Mars Saga (1988)

Mars Saga is a role-playing video game developed by Westwood Associates and published by Electronic Arts for the Commodore Commodore 64 in 1988. Following a legal battle against Electronic Arts for rights on the franchise, Westwood turned to Infocom to publish the Apple II and MS-DOS ports.

Storyline

The player takes the role of Tom Jetland, a down-on-his-luck space traveller trapped on Mars after crashing his ship. While searching for jobs to make enough money to get back off the planet, he discovers a conspiracy hiding contact with what seems to be alien life. The player visits the four Martian cities of Primus, Progeny, Parallax, and Proscenium, as well as traversing the Martian surface and visiting abandoned mines. The combat system features a bird's eye view of the battlefield. The player queues instructions for the characters of his or her party to perform in real time.