Monuments of Mars is a single player platform puzzle game that was developed by Scenario Software and published by Apogee Software in the very early nineties. It was created solely for play on MS-DOS and was not ported to any other systems. It plays from the third person perspective and relies entirely on the keyboard for an input system.
Monuments of Mars is made up of four different episodes, with each one featuring twenty different levels of play. The first episode is shareware, but the other three remaining episodes are all part of the commercially released game.
The episodes include: First Contact; The Pyramid; The Fortress; and finally The Face. Monuments of Mars uses a gaming engine similar to that used in Pharaoh’s Tomb and Arctic Adventure.
The user, in Monuments of Mars, will play an astronaut who is exploring the planet Mars. NASA has sent several manned space missions to the red planet to seek and study the Monuments of Mars, but each mission has ended in disaster. No one has ever returned from the missions. The game moves through the levels, which get harder as they progress, in different manners. In the earlier, easier levels, the user will just have to navigate the astronaut from one side of the screen to the
other, which will be considered an exit. In later levels, however, he will actually have to locate and use a door.
Along the way, the player can move across the platforms, and he also has the ability to jump and shoot his gun. He will have to turn on and off many switches that will open doors or control obstacles that are preventing him from continuing on his quest. Aside from obstacles on each level, and enemies, there are also letters scattered around. If the gamer is able to collect the letters in the word “Mars” he will be awarded a huge points bonus. There is no limit to the number of lives a user has. If he dies, he simply respawns at the beginning of the level to try again until he gets frustrated and simply quits or passes the obstacle. The aliens are both strange and pleasant, and the user will have plenty to keep him busy as he attempts to reach the end of this platformer. It is well worth a try, as it is as strangely addictive as it is strange to look at. It does feature some good, simple game play that was reflective of the times, and enough of a challenge that a gamer will force himself to play it all the way to the end.
