The Seven Cities of Gold (video game)
| The Seven Cities of Gold | |
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| Developer(s) | Ozark Softscape |
| Publisher(s) |
Electronic Arts Ariolasoft (Europe) |
| Designer(s) | Dan Bunten |
| Platform(s) | Atari 8-bit (original) Apple II, C64, Amiga (1985), Macintosh (1985), IBM PC (1987), MS-DOS (1993) |
| Release | 1984 |
| Genre(s) | Adventure, Strategy |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
The Seven Cities of Gold is a strategy video game created by Dan Bunten and Ozark Softscape and published by Electronic Arts in 1984. The player takes the role of a late-15th century explorer for the Spanish Empire, setting sail to the New World in order to explore the map and interact with the natives in order to win gold and please the Spanish court. The name derives from the "seven cities" of Quivira and Cíbola that were said to be located somewhere in the Southwest United States.
The game begins with the player having been given an exploration fleet by the Spanish crown, consisting of four ships, one hundred men, and some trade goods. The game appears showing a city in Spain, a fairly simplified 2D side-scrolling representation of the town consisting of the player's home, a palace, a pub and an outfitters. The player can walk about the town with the joystick, walking into the buildings in order to interact with them via menus. For instance, walking into the outfitters will bring up a menu allowing the user to buy supplies, men and trade goods. Interaction in Spain is fairly limited; the player soon moves to the ships, at one end of the city map, to leave port.
Most of the game is played on a game screen with a small scrolling top-down map in the center and a number of status displays surrounding it. After leaving port the display switches to this map, and the player guides the ship to the New World. At any point the player can bring up a menu with contents based on the player's current location. For instance, if the menu is brought up while on the ship, the items allow you to view the map, or "drop stuff off", the later selection allowing exploration parties to be created by dropping off men and supplies from the ships. When the player is on land as part of an exploration party, the same menu item creates a fort when men are dropped off in it.
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