Asterix and Obelix: The Odyssey

Asterix und Obélix: Die Odyssee (Asterix and the Black Gold ) was released as a free game that came along with the April edition of German C64 magazine 64’er in 1986. The game is a text adventure that follows the adventures from the book of the same title.

In Asterix und Obelix: Die Odyssee , Asterix must venture to the Middle East to fetch a batch of rock oil. Rock oil is one of the important ingredients to the magic potion and upon learning that he has run out of it, Panoramix has a stroke. Along with Asterix, Obelix and Dogmatix, the druid Zerozerosix joins the group, but unknown to Asterix, he is a Roman-Gaulish spy. This adventure takes them all over the sea and Judea as they venture on to Jerusalem to find the rock oil. Upon arrival, they learn that the Romans knew of their plans and have seized all rock oil in the city, therefore they must cross the desert to Babylon in order to find it. After finally retrieving what they sought after for so long, they head back to Gaul but Zérozérosix returns and manages to pour the oil out at sea. Asterix returns home with his head in shame only to find the village fighting the Romans. He seeks out Panoramix to find out what happened and the druid informs him that he realized he could substitute the oil with beetroot juice and that there was never any crisis. Realizing the whole journey was for nothing, Asterix has a stroke himself to end the adventure.

This game follows that story in an extremely simplified manner. The game is controlled like any other text adventure where the player has to plot in the actions of the hero and hope it triggers the right event or goes in the right direction. The graphics and scenery are almost non-existent, with often two plain colors of yellow and blue being the only thing shown on screen along with the narration. There is no music and even the narration offers very little to give any feel or guidance as to what exactly you are supposed to do or where you are in the world. Asterix himself never appears on screen but Obélix does at the very beginning, though he resembles a pig more than a human being.

For a game simply supplied as an extra in a game magazine, there’s not much room for complaints. Even in its extreme simplicity, it does follow the general story and while the gameplay choice isn’t ideal, it wasn’t uncommon for comic book adaptations to take this route, with Scott Adams adventure games like The Incredible Hulk having the same style on the C64. You are better served by just reading the actual book instead of slowly figuring out your way through it in German, so there’s little reason to dig this out of the dust.

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