Breakers

Breakers is a science fiction-themed interactive fiction video game published in 1986 by Synapse Software, which was then a division of Broderbund. It was released for the Apple II series, Atari ST, Commodore 64, and MS-DOS. The game was the last of Broderbund's "Electronic Novels" series, and was not a commercial success. Critics complimented the complex storyline, but found the game's parser had not kept pace with other game developers. Plot The planet Borg is threatened by a telepathic collision with a mysterious twin planet, a collision that cannot be proven using scientific methods. The planet's inhabitants, the Lau, will not survive the collision unless one of them performs a ritual requiring several artifacts called "elements". The seven Lau who are supposed to perform the ritual are attacked on the surface of Borg by "Breakers" — intergalactic smugglers who conduct their business through an orbiting space station operated by the United Mining Combine. The Breakers kill six of the seven Lau, but are then surprised by a squad of Gaks, the security forces of the United Mining Combine. In the course of the fighting, the surviving seventh Lau — the character controlled by the player — loses consciousness and wakes up in orbit on the space station. The game starts from this point. The Lau is considered a Breaker by the Gaks and is confined to a single bar on the space station. The other Breakers in the bar also consider the Lau one of their own. The player must first become familiar with the social network of the residents of the space station, take sides in a dispute between enemy smugglers and uncover cases of drug and human trafficking. The player also has to deal with the question of why United Mining Combine operates the space station in orbit at Borg, sometimes in high secrecy, even though all raw material deposits from the planet have already been depleted. The object of the game is to recover the ritual "elements", return to the planet Borg and successfully perform the ritual.