in the Stellar Union. To get back at the renegade, this uncaring adversary ordered 10 men and women from the Orion colony of Ultima Thule taken prisoner. There, inside a secret base on a moonlet circling Rigel, Tollah scientists used these victims to find a means of reducing the human race to the status of Common Tollah. In the Tollah scheme of things, there was room in the cosmos for only one set of decision-makers: the High Tollah.

Although the Tollah race walks erect, their faceted eyes, mandibular jaws and long abdomens are clearly insectoid. Will the 10 prisoners be transformed into these aliens, or will they be saved miraculously by your role-playing alter ego: Sudden Smith?

With "Rescue at Rigel," you can have the excitement of our fantasy role-playing system in the science-fiction universe of "Starfleet Orion" and "Invasion Orion." You take the part of the brave Smitty, and it's all up to you. You must find your way through a maze of corridors, chambers, gravshafts and teleportals...trying to save the 10 humans held somewhere within. Their insectoid captors move them from room to room inside the complex, so each time you play, you must search again!

Armed with powergun and blaster, you must battle the aliens that lurk there, and then, somehow get yourself out of the moonbase alive! Your powergun and shield draw energy from your powerpack. Your blaster has only a handful of charges, and your rescue ship is under orders to leave--with or without you--in 60 minutes!

Can you rescue the 10 prisoners before your powerpack is depleted? Can you get back to your rendezvous point in time? Can you escape the dreaded clutches of the unmerciful High Tollah? Try it, Smitty. You're their only hope.

Game Manual (1980)

Game Development and Battle Manual by Jon Freeman.
Programs by J.W. Connelley; Apple version by Michael Farren.